Yes, this is kind of tricky. I have called them in the last two weeks. As soon as you get to the agent - Tell them its two week since you sent the passport and you have not heard back anything about it. One agent said, nothing can be done so I have to wait. Then I called the next day. Another agent said the same that they cannot do anything to acknowledge the receipt of passport but voluntarily asked if I want to see my notes in the file. I said yes and then he asked for my Personal information for authentication. After a while on hold he searched my file and came back and said we started processing your file on 12th March (Passport received 5th March) and he explained the process at a high level and why it might have been late.inamulhaq said:
As soon as the passport gets to CPC, it gets to the mail room. Then one of the mail clerks opens each mail and if its a passport then designates it into passport stamping queue. An officer receives the passport and then checks your file and once they confirm the passport you have sent is the same as the passport in the file then he issues the VISA. So that date becomes the VISA issued date (*This is my assumption-If someone who got the passport back can confirm if this date was within a week of their passport receipt and their passport came after a week). Then he places the passport into the Immigrant Visa counterfoil printing process queue. In this process they print the counterfoil and CoPR and the date of visa issue is not the date it was printed but the date it was approved by the officer in the previous step. Once the printing is done a Seal is placed on the counterfoil and a new note is added to the file. Then after that an officer verifies everything again and then the mail clerk prepares for mailing. This is when a third note gets added to the file that says passport mailed. Then they ask canada post to pick up the envelopes and they pick it up and then scan it then our tracker activates.
So all of this can happen on the same day, it is possible if CIC receives few passports a day but they receive 100s everyday during peak times. Now they have issued PPR for CEC, FSW and PNP classes across US and Canada. So they are overloaded. Nobody knows how the passport are queued and on what order. But I guess they batch it to be fair to first come first serve. So we see a pattern of 14 days return.
If you call the agent ask specifically for notes in your file, most of the time the agents will be helpful if you request them to look into the notes. They can give three statuses Passport received(placed for processing or VISA approved), VISA printed and Passport mailed.
Here is to hope that we all get some good news by that time. Cheers!