Hello -
I decided to share my story since this forum was useful to me.
I have a Saudi Arabian passport and I live in the US. I have two trips planned in April, Europe and Canada. My Canadian visa expired in January 2019. My biometric record is still valid from my 2014 application.
Visitor visa application submitted: March 9
Passport request: March 18
Passport sent: March 22 (had to wait for my passport and Schengen visa to be returned from European embassy. Passport sent to Canada same day it was received).
They received it on March 25 (I wasn't sure if they accept weekend deliveries)
application approved: April 1 (CIC email of update received the following day - saw others here had this experience, was pretty confusing since I was under the impression that my application is already approved when they asked for my passport, at least this is the case with other countries.)
Return tracker activated: waiting
This is where it gets fun.
I plan to travel to Europe tomorrow (April 5). With my passport, I included a letter and a copy of my itinerary to travel to Europe and requested their consideration (my trip to Canada is later in the month, after I return from Europe). Sending such a letter worked for me with other countries before (you ask nicely, people work with you). I received no updates what so ever last week, so I emailed CIC on March 28. I received a reply on Monday, April 1 saying that my passport was sent back to me "on April 1!"
I checked with Fedex, and for some reason they said "YES, WE PICKED IT UP BUT SENT IT THE WRONG WAY AND WILL INVESTIGATE WHY AND CALL YOU WITHIN 24 HOURS!"
On Tuesday, April 2, I called Fedex. This time they said "we didn't pick anything up and you should check with shipper!" So, I called IRCC. They lady on the other line told me that my passport has been in the printing room since March 27, and it can be sent anytime. She did not know why CIC suggested it was already mailed to me. I made her aware of my travel plans, and she asked if I enclosed this information in my package and I said yes, as mentioned above. She said there is nothing she could do and wished me good luck!
On Wednesday, April 3, IRCC kicked me off the line because they had so many calls. I was waiting for my Fedex tracking to be triggered between 5-7pm Ottawa time (generally when I noticed in this forum they have mail picked up), but that didn't happen...
Today, April 4, it seems that I have to cancel my Europe trip tomorrow, since I have to cancel more than 24 hrs of my flight to get ecredit, not even a refund. I am going to lose a bunch of deposits I made as well and most likely I won't be reimbursed for them because I did not make the trip.
You can understand my frustration and disappointment. I had the passport with me and sent it myself. But, I only did this because my experience with applying for Canadian visa wasn't like this at all when I applied from Saudi Arabia in 2014. Back then, I dropped by VFS on Day 1 (application submitted online, provided biometrics and dropped passport), received an sms that my application is approved and passport ready to pick up on Day 2, picked up passport on Day 3! I couldn't imagine it will take this much time through CPC Ottawa, especially for somebody who's visited Canada frequently, resides in the US, visited last in December 2018 and has a visa that was valid until January 2019. I don't know how they have these passports organized in the printing room, but definitely something isn't right. My gut-feeling is that my passport made it to printing room on March 27 and was printed and ready to go on April 1, that's the only way to explain the timeline and sequence of events above. And, even if officers pay attention to things like travel arrangements, it looks like all this care is forgotten/ignored in the printing room/mail room.
That's my story. I hope everyone has a better experience. All the best.