Setting an interview date before police/criminal check is complete

[Skip and M 0]

I live in Rhode Island, USA and my finacee is in the Toronto area. We received our NOA2 on April 17th. She went for her criminal background check (did fingerprints) and was given an estimate of 90 days. Seems since she works in a regulated industry and she has been fingerprinted before, there was a "match" and that extends the process. My question is this. Must we have the results of the police/criminal check before we schedule the interview in Montreal, or can we schedule and then bring the results to the interview. Very unclear on this, so any help is much appreciated.

[bigdog 377]

I don't think they will interview before the background check is complete, but if they do you will not have an approval of any kind till it is done. Prior fingerprints for employment should make it easy but it depends on the reviewer. They are civil service and their stack does not ever get smaller.

[Andy and Kayla 45]

I would go ahead and try and book an appointment with Montreal. Their wait times are so long that you'll likely be waiting more than 90 days to even get in there (unless something has drastically changed since last year, which it may have). I would peek in the Canada forum and see what kind of wait times people are seeing for interviews and make a decision based on that.

You certainly would not be unable to book an appointment without them, though. Booking an appointment is fairly simple, and IIRC police checks were brought to the interview, not sent in with P3.

Good luck!

Edited April 24, 2012 by Andy and Kayla