Naturally, this is one of the major questions in this whole process of changing countries to Canada. Folks ask this question before they start the whole process. However, even more folks ask this question once they have already applied, because the wait times can be absolutely soul-shatteringly long.
Recently one of our members pointed out that Citizenship & Immigration Canada, the government department in charge of this whole trauma, has been forced to post the data on how long it actually takes.
I worked through this data and realised they had grouped the information in a way that was possibly not making things quite as clear as they should have or could have (
) I have therefore taken the data from their site, ignored the misleading continental and regional grouping, and have sorted the data in Excel. I then truned it into a graphic that hopefully makes the whole challenge rather more clear.
The graphic shows, for each city listed, the time it takes to process the first 30% of applications, the first 50%, 70% and 80 %. I have made the first 30% very dark and have sorted the cities by that number. The reason is simple. I have very good reason to believe that there are intentional delays built in for different countries. By looking at how long it takes to do the first 30%, we can get an idea of this intentional delay.
If I were to apply again, I'd go via Mexico or Brazil, if I could get residence and a job there in a short time. Both those offices handle only their own countries. CIC requires you to file from your country of citizenship OR, if you are living elsewhere, you must have lived there for a year. Even if you add a year to any of those, you beat the best South Africa times handsomely.
You do NOT want to apply from Paris, or any of the cities below Pretoria on the list. I do not believe the slow Paris times are related to regular French folks. Thisbecomes obvious when you realise that Paris is responsible for visas not only to people from Andorra, Azores, Belgium, Canary Islands, France, Gibraltar, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Madeira, Monaco, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland, but also from Tunisia, Algeria and Libya.
Rome handles Greece, Italy, Malta, San Marino, Vatican City and Albania.
Pretoria handles not only South Africa, Namibia, Swaziland, Botswana and Lesotho, but also Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique and Angola. See how low down it is on the list! Hmmm.
Nairobi beats Pretoria despite handling Burundi, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Reunion, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia, Tanzania and Uganda
Accra handles Ascension, Benin, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea (refugees), Liberia, Nigeria, Sao Tome e Principe, Sierra Leone, St. Helena, Togo, Tristan da Cunha!
Damascus is the office for Cyprus, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria. Anyone surprised at where it is on the list?
Tel Aviv also handles the Palestinian Territories, though the folks may also use Cairo, where things take on average much longer.
Notice how London does not do particularly well?. It handles Bahrain, Channel Islands, Denmark, England, Faroe Islands, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Ireland, Isle of Man, Kuwait, Northern Ireland, Norway, Oman, Qatar], Saudi Arabia, Scotland, Sweden, United Arab Emirates, Wales, Yemen
Manila handles Guam, Japan(!!), Johnston Atoll, Kosrae, Marinas, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Midway Island, Northern Mariana Island, Pacific Islands, Palau (Belau), Philippines, Ponape, Truk Island, Wake Island and Yap Island. I suspect the Phillipines and Japan make up 99% of the load there, with the Phillipines in the vast majority.
Contrast all this with Vienna, which handles not only Austria, but also Bosnia-Hercegovina, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro, Slovak Republic, Slovenia.
I think the patterns are obvious.
