Hello Leon

[again001]

 Any information on local offices apart from Etobicoke and Scarborough?
Would change of address lead to a complication? I was thinking of changing my address to Vancouver or somewhere in Ontario where processing times are not too long. I don't know if my mailing address and home address can be different.

If I do you think the officer handling the case might ask why we had to change our address?

[Leon]

Since your file has already been sent to the local office where you live, I think you should better ride it out.  Transferring your file to another office at this point might take even longer and if you move it to Vancouver or whereever, are you going to go there if they want you to interview?

[again001]

Hi Leon, my wife and I went to the Citizenship and Immigration Centre at St Claire,Toronto. They pulled up our file and gave us the reason it was transferred. The reason is a little ridiculous. They say my wife had received social assistance. My wife is in college since 2007 and is not on any assistance. I am not on assistance. We support ourselves.

We went to the MP's office and they asked us to get letters from the social services stating we are not on assistance ...we have got those letters and mailed them already.

The second reason they gave was to prove our relationship to be bona fide. We sent alot of supporting documents ...I'm wondering if we have to invite an immigration officer to come watch us where we stay and how we sleep at night. It's very sad. They told us the back log in Etobicoke is 3yrs. We are thinking of transferring our files.

Thanks Leon for the support.

[Leon]

The backlog is 3 years when people have already provided all documents or what?

[again001]

Yes 3 yrs after everything has been submitted. The officer even told us the file will just sit on the shelves until it gets to its turn.

[Leon]

Have you asked if you can have your file transferred?  3 years sounds a bit crazy.  You are just supposed to postpone your life until then?  Immigrate somewhere else in the meantime?

[again001]

Yes Leon, the officer told us we can transfer our file but transferring to other centres around the Greater Toronto Area won't do us much good because the wait times are almost the same.

[Leon]

If you ask for the file to be transferred, do you have to be living in that area?  The problem with most of those immigration offices is that they don't take calls.  Have you tried calling CIC call centre and ask them if they have access to the waiting times for each office?  If not, you probably will have to go visit the CIC offices in towns within day trip driving range and find out their back logs.

[again001]

I think walking into the offices and talking to those immigration officers as we did is better than calling and talking to those 'Half-trained' call centre representatives.

My wife and I have worked so hard to get established and we continue to provide help to the population.We started an organization doing our best to assist(www.inalor.org).We are now thinking of moving out of Canada.