PR acceptance letter received! But we have a baby now

[brendenwb]

So here is the story:
I am a Canadian citizen by birth (both my parents are Canadian)
I met and married my wife about 3 years ago while doing business abroad in China.
My wife is a Chinese national and we have applied and received a confirmation/acceptance letter for her approval as a permanent resident (sponsored through me) as well as a permanent resident visa in her passport which lists a specific time period in which she needs to enter Canada to fulfill the residency.
NOTE: she was pregnant at the beginning of application and during the initial health exam.

Great, she can go to Canada!!! Or so we thought...
We gave birth to our first baby more than 5 months prior to her application being accepted. She immediately went to finish the X-ray portion of the health exam and I informed the immigration office in Beijing of the birth of our new baby through email and case specific notification form...although I had not been issued a birth certificate until a month later
Well...as i didn't expect....not a single reply. My wife sent it from her email about a half month after the baby was born as well and no reply....
I decided to not just sit around waiting for the immigration office to check their email (which should be done at least weekly if you ask me) and I went ahead and applied for a citizenship certificate for her as advised by citizenship services Canada. They told me it would take up to a year, but that I could apply for a travel passport for my baby if we needed to travel to Canada.

5 months later we receive the acceptance letter and visa for my wife. Amazing feeling!
But together was a notification that if there was any undeclared dependents of the applicant that she must inform CIC immediately and return the passport, letter of acceptance, and the baby's birth certificate to the immigration office.
Now my question is this....are the dependents they are referring to apply to my baby who has already applied for a citizenship certificate. I have looked everywhere and have heard advice from others some saying yes, the baby is a dependent and others saying no, don't worry about it... I would like some proof like a link to CIC. A similar experience.
I don't want to arrive in Canada and have my wife barred entry while me and my baby are allowed to return.

 

[Rob_TO]

The baby is already Canadian, so is not considered a "dependent" for CIC/immigration purposes.

If you already informed the visa office about birth of baby and that they are already Canadian, then don't worry and just go to do the landing whenever you're ready.

 

[brendenwb]

But they didn't acknowledge that they received the information and I didn't back up the info with the baby's birth certificate...

 

[Rob_TO]

But they didn't acknowledge that they received the information and I didn't back up the info with the baby's birth certificate...

Do you have a copy of the correspondence to the visa office? If so then you've done your duty. The baby is already Canadian so really nothing significant needs to change as the COPR would not need to be modified in any way. CIC is more concerned about cases where the new baby is NOT Canadian, so would need to be added to the PR application. In this case you would not be able to land without properly adding the baby to app.

So I would advise still to proceed with the landing, and just keep copies of what you sent to the visa office, though in reality it will most likely never even come up in the future. The immigration officer who does the landing, will not care about Canadian citizen children.

 

[truesmile]

Just for corroboration, I agree 100% with Rob_TO. They likely received the correspondence and discarded it as being a non-issue, without even a thought to let you know that. (Seems to me they only concern themselves with things of "relevance to them".) Go ahead and land.

 

[brendenwb]

Thanks everyone. Just received an official letter from them saying to go ahead without declaring the baby...
However they told me to apply for a limited validity passport while I am waiting for the citizenship certificate for my baby to finish processing. They said all is needed is a proof of travel.
We will travel to Thailand in January to visit a relative of my wife's and want to get a passport for the baby then.
Does anyone know how long it takes to get a limited 2 year validity passport in this situation. I don't want to purchase plane tickets 6 months early. That is just a stupid thing to do. Could someone please give me a link to processing times for this type of passport abroad. I don't mind paying the extra for quicker service...