Hello. Thanks for considering me as a witness.
I'm personally affected by the processing times for spouses and parents. I applied for my parents seven years ago. My parents are alone in India because my brother and I both came to Canada as students. We both immigrated under the provincial nomination program. We are both engineers.
I got my citizenship last year. I applied for my wife's PR seven months ago, and what I was told is that it can take up to 18 months to get the PR processed. What I also learned is that my wife cannot apply for a visitor visa to visit me because her PR is under processing.
I can't visit my wife because I have already exhausted my vacation time. I took about three months earlier this year to visit India to get married, and now I can't take any more vacation. I can't even imagine having to be apart from my wife for a year and a half. I'm pretty sure I'll have to quit my job and move back to India temporarily.
I have listed a few recommendations in my written brief about helping us deal with these processing times. My first recommendation is to reduce this processing time to six to eight months. This is being implemented in the U.S., the U.K., New Zealand, and Australia. One thing is, if you can't bring the processing time down, to at least issue some sort of super visa to the spouse so that the couple can be united.
For me it's personally a lot of strain. I'm living far apart from my parents and from my wife. My parents are aging, and they're literally alone, because my younger brother is here with me in Canada.
My last recommendation is to reduce the processing time for parents to two years. As I said, I've been waiting seven years for them to get PR, and there is literally no end limit. It could take 15 years. I have no idea when they will get the PR.
That's it. Thank you.