Canada - British Expat Forum

I know the answer will probably be on here somewhere already but I couldn't find it. My wife is Canadian and I'm British and I'm applying for a spouse visa. My wife was approved as a sponsor about April 27th and I was wondering what kind of timeline we can expect to receive the visa? I don't expect there to be any complications and various websites have said 2-4 months but I'm not sure how accurate that is. I'm obviously very eager to move and trying to make plans but I suppose all we can do is wait if we have no way to track it. Also does the visa get stamped into my passport?

Hi Mancouver......my timeline given below. Hope it helps!!

Steve

Papers to Missassauga 26/01/10.Received 2/02/;Start of processing 26/02/, Approval sponsorship 26/02/;Start processing in London 9/03/; Decision made 5/04/; Passport request rec'd 6/04/; Passport sent 6/04/, Passport returned 17/04/:

Thanks Steve. My Police check was over 6 months old so they've received a new one in London yesterday. They started processing in London and document requests apparantly don't delay applications. Can I ask a couple questions please Steve? Is one of you British and 1 Canadian? Did they E-mail you when the decision was made? Did they request your passport in a written letter? Did they stamp the visa into your passport?

Cheers for your help! Andy.

Hi Andy....feel free to ask as many questions as you wish!

Is one of you British and 1 Canadian?
Yes, I am the Brit.....my wife is therefor the Canadian.

Did they E-mail you when the decision was made?
No. I found out that a decision had been made when I checked my status on the CiC website.It simply stated "decision made". No detail of the decision was given.

Did they request your passport in a written letter?
They emailed the request....this was the first I knew that the positive decision had been made.

Did they stamp the visa into your passport?
When you get yours......you will understand this reply. They don't so much stamp it in.... rather, they attach it to your passport. It is quite a sophisticated ( and dare I say, beautiful) thing.....holograms and all!!!!!!

Hope some of this helps.

Steve

PS It is my understanding that as a direct result of the volumes being dealt with at CiC.....passports are taking upto 3 months to process if sent by post

3 months! Yikes so I guess you were lucky to have yours processed at the time you did if yours was an 11 day turnaround. I was hoping to leave by the end of July but doesn't sound very likely if that information is
correct. Are you in Canada now? I've married
a Canadian girl from BC and we can't
wait to get back over! Thanks for your answers they were really helpful.

Hi Andy......don't get disheartened.....this is just what I've heard on other forums!
As far as I am aware, it is still only 2 weeks if you TAKE your passport to London. You just collect it TWO weeks later.
This can ONLY be done on a Thursday....and in a very restricted time-frame.
No.....I'm not in Canada yet.....we are trying to sell our house here. We ,too, are desparate to get back....also to BC....Kamloops area.
As I said previously, feel free to ask anything you want
Steve

Oh that's brilliant I didn't know we could do that! Is that how you got yours quickly? Do you know how limited the timeframe is for taking it? Do you know if it has to be collected on a Thursday as well and if when you take it there, is it like a stay all day thing? We'll definitely give that a go. We're moving Manchester to Vancouver, what's delaying your move at the moment?

Hi again Andy,

Is that how you got yours quickly?
No, I actually posted mine to London....simply because I was in no great rush...still had issues to sort out here in the UK. I was very surprised at the speed that it was returned to me.

Do you know how limited the timeframe is for taking it?
Yes....You drop them off at the Embassy on a Thursday between 2pm and 3pm. Most people arrive from about 1.30pm but there really is little need to get there early.

The passports are handed over to a clerk in the Embassy and you get given a receipt to present 2 weeks later at the same time/place to collect the passports with the visa in. It's a very easy process

This certainly is the way to go if you absolutely need your passport back by a certain time

Once again...feel free with any questions.

Best wishes, Steve

Hi Steve,

Sorry to bombard you, I've been struggling to find
someone who's in the same situation as me. Do you know if a friend can collect the passport on my behalf and also does it have to be collected on a Thursday between those hours?

Cheers, have a good day!

Andy

Hi Andy......I understand that it is entirely possible to have a nominee collect your passport on your behalf. You should, of course, ensure that he/she has the receipt which you will have been given. You should also provide a letter of authority for them to collect the passport....this MAY be required at the time of collection.

Yes....the collection time remains the same!

Hope this helps!

Steve

Hi Guys, sorry to jump in like this. I too am married to a canadian girl and applied for my spouse visa to canada.

CIC in Missisagua (received our application on 2nd june) accepted my wifes side of the application as my sponsor and the application was then send to London for further processing on the 6th July 2010.................reading the above, is it correct to think that London can request my passport around mid august to attach my visa? (assuming all the info they require is there, which im 99.9% sure it is!). And am I right in thinking the requst for my passport would be sent to MY email address and not my wifes?

How would you know when London has started processing?

I hope this is the case because i was assuming it would take an absolute minimum of 2 months.

Thanks for your time / help

londonottawa wrote:Hi Guys, sorry to jump in like this. I too am married to a canadian girl and applied for my spouse visa to canada. Not a problem CIC in Missisagua (received our application on 2nd june) accepted my wifes side of the application as my sponsor and the application was then send to London for further processing on the 6th July 2010.................reading the above, is it correct to think that London can request my passport around mid august to attach my visa? (assuming all the info they require is there, which im 99.9% sure it is!). And am I right in thinking the requst for my passport would be sent to MY email address and not my wifes? Which email address did you give them in your application? How would you know when London has started processing? You will have received a letter from Missassauga which gives you a reference number.....you should use this reference number to check the ecas website. Please be aware that the updating of this website is a very hit-and-miss affair I hope this is the case because i was assuming it would take an absolute minimum of 2 months.The time-line isn't set in stone......I guess it will happen when it happens!! Thanks for your time / help

Good luck,
Steve

Thanks for the reply!

I gave them my email address in my part of the application.


I received the letter from miisisagua about 2 weeks ago approving my wife as a sponsor and stating the application is now in the london office. Is the ecas website the same as the cic.gc.ga site where you track the status of your application?

Many thanks

Hi again......ok, so they will send the email to you. That's pretty straight forward.

Yes, this is the website you should use....you will hopefully see that you wife was approved for sponsorship, and on the right hand side you should click on the link to see your status. In theory, this is great. They reckon that they update the status' on Tuesdays.....mine was updated on a Monday It seems that quite a few folks receive their PPR well before the update appears....so I can only wish you luck on this matter!

It is very easy for me to say....but try not to check it all the time.....I did, and it drove me nuts My guess is that you will...(we all do!)....so try and keep smiling...it won't be too long

Feel free to ask any more questions
Good luck
Steve

Hi londonottowa,

The London office started processing my application on 29th April 2010, I have no criminal convictions or health issues or anything, a very straightforward application. My police certificate had expired so they asked me for a new copy in June which I sent straight away, they said it wouldn't affect the processing time of the application.

*(Just a warning to anyone sending additional documentation, ALWAYS send it recorded delivery! We just sent this first class and have been asking them for an update as to whether they received it or not for about 4 weeks now with no reply. Apparantly they don't respond to any questions about whether they receive additional documents, it's up to you to send it recorded signed for if you want to be sure. So we've ended up buying another ACPO police certificate to send again to be 100% sure.)*

So anyway they started processing on April 29th and it's now 12 weeks later and still no news. We're going through an immigration advisor so our notification will be E-mailed to him before we know. The website only usually gets updated on a Tuesday and I doubt they even do it every week. We're hoping it'll be 4 months or less by the time we get it. But if it's taking this long then I'm sure the passport stamping bit will take a while so we're not going to be booking flights until we've got the passport back done and dusted and finalised. But again nothing is definite with timescales so we're just guessing and hoping really.

Andy