My wife has been accepted as a Canadian PR. We began the immigration process on September 15, 2015 and she was accepted May 20, 2016, took about 9 months in total which we are incredibly grateful for, we were expecting 18-24 months. She still has to attend a "Pre-departure orientation session" which seems a little unnecessary, we think it's just a way for the Phil's to make some extra money since it's not sponsored at all or required at all by the Canadian government but it is required for her to get on the plane to leave the country. She will attend the orientation on June 17, I had already booked a flight to visit her for 6 weeks and we can't get a refund for all of our expenses so I will visit before she will come here, we are planning her flight to Canada for August 14.
Here is our Timeline:
We were married on July 24, 2015 and sent out our application 2 months later on September 14, 2015, a week prior to sending our application I saw an immigration lawyer just to review our application, spent $100 CAD and that was the best $100 I ever spent, she gave plenty of great advice and made some important changes on our application, I credit our application being completed without issue to her, tho she was very impressed when she saw our application saying I did an excellent job on providing all pertinent information and additional info regarding our relationship. I would advise everyone to spend that extra $100 and get their application reviewed by a professional before sending it off.
There was no interview for our application which we really thought there would be due to my disability, the lawyer believed there would be an interview due to this and could even cause issues in our acceptance, those in the Philippines with a major disability are generally shunned or kept hidden from the public so we thought Darla would have had to go for an interview to prove why she loves me to a stranger, glad she didn't have to go through that.
Sponsorship in the Ontario Mississauga office:
We received your application to sponsor Darlene N. on September 15, 2015.
We sent you correspondence acknowledging receipt of your application(s) on November 4, 2015.
We started processing your application on November 3, 2015.
For some reason on the website it still says "In Process" but I was accepted to Sponsor in the beginning of December, took a little longer than expected, about 2 weeks past the average time.
Permanent Residence in the Manila Visa Office:
We received Darlene N.'s application for permanent residence on September 15, 2015.
We started processing Darlene N.'s application on December 8, 2015.
Medical results have been received.
Now says "Decision Made" on the website but no other info, they are pretty bad at updating the website.
The previous was copied directly from the website, the following info is written by me:
May 20, 2016 Darlene's PR was accepted and confirmed.
Gave passport to the Visa Office to be sent to the Canadian Embassy May 20, 2016. (This office is a third party office outsourced by the Canadian and
other governments. Be sure to bring $75php for each visit to use their mandatory lockers)
Passport sent and received by the the Canadian Embassy on May 24, 2016
Passport was returned to the Visa Office with the Canadian Visa stamp on June 9, 2016
Picked up Visa and additional info on June 10, 2016
Future Timeline:
Attend Pre-departure orientation session June 17, 2016
Book flight to Canada June 18, 2016 (if everything during that orientation runs smooth and they don't force anything else)
Arrive in Toronto Canada August 14, 2016 and truly begin our lives together.
Very excited to begin that last step. Hope our timeline helps those that are waiting patiently (or impatiently) for their results, not knowing is the hardest part. I really wished they would keep people more informed about what is going on so people can make plans or not make plans in our case around that. I would have happily paid more for this process if it meant that we would be updated regularly. With the new Liberal government in Canada processing times all around should be reduced so good luck to everyone and hope you are as lucky as we are.