You are incorrect, my ex-spouse and I arrived at Port of entry in 2012, no one had any idea she was with me, I had the LMO (as it was then) I was issued with a 2 year employer-specific work permit, my spouse was issued with a 2 year open work permit purely on virtue of being married to me, and being the spouse of a foreign worker. I forgot low skilled (NOC code B and below) do not get the same rights, but NOC code B and above...DO get a work permit just by virtue of being a spouse..straight away..no waiting (and this is still the case). If you read the student threads, student spouses also enjoy the same right at the border....yet a Canadians spouse doesn't. You are indeed fortunate you could work on your employer specific work permit while waiting out the processing time, so no hardship for you. For the rest of us, 5 months minimum plus sitting with no work/healthcare/etc is indeed an extreme hardship, and something that should be addressed, do I expect the minister to stop the other spouses getting their permits...no. Is it possible he might go, he has a point, these work permits could be issued at the border cutting processing time down...possibly. The open work permit could quite easily be processed by CBSA, at the moment CBSA issue Work permits everyday and make decisions on the issue. No one has mentioned National security, and why even bring that into this discussion, it is redundant, when the work permit is issued no major checks have been made (or do you think when your GCMS notes show security check in progress, that's just a joke?). My suggestion frees up VO's to work on applications thus making it faster for everyone, if no one pushes against the system. nothing changes for the better.
As for applications sitting in mail rooms in carts with a date tag of when they came in for weeks, I know more about this than you think, but am not going to enlarge on that in a public forum. It is very easy, now you have PR to sit and say how wonderful the system is, and "in your day" etc. Those of us going through the process agree mostly, it could be better, hence the minister introducing the stream-lining, or do you think he did that because he is a good soul? I'm from a country that if something is wrong and could be better..you say so. I thought those are the values that Canada followed as well...but clearly I was mistaken, as you as a new Canadian are pointing out, so I'll tip my cap and go back under the stairs and sit quietly..not.
