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Thanks for confirming herewecome. I had updated my Chrome Browser few days ago. It's not displaying the Tabs at the bottom anymore even on a full screen or by scrolling down.
2 ways to counter this issue would be:
a) Open in IE or other browsers
b) Download the file locally and view it

Sorry for not verifying this earlier. Have a good day :)
 
I should've added - I was checking on my iPhone and mine displays as tabs at the top.
 
DGT said:
It was my understanding that all Federal employees had to be bilingual.

Completely false.

Wikipedia is often helpful at cutting to the chase:

"English and French will have equal status of languages of work within the federal public service within geographically defined parts of the country that are designated bilingual (most notably in National Capital Region, Montreal and New Brunswick), as well as in certain overseas government offices and in parts of the country where there is sufficient demand for services in both official languages. In remaining geographical areas, the language of work for federal public servants is French (in Quebec) and English (elsewhere);"

The UK very much qualifies as "elsewhere". The bods working in Paris are likely to be bilingual or only French speaking. In fact you'd expect that native French speakers would be sent to offices that deal primarily with applications that arrive in French. (France, North/Central Africa etc)

Basically the idea that Canada is multilingual is a myth. Public Servants won't be multilingual as a matter of course as a result.
 
I have a few updates. Yesterday I contacted my MP's office and asked them to inquire about our file on our behalf. This morning I checked ECAS and we finally went IN PROCESS. I think this is a coincidence and has nothing to do with my contacting our MP, because it says that our file went In Process on June 24th, though it only shows it now. They also updated the mailing address to our new one in Canada.

Could somebody please update the spreadsheet for us? Thanks. :)

Today, the MP's office replied and said that we passed the background check. They also said that the "bring forward date" is July 24th. Does anyone know what that means? I was kind of hoping we'd be done well before then... but at least now we know that the longest part of the process (the background check) appears to be done, so long as the strike doesn't prove too disruptive.
 
Eabie said:
I have a few updates. Yesterday I contacted my MP's office and asked them to inquire about our file on our behalf. This morning I checked ECAS and we finally went IN PROCESS. I think this is a coincidence and has nothing to do with my contacting our MP, because it says that our file went In Process on June 24th, though it only shows it now. They also updated the mailing address to our new one in Canada.

Could somebody please update the spreadsheet for us? Thanks. :)

Today, the MP's office replied and said that we passed the background check. They also said that the "bring forward date" is July 24th. Does anyone know what that means? I was kind of hoping we'd be done well before then... but at least now we know that the longest part of the process (the background check) appears to be done, so long as the strike doesn't prove too disruptive.

Congrats!!! :)
 
Congrats eabie. It's always good to see progress :)
 
Thanks! I'm a little nervous about that "Bring Forward Date" though. I see that it's exactly one month from the day we went In Process, and a little searching on the forum gives me the impression that it might be the date they stick on your file if they request more documentation. I'm not entirely sure that's what it is though. We haven't received anything from them yet. Anyone else have any idea what it means?
 
It's only from reading stuff on here, but the impression I get is its a soft target date for completion.
 
herewecome said:
It's only from reading stuff on here, but the impression I get is its a soft target date for completion.

That's what I initially thought it might be too. I've asked the MP office's Immigration Assistant what it is just to be safe, so we should find out soon enough.

EDIT: She already replied and just said it's the next date to be reviewed. Not sure that really clarifies much.
 
orly said:
Completely false.

Wikipedia is often helpful at cutting to the chase:

"English and French will have equal status of languages of work within the federal public service within geographically defined parts of the country that are designated bilingual (most notably in National Capital Region, Montreal and New Brunswick), as well as in certain overseas government offices and in parts of the country where there is sufficient demand for services in both official languages. In remaining geographical areas, the language of work for federal public servants is French (in Quebec) and English (elsewhere);"

The UK very much qualifies as "elsewhere". The bods working in Paris are likely to be bilingual or only French speaking. In fact you'd expect that native French speakers would be sent to offices that deal primarily with applications that arrive in French. (France, North/Central Africa etc)

Basically the idea that Canada is multilingual is a myth. Public Servants won't be multilingual as a matter of course as a result.

I see. This is what I was told by my wife who is 4th generation Canadian, so I never really looked into it. All the federal employees i've ever dealt with in Nova Scotia have been bilingual, despite there being a very small French speaking community remaining there.

Nonetheless though, if there is equal status of languages then there should be no delay in an application based on the use of one of Canada's official languages, as per CIC's own conditions.
 
DECISION MADE!!!!!!!!
 
Eabie said:
DECISION MADE!!!!!!!!

Yeah! congrats, that's great to hear! :-)
 
Thank you! I was in a slight state of shock when I saw it. I've logged in several more times just to confirm that my eyes haven't deceived me, lol. It does also list a Home Address now as Winnipeg, Canada, which wasn't there before.

I hope everybody hears back soon, especially you Scottishmaple. I think coming to Canada might help - we sent the email updating our mailing address, and they replied this past Monday to say they had updated their system. It turns out that that was also the day they started processing our application.

For the spreadsheet - it was 217 days from Sponsor Approval to DM, 226 days in total and we went In Process on June 24th.

Thanks everybody for your help and support! This forum has been a godsend. :)