@colmiz ,
@Pake,
@MrsKoj ,
@tender ,
@Sugarcoconut ,
@ClassicD ,
@Ugoswife ,
@xls ,
@Cutie101,
@Denne ,
@queenanetor,
@peg204 @babajydo ,
@umuchima ,
@Mimikoms and everyone else who I am forgetting but have not truly forgotten! I want to say thank you for your love and support and congratulations! I couldn't have survived this without all of you! My husband and I are most grateful!
I wanted to write out our timeline as well as info on our interview (if anyone does get called for an interview, please feel free to reach out to me privately, and I can assist you).
Application Filed: August 23, 2016
Sponsorship Approval: September 28, 2016
Application Started Processing at AVO: October 6, 2016
Interview Request: September 15, 2017
Interview at AVO: September 21, 2017
Medical Request: September 21, 2017
PPR (+ Police Cert., Schedule A, Passport Photos): September 25, 2017
So 13 months and 2 days to PPR.
Interview: We anticipated we would be asked for extra docs concerning my husbands son, so I'm not surprised they asked for an interview and to bring documents regarding the son. My husband does not have a relationship, outside of paying school fees and support with his son. Him and his ex were never married, she has other children and a family and everyone gets along. My husband just doesn't have a relationship with his son because he lives with the mother. In our app we requested to remove the son as we never plan on him coming to Canada. So for the interview, they asked only for copies of the mother's signed ID and passport photos for the son.
Anyways, in addition to those documents my husband took along to the interview 167 pages of additional relationship proof from the last year (my flights over, photos of my and my families visit, whatsapp messages, facebook posts, phone logs, etc) to submit to them.
He got to the high commission 45 minutes beforehand, he was not allowed to take his phone or bag in with him. He was in there for 2 hours before he called me. They were very behind with interviews. He only ended up being in the interview for 30 minutes. He said he was feeling a little nervous initially but the lady was very nice, told him to let her know if he didn't understand something, that they just wanted to understand some of the aspects of our application, and that we must tell the truth or you can be banned from Canada for 5 years (pretty standard).
Okay so to be prepared for the questions, I looked at a lot of forums and interview questions lists. Reminder, we were only given 6 days to prep! So wee hustled! My husband said he felt super prepared, because she asked like all those questions we went over! Haha
Remember if you find yourself in this situation, they are asking you things about your relationship, things you should know, it's good to go over the questions though so you can make your answers simple and straight to the point. Lots of us want to talk a lot to explain things, no, don't, just be straightforward. If they ask for more detail explain. You don't want to get lost in your words.
1. How did you meet your wife?
2. Where did you meet? What were you doing at that time?
3. How did your relationship develop?
4. Why did you get married?
5. Why do you want to go to Canada?
6. Where does your wife live?
7. Where will you live?
8. Where does your wife work?
9. What does she do? Does she like her job?
10. What happens if your relationship doesn't work out?
11. What will you do in Canada?
12. What will you do if this application isn't accepted?
And then she asked questions about the son, like:
13. Why don't you want your son to come to Canada?, etc, more specifics.
My husband said that she would ask a question, he would answer, then she would ask another, he would answer, very few times did he need to really explain himself and if he did, to clarify something, she was like "oh okay, I understand".
She only flipped through our additional relationship proof and gave it back to my husband, she only kept the documents they requested.
(FYI, my husband and I never submitted additional proof while our app was in process, we never submitted anything since our initial app.) At the end she said she would be in touch soon. My husband came out feeling really good and pleased with how well it went. Twenty minutes after the interview ended we got his medical request. That was Thursday last week and today we got PPR, police cert, Schedule A and passport photo request. We were given 15 days to submit.
We also reached out to our MP when our application hit 1 year of processing, they were helpful to look into our case, as we were unable to link our myCIC account to our application. One thing I want to mention is that we got a status update from our MP of our app the night before our interview. (We had gotten an update before but our MP could only say it was in process, so I asked them to get us more details and this is what they got). I was really shocked that it looked like nothing had been done on our app. So keep in mind that your myCIC definitely doesn't reflect what might actually be going on. Below is what our MP discovered:
- The responsible office has not yet reviewed the application and documents submitted to determine if your constituent’s spouse meet the eligibility requirements.
- The medical examination results have expired for ********. The medical examination for **son** has not been initiated as of yet.
- The criminality verifications have not been initiated yet.
- The security verifications have not been initiated yet.
- An interview has been scheduled for September 21, 2017
- The responsible office is still waiting for a copy of the dependent’s mother signed photo identification.
- If and when anything else is required after the interview, the applicant will be contacted by the responsible office with further instruction.
I hope that this info can help people. If anyone has any questions about our app or needs assistance, I'm always available and will help provide advice as best I can. I'm praying for you all. I believe AVO is hustling at this point, there is so much to be done, and I think the pressure is on. I also think this experience, especially with the interview, has made me realize how diverse all of our situations are. We all have little bumps in our app, and that's okay, we are all human with unique stoires, we just need to face them head on and believe all will be alright.
That is all for now.
Stay strong everyone, your day is coming. Much love.
