My mother in law received a multiple entry visitor visa (not a super visa) in August 2017 (expires in about 5 years on the same date her passport expires) and she flew to stay with us and at the time we figured it would be the full 6 months allowed per visit. A few weeks ago we decided to apply for an extension so that she could experience summer here as well. On Thursday, we received a request for her to have a medical and it noted that she would have implied status until Feb 18 (Original 6 months would expire Feb 11) to obtain the medical. She initially didn't require a medical and we were told by cic that it wasn't necessary unless requested which would be fine.
However, after applying, we remembered that there was a important family event towards the end of March and that she was going to go back at that point either way. Because of this, once we got the medical request, we decided it wasn't worth the cost of having it done since she would only be staying an extra 3-4 weeks. But then, on Friday, we received another notice from the CIC portal stating that her extension application had been approved and that the paperwork was in the mail.
Given the fact that implied status exists, I don't see why they would give an approval unless the application was fully approved and not contingent on a medical. The approval letter stated nothing about implied status, just approval. We were about to buy her return ticket this weekend, but if she is already approved to stay until she wanted to go home in mid March, then of course she would stay that long. But ticket prices fluctuate quite a bit and there can be a $500 plus swing in ticket prices the closer you get to the travel dates. So if she is leaving in February, we want to buy as soon as possible.
So my questions:
1) Has anyone been in a situation where they received full approval right after a request for a medical?
2) Of course we will contact CIC, but in your experience, do you think she still needs the medical since they gave her a full approval the day after the initial request?
3) Is there potentially any issue with her not following through on the extension after applying for it? I feel like it looks bad that she cancels the application after the medical request. But if she was going to be staying for more than a few extra weeks we would absolutely go through with the medical.
4) My wife was reading somewhere that if they don't stamp a date on her passport when she arrives, she is actually able to stay up to one year, not 6 months as we assumed and they did not stamp a required exit date on her passport. Has anyone heard of this before?
