I will admit that I'm definitely a newbie. I'm also old-school so Facebook is not the answer for me. Having said that, I agree with Toby. No one coming to Canada has the "right" to come to Canada. It is a "privelege". On the other hand, to me, it is a privelege to have married someone that I love. I just now have to prove it to the government. The whole process is long and painful but, if you truly love one another, it is worth it. I don't really like the fact that we have been apart for almost a year with no end in sight but it is what it is.
What I see is that there doesn't seem to be a set of standard guidelines in place for the officers in the various Embassies. It is hard to visualize giudelines when the rejection rates of Family Class applications vary so much between Embassies. For instance, in statistics requested by one MP, the rejection rate in Taiwan was 2%, in Beijing almost 20% and in Hong Kong almost 50%. In fact, one of the organizations that monitors everything in Beijing reported that on September 22nd, the day of my wife's interview, 14 of 17 were refused (I can not confirm this). I also believe that programs like W5 on the CBC that did two separate programs on the negative side of the news (Marriages of Convenience) without more than a 5 second spot at the end about the successes, go a long way toward making CIC and its Officers a little gun-shy.
And now, we start the Appeal process. I'm told that it may take 10 to 12 months because the offices in Toronto and Mississauga are so busy. It seems to me that Toby's suggestion that a more efficient process is in order might be a win-win situation. If the Officers in the Embassies had better guidelines that would perhaps reduce the number of rejections to more consistent levels, the offices in Toronto and Mississauga would not be as busy and the reduced number of appeals would be hanled more promptly.
I'm starting to ramble. These are only my opinions.
