reesim06

Good advice, put a little more effort into looking and the London office has a 9 month processing time!

Is there any other way to move the wife which would be quicker than PR? We could pick this up later or have it processing?

christmasoompa

9 months would be unusual, for most UK citizens it's quicker than that - that time includes applicants from other countries such as Pakistan (which bizarrely are also processed via the London visa office), and they tend to push the average time up.

Depends if she would qualify for any other visa route, but tbh that's about as quick as you'll get it unless she can find a job offer tomorrow! You could apply for it now though and then move when it's in process, if you can show the immigration officer that you've applied then she'll be given entry as a visitor until she receives PR.

HTH.

reesim06

I think that's the important bit, she could travel on a visit visa with PR in process. I have no doubt that she'll get through PR given our circumstances and her history, but I don't want to annoy the immigration folks by cheating!

You're all awesome! Just hope the job offer comes through with lots of 0's on the salary!

christmasoompa

Yep, just make sure that PR is well underway when you go - I think the general advice is to get past the 'sponsor approved' bit first, then she'll be admitted with you.

Good luck with the job offer!

Siouxie

It should be mentioned that as a Canadian Citizen you can sponsor your wife from outside of Canada, there is no need for you to be residing in Canada. She will need to 'land' to gain her Permanent Residency but if she needs to return to the UK whilst you wait for your job offer, she would retain PR as she would be accompanying a Canadian Citizen.

Here is the application pack you need to use: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/informa...cations/fc.asp

You can ascertain if your children are already Citizens by using this tool from the CIC website: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/citizen...es/tool_04.asp

You and your children can travel to Canada on your British Passports if you don't have time to obtain Canadian ones, though I would suggest applying for the childrens Certificates of Citizenship as soon as possible as they take ages to be processed. http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/informa...ons/minors.asp

I gave you all the links in my first post for the information you needed ( repeated in italics at the top of this for ease of reference)

reesim06

I got to the correct answer after reading through a few times, didn't want to believe it would take 9 months! :P

Thanks for the help

christmasoompa

In which case, don't look at parental sponsorship times, or threads from those that applied as Skilled Workers and were still awaiting visas after five years........

Those on the forum that don't have a Canadian spouse will be very jealous of your speedy PR timeline!

merylbaz

Applying to sponsor my husband took from Dec 1st 2011 - Jan 16th 2012, then his application took until September 2012 to be approved, as he had to take a TB test (for no apparent reason!). People having to take the test seems to be common just lately?
I applyed for my kids citizenship in Sept 2011 and recieved it last week!!!
Though most people do seem to get theirs within about 5 months, don't know why mine took so long
Just to give you an idea of my timescale,

reesim06

Thanks for the detail, obviously different for everyone!

Due to the cost I'll not be starting the PR paperwork until I have a job offer in writing, hopefully they'll be giving me a large window for moving over!

oopsbuddy

It obviously depends on your personal financial circumstances, but my advice FWIW would be to start the process now, regardless of a job offer, if you can afford the outlay. Especially if you will likely revisit this at a later date in the event that the current job offer doesn't materialise. My own circumstances are quite similar, I am the sponsor (approved) and our kids have their Citizenship cards from 2011. My wife's PR application is now pending and will probably take a few more months yet. I should have done this years ago, but doing it now is OK too, so that we have "all our ducks in a row" for when we do finally head over. When that time comes for you, wouldn't it be much better to have everybody's paperwork sorted beforehand, and have that much less to worry about? As far as the cost is concerned, think of it as an investment....and that other old adage also applies, ie, "it's only expensive the day you pay for it"!

Just my advice, but your circumstances may not allow it, it's up to you.

christmasoompa

I'm another vote for starting it now, if you think there's any possibility of wanting to move to Canada in the future. Once she's got PR, then at least she'd have it for the future.

Plus of course, from a practical point of view visa fees will only increase in the future, and the visa fees are actually a fairly small part of the huge cost of emigrating. Better to spend that now and have her visa status sorted before you move than spend £20k or so moving your family over and then find that's she's refused maybe?

reesim06

We will start the process when some of the pennies are in place, there's a fair chunk coming from the selling of stuff we're not moving. The majority of our moving costs are going to be paid once I leave my current job, and I'm not silly enough to do that before I have an offer in writing!

On the plus side, if I have to move then wait for the wife and kids to follow, I'll get a few months of quiet mornings!

oopsbuddy

I won't labour this point too much, but in order to genuinely give you a helpful steer on this whole thing (I've gone through it already!) and in keeping with all the advice already given, I REALLY recommend that you start work on all of this now, while you have a little free time, as you may not appreciate how long these things take, and how much effort is required. You can spread the cost too.

First, submit citizenship applications for each of your kids. The cost of this is minimal, I think it's still CA$75 each, and you can pay that by credit card online. You then have minimal form filling to do (compared to what you'll have to do later for you (as sponsor) and for your wife (for her PR)) but send off their applications (you also have to get lots of identical (and very size-specific) photos of each), and ours took around 6 months to arrive,...with no hitches involved! Once obtained, they are forever! By completing this process, you will also learn a lot about what will be required for the next stage.

Then get on with the Sponsor/PR application. There is a lot to do, and it will still take a long time to organise, submit, then wait for it to be processed. There will be medicals required for your wife, photos again (many!), police checks (and don't get these police checks until you are nearly ready to send off your application as they are only valid for three months from date of issue).

I'm only trying to save you some grief and panic later on, as you will have enough on your plate when it comes to moving your life and your family to another continent.

So if the offer comes through in the next few months, you have at least got PR & citizenship applications underway, which will be very useful at immigration (I presume), and if you don't move until later, you will at least be able to step off the plane as a family and hit the ground running.

Trust me, I mean well, and there is a lot to organise, but as Christmasoompa said earlier, you are very lucky to have this option to pursue.

Very best of luck with it all.