Post-ITA means you have already been drawn from the express entry pool and that your points meet the cutoff for the latest draw. You should have received an ITA email asking you whether to accept the ITA and proceed with the application or Reject the ITA and rejoin the pool. Of course you have to accept the ITA to move forward.

Once you have accepted the ITA your MyCIC account will have an entry under “View my Submitted applications or profiles” with application type Permanent Residency. You will be uploading all soft copies of the documents to prove that what you have entered in your profile is true and non-contestable. These documents include, but are not limited to; Police clearance (NBI clearance in the Philippines), Passport, Upfront medical receipt form, Diploma, TOR and ECA report, IELTS report, Bank certificates, Certificates of employment and letter of explanation (optional). These documents need to be scanned and uploaded in your online application form.

How to secure the documents:

Police clearance is needed if you have stayed in a country for more than six months. In the Philippines, the equivalent document is an NBI clearance, which can now be scheduled online, check this (http://www.nbiclearance.com/how-to-apply-nbi-clearance-online/). Don’t get your hopes too high though as you still need to spend at least two hours even if you have an appointment. Your spouse will also need to secure this document.

For a hassle free application, be sure that your passports have at least two years left before the expiry or much better; have it renewed even before receiving an ITA. You need to scan the page where your bio is as well as all the pages with stamps and visas.

Upfront medical exam (eMedical) is required for express entry applicants. CIC has identified accredited clinics/doctors per country. Check this link. In the Philippines, there are more than ten accredited clinics located across the country. In Manila, there are two; IOM Manila Health Center St. Luke’s Medical Center (Manila/Taguig).

We chose IOM since they have an appointment system which can save you time compared to the St. Luke’s walk-in system. You need to call (+(63 2) 883-9333/ +(63 2) 511-8770) IOM to book your medical exam schedule.

Overall process took around 3 hours (if you’ll arrive before 7am to get your queue number). Be sure to bring all previous medical reports, including certificate of health clearance from your doctors; IOM doesn’t accept a hand written clearance (which most doctors provide) so ensure that you have a type written one. If you have children, you will also need to secure the same certificate, including all vaccines that were given to them.

After you have completed all the tests, you will be receiving an upfront medical form that should be scanned and uploaded to your MyCIC profile. The medical report should be out after 30 business days (at most). You can follow-up from time to time by calling the numbers above. One quick note, they tend to maximize the 30 business day limit so be prepared. CIC will not proceed with the processing of your application unless medical reports have been submitted and has a positive result.

Diploma, Transcript of Records, ECA Report and IELTS report should be readily available as these documents are needed even before ITA is given. ECA and IELTS reports are not mandatory, but there have been instances when these documents are requested after the application has been submitted. Remember that for the application to be processed as fast as possible, you need to limit the number of document requests from the visa officer and the only solution is to include all documents during submission. Include ECA and IELTS reports in the Education documents.

Bank certificates can be secured from your respective banks. Be sure to have or exceed the required proof of funds in cash (you can have the equivalent amount in your country’s currency). You can attach certificate of investments as additional documents but note that stocks, mutual funds and the likes are not valid proof of funds as these funds are not liquid. Your bank statement should have the total amount, average daily balance for 6 months as well as the statement of account for the last 6 months. Other details such as bank branch name and telephone number should also be included in the bank certificates.

Certificate of employment follows a specific format, although not explicitly stated by CIC. I decided to follow the Australian Computer Society (ACS) format since it has the best format so far. Though most of the companies have their own format, be sure to have the following:

  • Start and Finish Dates of Employment – these should be specific dates in a DD/MM/YY format
  • Description of Duties Performed – Required to determine the relevance of the experience to the nominated occupation
  • Hours worked – Full time or Part time
  • Country where Employment was undertaken
  • Company Letterhead and signed by the author

In my case, this is the hardest document to acquire as I have been to different companies which has their own formats and process complexities. If you have a spouse, be sure to secure the same documents for them.

Letter of explanation is an optional document, but can be very helpful in explaining different and unique situations pertaining to your applications. You may use this to your advantage.

Now that you have all the required documents you are now good to submit your application. There is an application fee that you need to pay through credit card before you can submit your application. You can also pay the Right of Permanent Resident Fee (RPRF) during submission, but you can always pay it on a later date. In our case we paid it at a later date which caused delay in the processing of our application decision for about a week.

My next post regarding passport request might be the last post for the year in this series until we have successfully landed and have finished all the formalities in migrating to Canada

Stay tuned.

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