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[Iay]

Yeah, Chinatown was so nice today! I walked through all the small alleys. He will like to eat there. There is also a new Filipino restaurant, the first one to my knowledge, I am thinking of taking my family there to announce his arrival ;D Or maybe we will just surprise them.

Yeaaaa! Make your own fiesta when he comes here

 

[Steph C]

Yeaaaa! Make your own fiesta when he comes here

Yeah, I wanted to make our own fiesta.. if I'm right his arrival wil coincide with a huge family birthday party that is being planned.. family from all over will attend. It would be so cool to cook a bunch of Fil food (that's edible for them like Lumpia and noodles) and Surprise!!

 

[Iay]

Yeah, I wanted to make our own fiesta.. if I'm right his arrival wil coincide with a huge family birthday party that is being planned.. family from all over will attend. It would be so cool to cook a bunch of Fil food (that's edible for them like Lumpia and noodles) and Surprise!!

Lol edible for them ;D try dinuguan, papaitan, and sisig ;D maybe it will attract more fiesta visitors Lol!

 

[Luckyman]

It's actually really quick to get.

You weren't kidding....she got one already!

 

[Steph C]

You weren't kidding....she got one already!

haha! I wonder why that is so fast.

My guy is trying to get his driver's licence renewed. He went yesterday at noon, drove all the way across town and they turned him away - they have a quota. He went back 10 this morning and got turned away again.. apparently they will have more openings at 1pm. He will be there all day. What a mess.

 

[Steph C]

Lol edible for them ;D try dinuguan, papaitan, and sisig ;D maybe it will attract more fiesta visitors Lol!

Oh nooooo my Grandpa might get sick : Attract more visitors like neighbouring cats and flies, lol.

 

[Dan_from_Surrey]

I never seem to make your lists.

Yeah, I am noticing that about myself as well

 

[scos]

I was doing a few updates on the spreadsheet and checked on some people's posts who should have updates soon. I noticed a very interesting question from Acel_Custodio about their visa. The question was: why was CEM rushing them to get a booking certificate when their medicals didn't expire until July?

I thought, hey, that IS a good question. And got me to thinking of the rumored clearing of backlog for May that was discussed earlier. If true I wouldn't put it past CEM to pick all the easy apps (ie. ones where nothing has expired, no interviews required, no red flags, everything is ready, etc) regardless of when they came in and process them before this May deadline. I wish we knew if this deadline was beginning or end of May.

If this May thing is real then we can expect more of this bizarre processing up to that deadline, then the whole process should go back to what we were seeing before. If it isn't, then I guess this way of processing is the new black.

 

[scos]

Well, the only thing I could find is that May 4th the new FSWP starts. So it is possible all the VOs have been instructed to clear up whatever they can so they can deal with the FSWP apps when they arrive. My guess is they will have priority. The good part is apparently the initial batch is limited to 5000 applications.

They also started the Start-Up program for entrepreneurs. From the bit I read about it I get the impression it will be used by rich families with relatives abroad.

May 4th isn't far off so we will know how it affects us soon enough.

 

[Tagum-N.B.]

Got the reply from my email, kind of like telling us what we know that they have our application for 16 months 8) 8) 8) 8) 9 DAYS TO RETURN EMAIL
Dear Applicant,

This refers to your application for permanent residence in Canada as member of the family class.

Please be advised that application is currently with visa officer for review. We will keep you posted regarding this matter.

Yours sincerely,
3514
Family Reunification Unit
Embassy of Canada / Ambassade du Canada
Manila / Manille

 

[Steph C]

I was doing a few updates on the spreadsheet and checked on some people's posts who should have updates soon. I noticed a very interesting question from Acel_Custodio about their visa. The question was: why was CEM rushing them to get a booking certificate when their medicals didn't expire until July?

I thought, hey, that IS a good question. And got me to thinking of the rumored clearing of backlog for May that was discussed earlier. If true I wouldn't put it past CEM to pick all the easy apps (ie. ones where nothing has expired, no interviews required, no red flags, everything is ready, etc) regardless of when they came in and process them before this May deadline. I wish we knew if this deadline was beginning or end of May.

If this May thing is real then we can expect more of this bizarre processing up to that deadline, then the whole process should go back to what we were seeing before. If it isn't, then I guess this way of processing is the new black.

I find it a bit ironic how CIC plays games of leap frog.. late April and most of May applicants get skipped by June, July and August in stage 1.. My April application, nothing wrong with it, got shelved while they processed up to August. Now July and August get skipped by later applicants in stage 2.. June seems to be the lucky month. Nobody deserves to be skipped over, but it's a bit ironic that the months that skipped over my application are now the ones being skipped over.. and for them it's crying time :'(
Oh well.. we are all still well within processing times. Except for Tagum. They should really sort his application out. I get the feeling that most of us who participate on this thread will be seeing big movement on our files in the next month.

 

[Iay]

I was doing a few updates on the spreadsheet and checked on some people's posts who should have updates soon. I noticed a very interesting question from Acel_Custodio about their visa. The question was: why was CEM rushing them to get a booking certificate when their medicals didn't expire until July?

I thought, hey, that IS a good question. And got me to thinking of the rumored clearing of backlog for May that was discussed earlier. If true I wouldn't put it past CEM to pick all the easy apps (ie. ones where nothing has expired, no interviews required, no red flags, everything is ready, etc) regardless of when they came in and process them before this May deadline. I wish we knew if this deadline was beginning or end of May.

If this May thing is real then we can expect more of this bizarre processing up to that deadline, then the whole process should go back to what we were seeing before. If it isn't, then I guess this way of processing is the new black.

I am guessing the end of May, coz if it's beginning of May, we sure haven't seen a lot of actions from CEM yet.
My husband's medicals will expire in August which is the same as most of Sept and Oct applicants. As much as I wanted to think positive, I am guessing my husband would prolly go through a remedical, unless our app got hit by the leap frog game.

 

[Iay]

Got the reply from my email, kind of like telling us what we know that they have our application for 16 months 8) 8) 8) 8) 9 DAYS TO RETURN EMAIL
Dear Applicant,

This refers to your application for permanent residence in Canada as member of the family class.

Please be advised that application is currently with visa officer for review. We will keep you posted regarding this matter.

Yours sincerely,
3514
Family Reunification Unit
Embassy of Canada / Ambassade du Canada
Manila / Manille

WOW!! What a very general answer they gave you. :'(
What does your GCMS notes say?

 

[Steph C]

WOW!! What a very general answer they gave you. :'(
What does your GCMS notes say?

Yeah.. not a great answer. Do you have your MP on their @ss?

 

[Steph C]

I was doing a few updates on the spreadsheet and checked on some people's posts who should have updates soon. I noticed a very interesting question from Acel_Custodio about their visa. The question was: why was CEM rushing them to get a booking certificate when their medicals didn't expire until July?

I thought, hey, that IS a good question. And got me to thinking of the rumored clearing of backlog for May that was discussed earlier. If true I wouldn't put it past CEM to pick all the easy apps (ie. ones where nothing has expired, no interviews required, no red flags, everything is ready, etc) regardless of when they came in and process them before this May deadline. I wish we knew if this deadline was beginning or end of May.

If this May thing is real then we can expect more of this bizarre processing up to that deadline, then the whole process should go back to what we were seeing before. If it isn't, then I guess this way of processing is the new black.

Yes, they are cherry picking apps. Which makes me wonder if they flag applications for easiness in Stage 1. We know they do a cursory review of the information and assess eligibility. I think this is why my Stage 1 could have been so long. Stage 2 for me has been so quick. Judging by my GCMS notes that arrived right before my PPR, they opened my application, asked for PPR, In Process and Medicals within a month. So it's not actually taking them that long to process. I think this probably means they did a large part of the assessing in Stage 1 and our case was clearly enough put that they recognized we had a long history and also lived common law for 2 years. A few other Conjugal applicants got asked for more proof and pending interviews. I think you corrected that on the spreadsheet but I had tried to write in pending interviews as the purple colour goes up to the interview field with no date yet entered. There were 2 of them.
It would also be interesting to see a text field for the application type - married, common law or conjugal, versus dependent children. I think the dependent children cases have different order of processing because they don't need to assess validity of relationship.. but they need documents and medical data. In general , the order of processing has been:

Sponsor Approval, Passport Request, Document Request (if not the same time as PPR slightly after), Interview (if applicable), In Process (always after interview never before, always after documents requested) and lastly Re-Medical (Up until the past week it was always the last thing requested) then DM and VISA