outland application. Manila office or Ottawa office? Korean living in Canada

[cometkim]

Hello,

I'm Korean and have been living in Canada since Feb. 2014 with working holiday visa which expires in Feb. 2015. My boyfriend and I are going to submit our common law sponsorship application in Feb. 2015 when we complete 1 year co-habitation.

I was wondering if I can send my application to Ottawa. I heard if you have been in Canada longer than 12 months, you can send your application to Ottawa and I will have been living in Canada for 12months in Feb 15 but I will have to apply for new status 'visitor' after my current work visa expires.

Thanks in advance!!

 

[Rob_TO]

You can certainly try to request Ottawa for your outland processing office, but it is not your final decision to make. You always mail your completed application to CPC-Mississauga. Then after sponsor approval is done at CPC-M, CIC will then decide where your app will actually go to for stage 2 processing.

Seeing as at the time you submit the app you will just be on visitor status, I would expect that CIC will send your app to Manila. CIC seems to prefer to send apps based on citizenship in most cases. However there's no harm in selecting Ottawa and hoping for the best, if you really want it processed here.

 

[cometkim]

Thank you!
Is usually Ottawa faster than Manila? On the processing time webpage, Manila is 15 months and Ottawa is 16 months, but I think I read some posts that Ottawa is pretty fast.

 

[keesio]

Thank you!
Is usually Ottawa faster than Manila? On the processing time webpage, Manila is 15 months and Ottawa is 16 months, but I think I read some posts that Ottawa is pretty fast.

Ottawa is very fast for standard applications for US citizens. For others, the times will vary