It depends, RG...sometimes, if there are children involved, a timeline can be longer. Also, there might have been past relationships, there might be requests for additional information and original documents, or even something like not paying the RPRF upfront can lengthen a process.
Also, don't forget we are dealing with Jamaica here,
. Of the 21 Immigration staff at KG, I think only about half a dozen are actually Canadians, who may or may not work with a "soon come" attitude that we know to be typical of some Jamaican workers. Whatever the priorities of CIC, if the workload is heavy enough and the priorities of the IOs do not correspond with the "family reunification" intentions of CIC, we the applicants and our sponsors are the ones who get the short end of the stick.
Since their audit, though, I see where KG has improved, and what we know to be relatively straightforward cases are again being completed within a more reasonable timeframe. I don't think, though, that we will ever improve to the point where we see timelines like some I have seen on the US and UK threads (one lucky UK applicant was done in just under 3 months, including the time to assess the sponsor!).
Since background checks are part of the process, and Jamaica does not have the Intelligence Services of the UK or US, I think this is something else that complicates the process for us. It's not like CSIS can send a request for a background check to the equivalent of the FBI or Home Office, we don't have anything like that, so they have to do old-fashioned paper chases to ensure we are who we say we are, that the police certificates we have submitted accurately reflect the correct applicant, all of that. And trust me when I tell you, we are behind the times when it comes to the technological capabilities of our security forces.
So, it's a lot of things, and each case is very individual, as individual as the two people (or more) involved in the application. Some of it is luck, some of it is because of where we are and who we have to deal with as Jamaicans, some of it is who we are as people and how we have prepared our applications.
Hope some of that makes sense.
