December 2019 Inland Spousal Sponsorship- Waiting & Frustration

[KR8994]

I submitted a paper application for my inland spousal to sponsor PR. They began the process in February 2020. The estimated completion is in December 2020 but we have not received a single update till date. No biometric request, no medical request. I called IRCC and talked to customer service rep who stated there is a delay in the application process due to COVID crisis. It's been 9 months, no progress. We are really frustrated waiting for any update. Spouse's work permit ends in November 2020, so will have to apply for an extension soon.
Hope there will be a movement in the application process soon.
Is anyone having similar issues?

 

[primaprime]

Processing times are indeed severely delayed so your case is nothing out of the ordinary.

 

[burlvisa]

It's very slow right now and you wont hear anything for months, which is normal for the PR process. The PR process takes about a year but because of COVID it will take even longer.

Did you apply for the Spousal Open Work Permit when applying for the PR?
- If you did then you don't need to apply for another work permit. The CIC website should have listed that they received the work permit application. If it doesnt list that then you should use the webform to ask them to verify that they received that.

Based on your wording It sounds like you didnt apply for the spousal work permit.
-If you didnt apply for it then you should apply to renew the work visa now. You must apply for a work permit before the current one expires. The processing time for a work permit is normally 4 months but because of COVID it took us 7.5 months.

Whatever you have or have not done already you might end up waiting for a work permit to arrive for a while after the current one expires. This means you are implied to have legal status before the next work visa arrives (AKA implied status). I was in a similar situation and I wrote a post about what to do regarding OHIP. Here is a link if it's relevant:
https://www.canadavisa.com/canada-immigration-discussion-board/threads/ohip-coverage-during-implied-status.386638/post-8863146

I also want to suggest you visit the thread for whatever month you applied and see how other people are doing. there is a spreadsheet in there where people post their progress. It's really useful.