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Immigrant

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officialOne of the last remaining obstacles to our impending relocation to the Pacific Northwest coast of British Columbia has been officially surmounted. Yesterday – in the post – I received the Confirmation of Permanent Residency (COPR) that marks the virtual culmination of the process of becoming a full time inhabitant of Canada.

Hoo – bloomin’ – ray!

All that now remains in this regard is for me to ‘land’ on the continent and for this temporary visa to be exchanged for the actual PR document. Fears that the expiry of my medical certificate at the end of April – the which is normally used as the deadline for landing once the COPR has been issued – might cause a problem have been excised by Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) extending the visa period for a year – to May 2016.

The whole process – which has felt for much of the time as though it were indeed doing its best to live up to the ‘Imperceptible’ tag – has actually taken about two weeks less than a year. Given that the CIC website originally indicated that the expected processing time would be around eleven months, I guess I shouldn’t complain.

It has – however – felt like an eternity!

Well – this is it:

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid

One factor in our case for the process seeming quite as extended as it has is that we made a first abortive attempt to set things in motion back in 2012, when the Kickass Canada Girl had moved – temporarily as it turned out – to Victoria. For those with a predilection for completeness here follows the complete trail of my posts documenting the whole shebang…

  • A Tough OccupationMay 2012 – an introduction to the PR process
  • A Word from our SponsorMay 2012 – the part that the Girl would have to play in the process
  • PrerequisitesMay 2012 – a description of the documentation that would need to be gathered before completing the application
  • Doctor, DoctorJune 2012 – my first visit to the doctor to acquire a medical certificate
  • A Little Application-1June 2012 – details of the complete sponsor’s application
  • A Little Application-2June 2012 – details of my own complete application
  • Leave to RemainDecember 2012 – first attempt abandoned
  • Residency RevisitedFebruary 2014 – the process restarted a year on
  • Residency Revisited – RevisitedFebruary 2014 – further information gleaned concerning the process
  • Spot the DifferenceApril 2014 – second medical and police certificates are obtained
  • Momentous DayJune 2014 – the completed application is at last submitted
  • Cause for CelebrationAugust 2014 – the Girl is approved as a sponsor
  • In the SystemAugust 2014 – our first appearance on the Electronic Client Application Status (ECAS) site
  • The Waiting Game  – November 2014 – introduction to the London sponsored applicant spreadsheet on the British Expat website
  • Signs of LifeNovember 2014 – request for payment of the Right of Permanent Residence Fee (RPRF)
  • Glory Be!March 2015 – finally – the application appears as ‘In Process’ on the ECAS
  • Hallelujah!May 2015 – and now it switches to ‘Decision Made’
  • It’s Official – May 2015 – this very post – I have my COPR!

Phew!

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prNo more need be said…

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Image from PixabayWhen I started writing this blog in January 2012 at the ripe old age of 58 – with the intention of documenting my odyssey across the waters to Canada and into retirement in British Columbia – I knew even then that the process would not be an easeful one.

I chose its appellation carefully – the sense of danger, of striving, of progression and adventure implicit in the journey into a new world balanced carefully by the anticipated glacial progress of the process itself. The Kickass Canada Girl and I were about to embark on our short-lived experiment in living five thousand miles apart and – even though I was at that point expecting to retire in 2013 – I knew that this relatively brief span would feel like a lifetime.

I had – however – no idea just how imperceptible progress towards our ultimate objective would turn out to be.

Should you ever determine that you have a problem with impatience – an intolerance of prorogation – then let me recommend to you as a form of therapy an application for Canadian Permanent Residency (PR)… or an attempt to sell a ‘quirky’ property in a buyer’s market. As an exercise in having absolutely no control whatsoever over the outcome of said venture, neither of these can be beat.

To be entirely fair, when I submitted my application for PR at the very start of June last year the Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) website was indicating that the average time to process such would be around eleven months – which period is not strictly up until next week! Such details don’t help much for those having actually to endure this interminable wait. The fact that almost no indication is given at any point as to current progress only makes things worse.

Until my sponsor – the Kickass Canada Girl – was approved almost two months subsequent to the original submission there was no indication that the application had even been received. The listing on the Electronic Client Application Status portal (ECAS) thereafter read ‘Application Received’  for nearly eight months until it suddenly flipped to ‘In Process’ in mid March this year. Word on the various expat fora is that one might hope for a decision within three to five weeks thereafter, but it is now at the furthest extent of that range and there has been as yet no word.

Naturally I check ECAS daily. Naturally I pore over the London spreadsheet on the British Expats forum to see if anyone from the same cluster as me has heard the good – or indeed any – news. Naturally I rush to check the post to see if anything has magically arrived from CIC.

Nada!

We first placed our Buckinghamshire apartment on the market in the spring of 2011. Though it has been on and off the market since then, over that four year period we must have had dozens of viewings. We have yet to to receive a single offer! This is – of course – somewhat dispiriting… to put it mildly. We have taken much advice. We have adjusted the price diligently at the behest of our agents (realtors!) and thus far elicited only the reaction that no-one knows why it hasn’t sold…

Hmmm!

As the deadline for our departure for Canada approaches with all the subtlety of a runaway train we must keep our faith, our belief in our good fortune and our fingers firmly crossed. The universe is surely planning for everything to pan out just right – at just the right moment.

If nothing else we will have learned a heck of a lesson!

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Glory be!

Inf. an exclamation expressing surprise or shock. (A bit old-fashioned.)

Idioms – The Free Dictionary

Since paying the Right of Permanent Residency Fee (RPRF) shortly before the end of last year I have – with almost religious fervour – been logging on daily to the CIC’s Electronic Client Application Status (ECAS) portal to check on the progress of my application for Canadian Permanent Residency. The status routinely revealed thereby appeared to be stuck so obstinately on “Application Received” that I was beginning to wonder if the whole kit and caboodle had become lost somewhere in the machinery – or whether there might be some sort of un-revealed issue with my application – or if indeed we would needs make the journey to BC in July without having heard anything at all…

Then – all of a sudden – when I logged on yesterday the status had changed to “In Process“! As you can see from the screen capture below – processing actually started on March 10th.

In Process!

Whoopee!!

This is very good news. There is but one step to go, at which point the status will change to “Decision Made” and – all being well – the necessary documents will be sent out. Anecdotal evidence from the expat fora suggests that this might not take too much longer, and further that sometimes the documents arrive without the status on the ECAS being updated at all.

Well – this is all really quite unbearably exciting!

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Image by Frank Vincentz on Wikimedia CommonsWaiting for word from Citizenship and Immigration Canada regarding my application for Canadian Permanent Residency is a nerve shredding affair – the which is clearly also the case for the many who contribute to the fora of the various InterWebNet sites (several of which are linked in my blogroll) that are so very helpful to the putative immigrant. The situation is certainly not helped by the (perhaps understandable) total lack of information relayed to the eager applicant as things progress (or not!).

Way back at the very start of my first attempt at the residency process in 2012 I explained in this helpful post the various classes under which one can apply. I had but a single choice – to be sponsored under the family class with my spouse – the wholly admirable Kickass Canada Girl – as my sponsor.

Of course – it is actually more complex than that. Spousal sponsorship applications can be made under two further categories – Inland and Outland. Logic suggests that Inland applications are for those couples already living in Canada, whereas Outland applications are for those where the applicant is not yet resident. Inland applications can take longer to process – being considered less urgent since the couple are already together. As it happens many couples are actually eligible to apply under either category, and may thus choose the supposedly ‘quicker’ option. In practice – of course – it still doesn’t feel that quick!

Regardless of the type of application being made the paperwork is sent in the first instance to CIC in Mississauga, Ontario. CIC processes the sponsor’s application and – once sponsor approval has been granted – the norm for Outland applications (such as mine) is for the applicant’s paperwork to be sent back to his or her nearest visa office to be processed in full. That this does not always happen is dependant on the workloads on the various visa offices. Sometimes the whole application is processed in Canada, which is invariably the fastest option.

Sadly my paperwork was returned to London.

The timeline for my application – thus far – has been as follows:

  • Medical certificate obtained – 30th April 2014
  • Applications fees paid online – 31st May 2014
  • Application sent to Mississauga – 3rd June 2014
  • Application received by CIC – 6th June 2014
  • Sponsor approval – 31st July 2014
  • e-Client Application Status (EAS) online tool shows application and medical results received – 1st-Aug-2014
  • Request from London Visa Office for RPRF fee – 27th November 2014
  • RPRF fee paid online and receipt forwarded to London office – 27th November 2014

The CIC website has a guide to current processing times which covers the first part of the operation. For the second phase the applicant is referred to the local visa office website. Until very recently the London site has consistently shown a total processing time of 11 months, which figure is based on actual processing times over the previous 12 months.

About a week ago – to my absolute horror – the stated processing time shot up to 29 months!!!

The InterWebNet fora were – quite naturally – agog with anxious applicants seeking some sort of explanation for this abrupt escalation. The older hands at this mularkey offered the following:

Midway through 2014 the London office took over processing applications from that in Islamabad – where total processing times had reached 36 months, so swamped were they. The best guess is that the new 29 month figure is simply the result of combining those two sets of statistics, and the consensus seems to be that the times for UK applications are unlikely to change significantly from the previously quoted figure.

This remains, of course, to be seen – but I have to say that such shocks are not good for the constitution of us (near) pensioners!

Hmmm!

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No more than a few days ago – in a post generally bemoaning the lack of progress on our long road to retirement in BC – I wrote this regarding my application for Canadian permanent residency:

“My application is – however – approaching the average time to decision, and I am thus in a state of considerable anticipation.”

Yesterday the following popped into my inbox as I slaved away at my desk at School:

rprfNot only is this the first indication that I have had that London is now actively processing my application, but also – I feel – most convincing evidence that it will meet with approval in reasonably short order. I would not – after all – be asked to pay the Right of Permanent Residence Fee (RPRF) were I not soon to be granted that privilege.

Naturally I paid CIC immediately by credit card and forwarded the electronic receipt to London – so as not to delay the process further.

This is really most exciting!

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Image from Pixabay“It is strange that the years teach us patience; that the shorter our time, the greater our capacity for waiting.”

Elizabeth Taylor

The truth of Elizabeth Taylor’s dictum is not lost on us, and it is a good thing that it is so. I would not want – for example – to be considering our impending move to a different continent were I still in my younger years – since every part of the process seems to require the patience of a saint.  I do not recall being particularly blessed with that virtue in my youth and I am fairly sure that the Kickass Canada Girl would tell a similar tale.

There have been a good number of viewings at our Buckinghamshire apartment but – as yet – not one by its next owner. It is difficult to remain resolutely positive regardless of the passage of time since we went to market. It is especially frustrating that there is little that we can do to move things forward.

Negotiations drag on regarding our respective retirement dates. Though we have fixed ourselves a definite cutoff point in mid-July next year we are both aiming to wrap things up significantly in advance of that date. Nothing – it would seem – moves quickly on this front either.

I am still waiting to hear the outcome of my application for Canadian Permanent Residence. Gut feeling tells me that I will hear something any day now – but I guess I could be feeling the same in a couple of month’s time.

The blogroll for this compendium – that list of InterWebNet sites (to the right of the posts) that, in my wisdom, I have decided might be of use to like-minded persons – contains a link for the British Expats website. This invaluable resource contains much information concerning emigration to a wide range of destinations including – naturally – a most useful section on Canada, the which comes complete with a thriving forum on which many going through a similar process to ourselves post religiously.

These include frequent updates on the current status of the posters’ sponsored applications for Canadian PR from the UK, and I have noted therein repeated references to a spreadsheet maintained by one of the members. This would seem to pull together detailed information – submitted voluntarily by those involved – concerning the dates that the various deadlines in the process have been achieved. This has clearly been in operation for four or five years now and has grown over time into a most valuable resource through which one might gauge the progress on one’s own application.

It took me quite some time to locate the speadsheet itself, but it was well worth  the effort. What is immediately clear it that the processing times for applications varies widely, and that the completion dates of clusters of submissions from around the same time can be separated in some cases by many months.

My application is – however – approaching the average time to decision, and I am thus in a state of considerable anticipation.

Fingers firmly crossed!

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Subsequent to my posting of last week regarding my application for Canadian Permanent Residence, it is good to see that we are now properly in the system. As reported, the Kickass Canada Girl’s part in the proceedings is done – at least for now. The Citizenship and Immigration Canada Application Status tool shows the following details for me:

application status Good to see that my medical results have also been received – by virtue of their having been extracted from the online system. This means that the CIC will be aware that my medical certificate dates from the end of April this year – and that the clock is thus running!

I will keep my eye on the status pages and report further progress as it occurs.

How exciting!

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Image by Merlin2525 on OpenClipArtAt the culmination of my last post – imaginatively titled ‘Residency revisited‘ – I wound up my deliberation on the requirement for the Kickass Canada Girl and I to ‘prove’ that we do indeed intend to reside in Canada should permanent residency be granted with the observation that further research was needed – and said that I would ‘get back to you’ with the results thereof.

I’m back!

It is a testament to the power of the InterWebNet that simply ‘Googling’ – “Proof that you intend to live in Canada with your spouse” – turns up the answer almost immediately, in the form of a reference to a document entitled IP 2 Processing Applications to Sponsor Members of the Family Class. This tract – previously unknown to me and hidden well away on an obscure branch of the CIC website – contains the following section:

13.3.      Sponsorship by Canadian citizens living abroad

The following applies to Canadian citizens living abroad:

  • Canadian citizens who reside abroad may sponsor only their spouse, common-law partner, conjugal partner or a dependent child who does not have dependent children of their own;
  • they must submit their sponsorship application package and fees to the CPC-M in Canada and not to the visa office;
  • Canadian citizens who are tourists in a foreign country, even for extended periods, are still residents of Canada;
  • Canadian citizens who are long-term workers or students in another country are generally considered residents of that country;
  • Canadians who have spent little or no time in Canada may also seek to sponsor. If they have never worked in Canada and do not have the educational or language skills to find employment in Canada, refusal under A39 may be appropriate if arrangements for the care and support of the sponsored person are not satisfactory;
  • sponsors must provide evidence that they will reside in Canada after the sponsored persons and their family members become permanent residents.

Evidence that sponsors will reside in Canada may include one or more of the following:

  • letter from an employer;
  • letter of acceptance to a Canadian educational institution;
  • proof of having rented/bought a dwelling in Canada;
  • reasonable plans for re-establishing in Canada or severing ties to the other country.

Of this suggested evidence the first three bullet-points are pretty much covered by the surmisings in my last post and would – for us – be no simple matter with which to comply. That leaves the ‘reasonable plan‘ of the final point. I guess that we must make a case thereon which would incorporate the following mitigating factors:

  • the Girl has a dependent in Victoria
  • we have a number of bank accounts in Canada, which contain pretty much all of our savings
  • the Girl has Canadian pensions
  • by the time we submit our PR application our property in the UK should be on the market
  • we can call on the testimony of Canadian family and friends

Failing all else I might simply refer CIC to this blog! That should do the trick…

 

In the course of my researches I discovered a most useful forum that goes by the appellation ‘Road to Canada’. Amongst other topics upon which the site offers valuable discourse was one concerning the process to be followed once permanent residency has been approved. I had – somewhat naively – assumed that it was simply a matter of being furnished with the relevant documentation and then being able to rock up at the Canadian border at some point during the succeeding years to be greeted with open arms.

Not so…

What actually happens is that once residency is approved a temporary visa is granted and one must then cross the Canadian border at some point before that visa expires. On so doing permanent residency commences and the immigrant is then subject to the requirement of being resident in Canada for two out of any five years. In practice this means that – whereas one needn’t actually move to Canada until up to three years after permanent residency has been taken up – one must visit before the temporary visa expires. This expiration date is apparently the anniversary of the required medical certificate, which – given the length of time that it takes to process PR applications nowadays – is normally somewhere between a fortnight and sixty days.

All of which means that the timing of the application is critical and must be considered most carefully.

More anon…

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cicThe Citizenship and Immigration Canada website has been re-designed… and jolly nice it looks too. Whether it will be any easier to navigate than the old version remains to be seen. It is early days yet and – mindful of the morass of information that doubtless still lies behind the impressive new facade – I wouldn’t want to count any chickens.

Time – however – to get started…

My original post on the subject of Family Sponsorship for Permanent Residency outlines the basic application procedure that we must needs follow and the first thing to do now is to identify how this might differ as a result of both of the applications (the Kickass Canada Girl’s as sponsor and mine as the sponsored) originating from outside Canada.

Revisiting the online guides to glean further information I see that this new condition has been added since I last studied the detail:

Effective October 25, 2012, sponsored spouses or partners must now live together in a legitimate relationship with their sponsor for two years from the day they receive permanent residence status in Canada.

If you are a spouse or partner being sponsored to come to Canada, this applies to you if:

  • You are being sponsored by a permanent resident or Canadian citizen
  • You have been in a relationship for two years or less with your sponsor
  • You have no children in common
  • Your application was received on or after October 25, 2012

Fortunately, since the Girl and I have been married for more than three years already this condition will not affect us. Moving on…

Hunting further through the the CIC website (no mean feat, for it is a complex beast!) I (re)discover:

Guide 3900 – Sponsorship of a spouse, common-law partner, conjugal partner or dependent child living outside Canada“.

In the depths of this document I find that which I seek:

If I live outside Canada, may I sponsor?

If you are a Canadian citizen, you may sponsor a spouse, a common-law partner or conjugal partner, or a dependent child who has no children of his or her own. However, you must demonstrate that you will live in Canada when the sponsored person becomes a permanent resident.

Note: Permanent residents residing abroad may not sponsor from outside of Canada. Canadian citizens travelling (sic) as tourists are not considered to be residing abroad.

At this point a small alarm bell sounds… I take a look at the sponsor’s document checklist:

doc

…and see that it includes this item:

proof

“Proof that you intend to live in Canada with your spouse…?” How on earth is one supposed to prove that?

It is difficult – off the top of my head – to imagine what sort of documentary evidence we could possibly provide that would satisfy this requirement. If the Girl had a job offer from Canada – mayhap – I guess that would count, but what if we are both intending to retire? Perhaps if we had already purchased a property in BC – but again – would we be likely so to do if there were still doubt concerning our right to reside in Canada?

Hmmm!

Further research is clearly required. I will report back with my findings.

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