Gezza

Judging by the slowing tempo of this forum could anyone say if there is still a number of people in U.K. eagerly awaiting their visas to move to Canada or are we seeing the end of the trend?

MarkG

There's nearly a five-year waiting list, if that's any help?

I would guess the insane wait has put off plenty of people who would otherwise be looking at emigrating.

CrazyCal

I think the long wait is off-putting for some but trust me there are still people like myself that cannot wait to move to Canada. I'd be there tomorrow if I could!

edinburgh

hi we are waiting for confirmation our application has been acepted , i am trying to come in via the investor route as i was told this is the quickest
but with 5 years being the norm! i am not sure how much quicker my application will be looked at .

i try to get on with life in the UK as wishing time away is not good for the hairline.

DCuz99

I second that. I would not turn my nose up if the fabled brown letter landed on my doorstep any time soon!

iaink

I suspect they just look at emigrating somewhere else instead.

MarkG

Well, yes, there was an implied 'to Canada' on the end of that sentence .

Arris

It sure is a long wait. But to those who really want to move to Canada & it's their only way in, they are prepared to wait - that's what we're doing, we have a plot of land waiting for us & have a picture of it by the front door to remind us of what we have waiting, we also have family & friends waiting for us.

Hubby & I would love to go tomorrow - wouldn't we all

But waiting 4-5 years out of the rest of your life isn't very long.

Looking ahead it does seem an age away, but look back 4-5 years & it seems like a year or two ago.

Mizz Teapot

I can't believe the waiting list is 5 years now a days. :scared: We send in our application for immigration in July 1999 and in Dec 1999 we've got our visas. Wonder what have changed over the past 5 years?

MarkG

I'm not sure exactly how the system was in 1999, but compared to when I first started looking at emigrating around 2001 they've removed the variable points score by occupation, and they've biased the system towards couples. The former means that a lot more people qualify, and the latter means that more visas are given to people who wouldn't qualify if they applied individually themselves (e.g. unskilled husbands and young children).

They tried to limit the problems by having a high points score, but that disqualified most people who didn't have a job or relatives in Canada, so that wasn't a good move either.

tom5sk

I think you are right, a report in in national papers was saying that about over 1000 Brits were emigrating each day but were being replaced by twice as many coming in from abroad (new EU countries etc)

As Canada only took just over 5000 last year a lot of our fellow rats have to escape elsewhere.

Just thankful it was only 2.5 year wait not the 5 faced by new applicants

MikeUK

I expect the wait to get longer

The bias in government is toward encouraging the work visa route, and then encouraging (forcing) them to take PR later

that way the right jobs are filled and the highly qualified taxi drivers reduced

can't say I blame them

pennyhp

I think (and I could be wrong) that in 2003 ish they put the points way up and didn't get enough applications (because not enough skilled workers could qualify) so then they reduced the points to what they are now and have been flooded with applications ever since. Hence the ever growing queue and ever lengthening wait times.

Penny

monique

I think the 5 year wait is ridiculous and hope the immigration department will clean their act and their backlog in the near future. What attracts you to Canada so much, any particular reason, any particular city?.

MarkG

I think the best way to look at Canadian 'skilled worker' immigration is as a lottery: if you pick a 'winning ticket' you'll get a visa in under a year, if you pick a 'losing ticket' you'll wait five years and get denied because they just raised the points score or changed systems. If you pick something in between you'll get there eventually, but may have retired by the time you do so .