Hello all,
Well some good news to share - my wife got a call from NDVO earlier today and they explained that the processing is all done for my wife and the visa is ready to be sent out (her application had changed to 'in process' on August 7th). However, they had asked whether she would be able to travel before November 20, which is when her medicals expire.
So our case is not exactly straightforward - we have 3 children who will also be coming with us to Canada. However, the children could not be sponsored because they hold the right to Canadian citizenship (since I was a Canadian citizen when they were all born in India). So basically they are already presumptive Canadian citizens. For the children it is a different process - we need to apply for their proof of Canadian citizenship (and we already did this in July), and that will take 12 months to complete. However since the process to receive the citizenship certificates will take a long time, we were advised that we could apply for a 'facilitation visa' for the kids (which is essentially a normal temporary resident permit visa) - which will allow the children to enter Canada with their parents while the citizenship comes through. The catch: we can only apply for the children's visa once my wife's PR is approved.
So now we're in a bit of a difficult situation here. Since my youngest one is still only 2, there's no way my wife can come into Canada on her own without our children. The options in front of us:
1. Tell NDVO that we can travel before November 20th, and let them send the visa. In fact we were thinking of even going to NDVO directly to pick up my wife's passport and apply for the children's visa right then and there. But only if we receive the kids' visa before Nov 20 will my wife be able to travel. From what I understand normal visas take around 3 weeks to process, and even if we requested for urgent processing, this seems to be quite risky to get it before Nov 20th.
2. Or, as NDVO explained - if we cannot travel before November 20th, then my wife will have to redo the medical (chest xray only), submit this to NDVO again and they will extend the validity of the medicals (I'm not sure by how long more). The question here is if we were to proceed with this option, how much longer will the file be under process and when will the PR be approved. If it's going to take several more months from now, that will be crazy. Both of us are at our wits' ends almost.
NDVO will call my wife tomorrow morning again to check on our decision. I'm not sure if anyone else on the forum has gone through this situation.
I guess my major question is - Has anyone here resubmitted their medicals to NDVO because they expired, and if so, how many more months did this add on to your overall timeline? Any inputs or advice is appreciated.
Thanks for taking the time to go through this lengthy post. Best wishes to everyone to be reunited with their families soon.
