Has anyone else been screwed by the Canadian trade office no longer doing residency visas for Taiwanese? I just got married and my wife and I are going through all the immigration papers before I leave in 1 month. Before, according to the Canadian governments immigration site the processing time from Taipei was 5 months. Now i go to their website and it says they have stopped this service and now all resident visa applications will have to go through Hong Kong and the processing time is 19 months. I was just at the office this past summer to get marriage documents verified and no one there told me about this. Do they really expect married couples to be apart for 19 months? Can anyone giver some insight on this time frame if they have gone through the new process?
holy shit, thats incredibly ridiculous! I know that since Taiwan and Canada did that vise free entry thing, canada closed up shop for visas and like yous aid you go to hong kong or somewhere.
19 month sis beyond bad. I know Canada in generally is usually really bad at these kinds of things, but that is amazingly horrible even for Canada. I cant say i have every walked away form the embassy here feeling like i accomplished much more than a headache…
Thanks for posting though as we are planning to do the same as you but are planning to leave in 2013. I was thinking of doing the paperwork in summer 2012, but maybe i should get cracking now…???
Yep do it now, my wife has been looking at chinese websites and the new norm now from here is actually 21 months. This is pretty much ruining my life now. I just got into grad school and was relying on the old waiting time of 5 months which is reasonable. Im so furious, youd think they could have mentioned this to me when i went to ask them some other questions about 5 months ago.
How much more could they give you if you raised holy hell at the consulate
worth it i bet
Processing for anything with the Canadian government takes a long time. I’m currently going through the citizenship application/testing process for my wife and stepkids (who have PR). Takes up to 13 months as well for this!!!
They’ve just announced some changes (I believe this week). Family applications for parents etc. have been suspended temporarily to deal with the backlog but in the future more applications will be taken.
I just looked at the website http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/information/offices/apply-where.asp. Perhaps your wife could go there on a six month visitor’s visa and then apply for an extension. This may allow her to stay up to a year while her PR is being processed. Unfortunately, she wouldn’t be able to work on visitor’s visa.
Kent
Suggest you look into doing when on the ground there. Contact the immigration office closest to where you will reside in Canada and find out what their processing procedures are. Trade offices do exactly that: Focus on trade. Everything else is just extraneous procedures they obliged out of “diplomacy”.
I dont want my wife to come to Canada on a visitor visa because then she cant work and will be bored stiff. when i go back to Canada and apply for the residency card her documents are then shipped to HK, there is no way around this. Currently Taiwanese married to Canadians wait 19 months on average according to the website, mainland chinese only 4! In fact the office in Hk is among the slowest in the world. I cant belive my government expects Canadian citizens to be seperated from thier wives for almost 2 years. I cant even inquire because the immigration hotline can only be reached from Canada and when i call the HK office i cant reach a real person. Im hoping that since our case is fairly straight forward and that i am applying with her outside the country it will be faster than most. Anyone with any experinces since the trade office in Taipei stopped handling this?
Although it wouldnt help your cause. writing upa story and sending it to a canadian media giant like CBC might spark some small ripples in canada enough that they may go form being 100% incompetent d bags to actually deal with things in at least as slow manner (as opposed to almost standstill)
it is hard to imagine a countrys gov actually directly causing a couple to separate for so long, there must be another way as even the canadian government cant actually be THAT useless…or can it???
that said on the radio in canada repeated to me through my mother said that somethign to do with immigration has been suspended for 2 years. Of course the reason for such an action, as is always the case in canada, is to “better serve everyone”. I get the feeling you and your wife being apart for 19 months probabyl isnt in the best interest of you guys… :loco:
They stopped accepting visas for parents and grandparents to deal with the backlog of applicants like my self who are trying to sponsor spouses and children. The thing i dont get is why it takes so damm long to get a Taiwanese spouse in, when they dont even need visas anymore to visit. I mean China, Pakistan, let them wait because these countries have been know to fake marriages, security threats ect but Taiwan? I tried calling the HK consulate but cant speak to an actual person. This is basically ruining my last few weeks in Taiwan, and could cause some serious stress for up to 19 months.
More like they just don’t want immigrants period because a lot of people don’t like it.
It’s more to do with people being uncomfortable around other culture, and the fear that they may lose their cultural identity if people had the freedom to live in any country in the world, so every country erects artificial barrier to protect their identity.
I think the only reason any countries allow visitors for up to a certain period of time is because of money.