Under the influence of the COVID-19, not only people's lives and work have been affected, but the work efficiency of government departments has also declined significantly. Taking the Ministry of Immigration as an example, except for some student visas, work visas and domestic immigration pathways, the processing cycle is still normal, and the processing speed of various visa services has experienced delays. The most exaggerated delay is the visitor visa. According to the processing time given by the official website of the Ministry of Immigration, it currently takes 416 days to apply for a Canadian visitor visa from China.

In other words, those who submitted visitor visa applications in China after April 2020 have not received the approval result yet!

It is not so much a delay in processing, it is better to say that the Immigration department has deliberately suspended all visitor visa processing since the beginning of the epidemic!

The suspension of visitor visas has caused great inconvenience to overseas tourists. Even if many visitors are exempted from the Canadian travel ban, they will eventually be stuck in the barrier of not being able to obtain visitor visas. On the other hand, the operation of the Immigration department has indeed reduced the risk of bringing epidemics from outside of Canada to the greatest extent.

However, with the reduction of COVID 19 epidemic, the government announced to relax the entry policy, and the Department of Immigration has recently begun to follow up. On June 30, 2021, the Canadian Immigration  announced on its official website that it will restart the processing of temporary resident visas (TRVs) that were stalled during the epidemic.

This notice also includes the following key points:

1. The travel resumption process is for those applications submitted online (except for persons with disabilities who cannot apply online).

2. Exempt groups not affected by the current travel ban will continue to be eligible for priority processing (including new and ongoing applications), such as study visas, work visa holders, immediate family members of Canadian citizens or permanent residents, etc.

3. Exempt persons who submit applications before March 18, 2020 will not be eligible for priority processing unless they submit a request via the web form and demonstrate that they meet the exemption criteria.