What I object to is that Immigration Canada does not make it clear to people that they have the option to apply outland, even if they are in Canada. They make it seem like it's as simple as "You apply inland if you're in Canada and outland if you're not" and that has disadvantaged so many people. I will never forget a woman who was a member of this and the other forums when I first came on the scene in 2006. She was from the States - entered Canada as a visitor from the US and was living with her husband and a child in Canada. Made the mistake of applying inland and, simply because she had not been "documented" on entry to Canada (which so often happens to US nationals) her application was transferred to the local office in Etobicoke - with a 2 year wait time for first stage approval. She tried and tried to get some attention and nothing worked and this poor woman ended up leaving her child and her husband to go back to the US to start the process there to sponsor her husband to the US. What they did to her was so unfair - but her experience, ultimately, helped me. I would have done the same thing she did - we were ready and would have submitted an inland application, too - and had it been refused over my son's arrest the way our outland ap was, our family would have been torn apart and we would have been separated - literally - for years because of the forfeiture of appeal rights.
So, inland vs outland is a crucial decision and I just wish that Immigration Canada, on their website, would be more clear about the specifics of each process. There is so much misinformation out there that even the person we spoke with in our MPs office really was completely unaware that it was possible for me to be legally in Canada, having NOT applied inland. I will never forget the look on his face when I told him that CIC could not require inland processing because that forces a sponsor to forfeit their right to appeal. A politician and he wasn't even aware of that!
