Newcomers get improved wait times
By Albert Smith | Mon, 07/27/2009 - 22:24
According to a study from Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC), applications of prospective newcomers to Canada were processed at a rate twelve percent faster than 2007. The report revealed that it did not took more than thirty three months for eighty percent of the applications to be processed, which is clearly an improvement from the time period of thirty seven months in 2007.
The Canadian government holds the view that slow processing of applications of prospective immigrants is one of the reasons why many highly educated and talented immigrants choose not to immigrate to Canada and go to competitor countries like the US, UK, and Australia.
Though the government is boasting about the improvement in wait times, critics say that this slight improvement will not make Canada look more promising than it earlier was, as they say that wait times are still longer than they used to be in 2004. In addition to this, critics also point out that some business-class immigrants still have wait for as long as seven years for the processing of their applications.
On the negative side, processing times for family members went up with processing times for eighty percent of spouses going up from eight months in 2007 to eleven months now, and eighty percent of children applications were processed in ten months.
Another worrying factor is the discrepancies that have arisen in terms of applications processing from citizens of different countries. India, Pakistan and Philippines are some the countries with longer wait times than others.
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