On March 1, 2015, both the Ottawa Sun and the CBC reported that protesters demonstrated in front of the Citizenship and Immigration Canada (“CIC”) building on Laurier Avenue in Ottawa. As the CBC reported:
Canadians who fall in love with someone of another nationality can face daunting obstacles to starting a life together in Canada. If their spouse is living here already, they face a 25-month waiting period for their application to be processed. That waiting period has grown longer over the past two years, leaving thousands of families in limbo.
It is not only spouses in Canada whose applications are experiencing processing delays.
The tables below compare CIC’s processing times for spousal sponsorship applications on February 22, 2011, and January 29, 2015.
The results surprised even me, although they shouldn’t have given the highly publicized Deficit Action Reduction Plan.
| Africa and the Middle East | ||
| Visa Office | 2011 Processing Time | 2015 Processing Time |
| Abidjan – Ivory Coast | 17 | CLOSED |
| Abu Dhabi – United Arab Emirates | 27 | 13 |
| Accra – Ghana | 21 | 14 |
| Cairo – Egypt | 12 | 20 |
| Damascus – Syria | 10 | CLOSED |
| Nairobi – Kenya | 29 | 27 |
| Pretoria – South Africa | 18 | 19 |
| Rabat – Morocco | 10 | 8 |
| Tel Aviv – Israel | 8 | 9 |
A person submitting a spousal sponsorship application to the Canadian Embassy in Beijing will have their application take over twice as long to process. In New Delhi it is 2.5 times as long.
| Asia and Pacific | ||
| Visa Office | 2011 Processing Time | 2015 Processing Time |
| Beijing – China | 4 | 9 |
| Colombo – Sri Lanka | 16 | 13 |
| Hong Kong – China | 16 | 9 |
| Islamabad – Pakistan | 21 | 36 |
| Kuala Lumpur – Malaysia | 10 | CLOSED |
| Manila – Philippines | 9 | 17 |
| New Delhi – India | 6 | 16 |
| Seoul – South Korea | 6 | CLOSED |
| Singapore – Singapore | 18 | 30 |
| Sydney – Australia | 7 | 14 |
| Taipei – Taiwan | 5 | CLOSED |
| Tokyo – Japan | 5 | CLOSED |
The Canadian High Commission in London takes over three times as long to process spousal sponsorship applications as it did in 2011.
| Europe | ||
| Visa Office | 2011 Processing Time | 2015 Processing Time |
| Ankara – Turkey | 7 | 10 |
| Berlin – Germany | 13 | CLOSED |
| Bucharest – Romania | 6 | 16 |
| Kiev – Ukraine | 11 | 12 |
| London – United Kingdom | 8 | 29 |
| Moscow – Russia | 8 | 18 |
| Paris – France | 9 | 8 |
| Rome – Italy | 13 | 10 |
| Vienna – Austria | 9 | 17 |
| Warsaw – Poland | 8 |
9 |
| Americas | ||
| Visa Office | 2011 Processing Time | 2015 Processing Time |
| Bogota – Colombia | 15 | 12 |
| Buenos Aires – Argentina | 12 | 13 |
| Buffalo – United States | 11 | CLOSED |
| Caracas – Venezuela | 17 | CLOSED |
| Guatemala City – Guatemala | 17 | N/A |
| Havana – Cuba | 7 | 10 |
| Kingston – Jamaica | 16 | 25 |
| Lima – Peru | 12 | 14 |
| Mexico City – Mexico | 15 | 18 |
| Port-au-Prince – Haiti | 12 | 21 |
| Port of Spain – Trinidad and Tobago | 14 | 16 |
| Santiago – Chile | 10 | 24 |
| Santo Domingo – Dominican Republic | 22 | 14 |
| Sao Paulo – Brazil | 10 | 8 |