CPC-M...`Bigger, better, faster' than CPC-V for In-Canada Spousal Sponsorship?

[Ponga]

From CIC operational Bulletin 565 (posted to their website yesterday):

The SCLPC class allows Canadian citizens and permanent residents to sponsor their spouses or common-law partners for permanent residence, provided the spouse or common-law partner co-habits with the sponsor in Canada, has a legal temporary resident status and meets admissibility requirements. Before January 17, 2014, sponsors and their spouses or common-law partners in Canada submitted a complete SCLPC application package – Application to Sponsor, Sponsorship Agreement and Undertaking (IMM 1344 (PDF, 428 KB)), Generic Application Form for Canada (IMM 0008 (PDF, 464 KB)), forms and supporting documents identified in the application guide, and appropriate fees – to the Case Processing Centre in Vegreville (CPC-V) for assessment and processing within Canada.

To improve service and processing efficiency, responsibility for processing SCLPC applications was transferred from CPC-V to CPC-M to leverage its expertise in family class processing. These changes will ensure that Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) continues to meet its operational objectives in support of the Department’s ongoing modernization agenda.
Procedure

Any SCLPC applications that CPC-V has not commenced processing will be routed internally to CPC-M. Upon receipt of these cases, CPC-M will send a letter to the sponsor advising that their application was transferred from CPC-V to CPC-M for assessment and processing.
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Questions:

1. Does this mean that applicants can no longer apply if they are out of status, or is this just an oversight on CIC's part in the language in this bulletin?

2. Any ideas/speculation on what expertise in family class processing CPC-M has over CPC-V?

 

[screech339]

1) it is an interesting use of verbatim for "legal temporary status" as part of the qualification. If this is true, it would force those who are out of status to get back in status within 90 days before they can apply for PR sponsorship. I don't think it affect those who have already submitted their application while out of status. Just only now they have to get back in status first before qualifying for PR sponsorship.

2). Well the CIC-M is a bigger facility compared to CIC-V. So applications may get processed faster through CIC-M due to larger resources, manpower and probably more experienced (big question mark there) in application processing, since a large majority of PR spousal sponsorship are done through CIC-M facility.

This is just my thoughts on it.

Screech339

 

[Rob_TO]

. So applications may get processed faster through CIC-M due to larger resources, manpower and probably more experienced (big question mark there) in application processing, since a large majority of PR spousal sponsorship are done through CIC-M facility.

If they don't hire a lot of new staff at CPC-M to dedicate to inland apps, logically that would mean stage 1 processing for outland applications could see a significant increase over the current 1 month time.

 

[Ponga]

Yeah, the language certainly implies that legal status is now a requirement, but who knows for sure. I agree that those that had applied prior to this bulletin being published, shouldn't be too concerned. However...CIC has failed to issue a bulletin to revise the section in ip08 that mentions the [now outdated] CBSA Administrative Deferral of Removal policy.

Hopefully, you're theory about CPC-M is true as it does make sense.

You have to wonder what happens to the staff at CPC-V with this reduced workload.

 

[Ponga]

If they don't hire a lot of new staff at CPC-M to dedicate to inland apps, logically that would mean stage 1 processing for outland applications could see a significant increase over the current 1 month time.

But that's the dichotomy; Hiring new staff would seem to negate the `efficiency' that CPC-M claims to have over CPC-V.

Maybe some CPC-V staff are being relocated to CPC-M.

 

[Rob_TO]

But that's the dichotomy; Hiring new staff would seem to negate the `efficiency' that CPC-M claims to have over CPC-V.

Maybe some CPC-V staff are being relocated to CPC-M.

Each year CPC-V processes around 10,000 applicants for inland spousal PR.

And each year CPC-M processes around 40,000 applicants for stage 1 approval of outland PR apps.

So that's 10K new ones or a 25% instant increase that will now be dumped on CPC-M. Without new or transferred staff, I don't see how outland stage 1 processing won't be affected. Also stage 1 of outland and inland are very different processes, so I still think they will need to have dedicated staff for each.

 

[Ponga]

This last sentence in the bulletin seems to confirm that the legal status requirement mentioned earlier may be an error in this publication:

Other than this change of location, CIC continues to process all components of SCLPC applications in the same manner.

 

[bealem]

Well if you check the CIC website, CPC-M seems to be up to 52 days processing time for sponsorship applications from 47 days last week. Things are definitely slowing down. Seems like ~3 months (~60 working days) is the expected wait time.

Another couple of questions if I may. I've submitted an outland application to CPC-M to sponsor my spouse from Philippines. Will the Mississauga office process my sponsorship application or Ottawa? I'm confused about the different offices and what their functions are.

Also does anyone know the approval rate for outland sponsorship applications at CPC-M?

Thanks

 

[Rob_TO]

Another couple of questions if I may. I've submitted an outland application to CPC-M to sponsor my spouse from Philippines. Will the Mississauga office process my sponsorship application or Ottawa? I'm confused about the different offices and what their functions are.

Also does anyone know the approval rate for outland sponsorship applications at CPC-M?

All sponsor processing is done at CPC-M. Then after sponsor approval, CPC-M forwards the app to outland office for applicant processing so for you will be Manila.

I assume approval rate for sponsors is very high since it's very rare for sponsor to be rejected, and is usually done only for a very specific reason (like being on welfare, criminal record, PR not residing in Canada, etc).