New Ontario provincial nominee program is in effect since February 20, 2009.

It offers immigration opportunities for foreign workers and foreign students, who have a job offer from a Canadian employer. Apparently having a job offer allows an applicant to chose from several immigration programs. We will write more about pros and cons of these programs soon.

This week we have received feedbacks from our clients who used our Pay-and-mail service to forward their applications under the Federal Skilled Worker class to the Centralized Intake Unit (CIU) in Sydney (Nova Scotia).

These reports confirm that the CIU keeps its pace: applications are processed by it within 1 to 2 weeks, thus altogether with mailing and resulting in about 1 month of waiting time.

Upon positive decision 120 days are given to submit all case documents to the regional visa office.

In January 2009 new version of CAIPS was rolled out to CIC visa offices worldwide. Now the system will also reflect the process of transferring immigration cases from CIU in Sydney to the visa offices. Applicants requesting their CAIPS notes may find more details about their process soon. 

We've got another updates regarding processing times in the Centralized Intake Unit in Sydney, Nova Scotia.

Reports show that some applications are approved in as short as 2 weeks.

Several applicants already reported about processing times in the Centralized Intake Unit in Sydney, Nova Scotia.

Since November 28, 2008 CIU (in some official CIC documents called CIO, or Centralized Intake Office) is responsible for the first stage of processing of certain applications under the Federal Skilled Worker class. The only task of this office is to determine if an applicant is eligible for further processing.

Now we already have some evidence about about how fast CIU in Sydney is dealing with the applications.

Applicants report that they receive positive decisions from CIU in just 2 months after submission.