I'm very confused by the processing times as well. On the website of the London visa office, at http://www.canadainternational.gc.ca/united_kingdom-royaume_uni/visas/processing-traitement.aspx it says that all study permits take 8-10 weeks to process, regardless of the application being online or paper-based. However, I happened to stumble upon the page of the Paris visa office, where I found this sentence:
[url=http://www.canadainternational.gc.ca/france/visas/processing-traitement.aspx]http://www.canadainternational.gc.ca/france/visas/processing-traitement.aspx[/url] said:
Study permit :
Online Online or through the VAC: 10 working days (Note: Applications submitted online for students who do not require a visa in addition to the study permit will be processed as applications submitted inside Canada. For information on processing times, please see the
CIC website.)
When you follow the link to the CIC website, it says that online study permit applications submitted from inside Canada only take 29 days to process. So if I understood correctly, study permits for people from visa exempt countries that are also processed in the Paris office take only 29 days, and it always takes 8-10 weeks if your application has to be processed in London, regardless if you're visa exempt or not? If this is true, it feels kind of unfair... I'm from a visa exempt country too! I want my application to be processed in 29 days!