Twitcher1958

We regularly read posts on BE so thought some of you may be interested in our time line showing our journey to Canada.
OH started working here at end of November 2009 on TWP and soon after we started gathering the information for his FSW2 application, complicated by the fact that the rest of us were still in the UK - daughter did GCSEs in May/June 2010.
Then got caught up in the changes and had to wait a while to get a space to do IELTS so it was November 2010 before application was submitted.
Since then, the relevant dates are:

Application filed CIO Sydney 24 Nov 2010
PER 28 Feb 2011
Request for meds and police checks 25 July 2011
Meds done 31 August 2011
Police checks and RPRF sent 16 September 2011
Passport request 13 October 2011
Passports sent 19 October
Passports back 10 November
Trip to local CIC office 14 November

So all in all it's taken a year minus 10 days. At least we can now relax for a while and look forward to receiving our PR cards back in approx 8 weeks.

Elen1981

Congratulations

I have applied as the main applicant with my partner for FSW2 except with AEO. We applied in Dec 2010 so pretty close to your timeframe except we still haven't received any medical requests

As there are not alot of FSW2 applications on the forum it's nice to get some positive feedback for those applications.

Fingers crossed we won't be too far behind you. Good luck

Dave n Ailsa

Thanks for the post.

I'm confused about the police checks though.

I thought they were sent with the initial application?

Twitcher1958

OH had a police check done some while ago, but can't find details at present of when or why, but it hadn't been requested of me previous to 25 July this year.

NicknBridget

We also applied FSW Cat 2 in December 2010 and no meds requests for us either. We've been 'in process' since June 8 according to ECAS.
Let's hope we hear something soon :-)

Mad Jockette

Twitcher

Congratulations

Elen1981

Hi NicknBridget

Yeah our application has been 'in process' since March 2011 according to ecas!

Seems a long time to be in process, and we seemed to bypass the 'received by Visa Office' stage!

Fingers crossed we will be get some good news soon and that the Dec 2010 applications are next on their list

helcat12

They are no.
CIC were a bit rubbish in that they messed about with the rules on this and changed their minds several times in very quick succession about the time we were gathering our docs and applying. (August/September 2010)

When we were collecting the stuff, the rules were you had to include Police checks.

Then just before we applied, they changed that to say they didn't want the Police checks at the start (but to wait until they were requested by the VO.)

Then, just after we submitted our app on Sept 7th 2010, the decided to say that you could submit them if you wanted to.

So, there were three changes in the space of a handful of weeks on this issue!

We are still awaiting Meds Requests.
Time since application as Cat 2 (LMO/TWP currently working in Canada) 63 and a half weeks. or nearly 15 calendar months.

sheera67

i applied 5 days before you for fsw2 and like many others im only at recieved by visa office on ecas, i really dont know what is happening, bt canada pr has become a real dissapointment to me and my family now

helcat12

My sympathy.
We have taken a calculated risk by giving up what we had in the UK for a 2 year TWP and just hope that the job is secure now until PR does come.

Looking at figures that Mac2 posted on another thread, for reasons as yet unknown the rejection rate for FSW has risen to 89% for those applying under Ministerial Instructions 2 (that is from June 26th 2010 to around the same time this year).
I cannot see why this should be so but those are the official figures.

Whatever they are doing that is resulting in such a high rejection rate might be affecting processing times at London.

Elen1981

This is a scary percentage rate I would hate to think that all this stress could result in possible rejection.

I wonder what sort of reasons are being presented for such rejections?

helcat12

Well, all the usual reasons apply to Cat 1s, such as failure to provide all the documents, documents being unverifiable or falsified, work experience not checking out, points for family members in Canada under adaptability not proven, points generally not met once they have looked at education, failure to provide acceptable proof of funds etc.

For Cat2, it is well known that many job offers cited under AEO are fraudulent, the majority of those from VOs such as New Delhi (which has a very high rejection rate, I believe). Cat 2s also get rejected for the same reasons as Cat 1, where applicable.

Why the rejection rate has risen to much just for post June 2010 applications is not clear to me and since I cannot work out were to find the info for just London, which is what I am interested in, I am not sure if this rise in rejections is pertinent to us or not.

I seems so high that I suspect it is relevant to all VOs and that there has been some sort of tightening up on their processing criteria which we don't know about.
But as I have said before, as far as London goes it doesn't seem to be affecting the quick processing of Islamabad Cat 1 applications (many of which are going through in 6 months) so why it should be affecting us I have no idea.

Another of CIC's mysterious ways of working that makes people wait and worry...

Mac2

Below are the figures for London only (just enable macros when opening the excel sheet and change from 'all points of service' to London-RPC).

I think the 1 at is incorrect as the last entry for MI-2 but I have just copied it directly from the sheet.

Immigration Categories Last 12 Months
July 1, 2010 to June 30, 2011
Cases Passed Cases Refused Approval Rate* Total # of Visas Issued

Total Skilled Workers 4,137 / 3,486 / 54% / 13,357
Quebec Skilled Workers 143 / 14 / 91% / 212
Federal Skilled Workers (Pre-C-50**) 2,437 / 1,241 / 66% / 8,143
Total Federal Skilled Workers (C-50**) 1,557 / 2,231 / 41% / 5,002
Federal Skilled Workers (Pre MI-1) 424 / 233 / 65% / 1,428
Federal Skilled Workers (MI-1) 1,109 / 1,993 / 36% / 3,573
Federal Skilled Workers (MI-2) 24 / 5 / 83% / 1

helcat12

Thanks Mac2 - I couldn't get it to do it at all but then my IT skills are puny!

These figures clearly show that London has been working on backlog cases as a priority and not on MI2 as a priority as was previously stated by CIC.

They have clearly also taken a harder line with outstanding MI1 applications to cut their workload and so clear the backlog by weeding out cases early on in the processing at VO.

I am not hopeful that we will get our PR within the next 6 months if they have only processed 24 MI2 applications in a year.
They are just creating another backlog to deal with.
Maybe it is time to consider applying for PNP......

Mac2

Hi Helcat,

I remain positive that things will progress for us in the new year! There are a lot of applicants with later AOR's all watching us for movement, as we did the ones in front of us. I hope we can lead the way soon!

Mac2.