Originally Posted by
er340790
They tell me the whole thing takes MUCH longer now with half of Iraq and Afghanistan in the queue: last person I spoke to said 3+ years.
Took three years for me to get a visa in the UK in 2004->2007, but I believe it's substantially faster now. The downside is that they've switched from 'pretty much anyone can apply but they'll be in the queue forever as the quota is much less than the number of applicants' to 'we've raised the requirements so only a small fraction of people can apply and the quota is about the same as the number of applicants'.
After, I think, 3 years in Canada, you can apply for citizenship. I didn't bother for 5 years.
You have to be in the country for three years in a four year period, then it takes about a year to eighteen months to process. It could be problematic for a pilot if they're flying internationally a lot; I had to wait quite a while as I'm often abroad at customer sites (as I am right now).