Hi,
Thanks for your post. It was very helpful. It cleared up a lot of confusion of course. However, I would like to explain my application situation. I would be very grateful if you could share your thoughts on the possible reasons for the delay of my application. I will try to write the exact time-frame of my application steps.
1.I applied for PR under the Quebec selected skilled worker category on June, 2017. The IRCC received my application on June 13, 2017.
2. I received the AOR on September 29, 2017.
3. I got married on December 2017. I informed the IRCC right away about the change in my marital status.
4. I received the medical request on Feb 2018. Went for the medical exam right away within a week.
5. I received ADR from the IRCC about my spouse on May 31, 2018 (5 months after I informed them about my marriage). They also asked for the medical exam of my spouse. We included all the required documents and the medical exam report within 2 weeks (June 14, 2018).
**Here I would like to mention that I didn't want to include my spouse in the application. Because he also applied for his PR in the QSW category before our marriage. We anticipated that it might delay our application if we include each other in our application. So we decided to go solo but informed the IRCC anyway about our marital status change. But when I called the IRCC to clarify, they said we must include our spouse as dependent. So my spouse cancelled his own PR application, and I included him in mine as dependent.
6. I received the 'Invitation to pre-arrival service' letter on Nov 25, 2018.
Since then, we are just waiting. The processing time now is 19 months. For us, it's been 20 months already. I sent them email almost every week to know if there is an update. But their response is not helpful at all. They just give generic answer. At this point, I just want to know how much longer it will take. I hope you understand how frustrating it can be of waiting 20 months without any definite answer. I don't care if it takes another 6 months. But I want to know for sure that it will done within 6 months. This uncertainty is extremely frustrating and sometimes I feel it's not fair at all.
FYI, both me and my spouse are in Canada (me since 2015, my spouse since 2014). We studied here and now working. Our country of origin is Bangladesh. And yes, I am a muslim but my spouse is an atheist.