Family Class
Canada has a carefully managed and controlled immigration program that is committed to maintaining a balance of 60% economic immigrants and 40% non-economic immigrants (family class, refugees, and those in need of protection). Amongst non-economic immigrants, priority is given to spouses/partners and dependent children. As a result, processing times for other components of the family class will continue to grow. This means, at this time, applicants in categories other than spouse, partner or child are experiencing longer processing times. These times will likely exceed those originally provided to you/your relative and will probably continue to increase.

We continue to work hard to make our processing as efficient as possible with the resources that we have, while at the same time bearing in mind the capacity of our settlement community to support and assist newcomers with their transition toward making Canada their home. In the past five years, Canada has accepted a total of more than 300,000 people under the Family Class for immigration.

While we understand the wishes of sponsors and their families to be reunited, and that longer processing times can be frustrating for those seeking to bring family members to Canada, we hope that this information will help explain the delays that some are experiencing.

On 18 April 2005, the Minister announced a large increase in our visa-issuance targets for the parents and grandparents category. The Visa Office in New Delhi is currently working on a strategy to meet the new targets while continuing to deal with the various other priorities we have on hand.

After a preliminary review of our existing inventory, we estimate being able to finalize in 2005 those cases whose applications were received prior to the end of March 2003. This is an approximate date, therefore, as our plans gel and we determine to what extent the cases involve complications, the date may change slightly. Those cases where applications were received after March 2003 will be processed within the context of the targets allotted to us for 2006 and subsequent years.

In the meantime, we would appreciate your patience and understanding as we undertake this considerable challenge. We anticipate having a better sense of our processing times for parents and grandparents in approximately three months when our procedures for handling this additional work are fully in place.

We are currently processing family class applications according to these time frames:

Stage of Processing Current Processing Times For Straightforward Cases
Family Class application [spouse, partner, child] — From the date the application is received at Case Processing Centre — Mississauga
First review 4 months
Interview 6 months
Family Class application [All other relatives except parents/grandparents] — From the date the application is received in Delhi
Confirmation of receipt of application 12 months
First Review 34 months
Interview 50 months

FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE VISIT: http://www.INDIA.GC.CA" rel="nofollow">LINK