Dear Mr. Cohen,

What happens if my wife would be pregnant at the time of interview (May 2002)?! She could not attend the medical examination because of X-rays a.s.o. It might be probably a delay... Can this delay "throw" us under the efects of the new famous regulations?! My application is in Bucharest, Romania. I do not know how the practice is here: how long after the interview, if successfull, we can make the med exams, or they would give us some papers for med exams?!

Ionut

If an applicant becomes pregnant, then she should advise the Canadian Government of the situation. In such cases the Canadian processing center will usually wait until the applicant has given birth, and expect the medical results shortly after that time. In addition, the new born child will usually be added to the application as dependant. All of this may, of course, cause a delay in receiving a final decision on the application, as the process must await the birth of the new child.

In terms of the other question, we can say that determining whether or not a file submitted before December 17, 2001 will fall under the new or old regulations does not relate to when the applicant conducts the medical exam. Rather, that determination is based upon when the applicant receives an interview, or interview waiver.

The current Canadian Minister of Immigration announced a plan to ease the transition to the proposed immigration rules. Those who applied to immigrate to Canada in the skilled-worker category before December 17 2001 will continue to be assessed under the current (old) selection criteria until January 1 2003. Those same applicants who do not have a selection decision by that date will be subject to the new Regulations with a pass mark of 70 points, rather than the 75 that had been proposed.

Cases submitted after December 17th 2001, and who do not receive a selection decision by June 28th (which is still expected to be the implementation date) will be subject to the new criteria, and a higher pass mark (possibly less than the 80 points previously proposed).