All the delays and errors described in that post add to an extra complication for Quebec applicants: this province must issue the non-Canadian spouse a Certificate of Selection of Quebec (CSQ), which can only be issued once Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) sends the spouse a letter authorizing the issuance of this document.
The CSQ is absolutely necessary to start the second stage of the process. Until CIC doesn't receive it, the application already approved in first stage can't arrive to a Decision Made (DM) stage.
According to an Operational Bulletin (1) from CIC, this letter should be sent when it's found that the sponsor meets the Federal requirements.
However, before August, 2014, according to records kept by applicants in the Inland Sponsorship category, CIC would send the letter approving the issuance of the CSQ around two months after the Acknowledgement of Receipt (AOR) was issued. This changed during the second half of 2014: now the letter is sent after first stage approval has been achieved (17 months).
Extra two months for Quebec applicants
This means, for Quebec applicants, around two additional months of waiting, on top of the 25 months of estimated processing times.
From the date CIC sends a correspondence to the moment the couple receives it, around a week or week and a half has passed.
The Ministère de l’Immigration, de la Diversité et de l’Inclusion (MIDI) takes a month to issue the CSQ once all the paperwork has been filled, and then it will take another month for CIC to enter the CSQ into their system once received.
CIC mistakenly sent letters
Between February 26th and 27th of 2015, CIC sent letters to Quebec applicants requesting them to apply to Undertaking and CSQ at the MIDI.
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| Template letter sent to applicants on February 26th/27th, 2015 |
So far, 20 applicants have reported receiving this letter and applying as indicated in the instructions. After sending the application, these people received a letter on March 13th, indicating that the previous letter was a mistake, and that they should not send an application to the MIDI.
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| Template letter sent to applicants on March 13th, 2015 |
Couples reported calling to the CIC call centre and receiving contradictory information. As all correspondence from CIC is signed with initials (see image above), applicants have no knowledge of who is processing their applications, so they can't ask the officer in charge about these changes.
So far, Citizenship and Immigration Canada has not given an official statement about the reasons behind this error, other than what was stated in the letter sent to applicants: "an automated mailing system (...) mistakenly issued you this correspondence."
No healthcare for 17 months
As you might know from our previous post, CIC launched a 1-year pilot program on December 2014 to grant Open Work Permits to sponsored spouses upon Acknowledgement of Receipt (AOR), a program that has reported flaws in its implementation (see previous post for more details)
Unfortunately, even Quebec applicants who receive OWP under the pilot program are still not eligible to receive healthcare, since they also need a CSQ to be granted a Carte d'Assurance Maladie, despite the fact that they are allowed to work and must pay taxes for their income.
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Why this affects you as a Canadian
Other links that might interest you:
Inland Spousal Sponsorship: One of the categories that fell further behindInland Sponsors' demonstration in Ottawa: Our first day of shootingWhy this affects you as a Canadian
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Sources:
1. Operational bulletin 295-A: Change in Procedures for Processing Quebec Family Class Applications – Modified. Citizenship and Immigration Canada. Retrieved: March 17, 2015.
