Q. I know they quote anywhere between 8-18 months for the entire independent applicant process, but does anyone have an idea, in reality how much time a visa office actually spends processing one file? If the Filing-AOR is any guideline, and knowing a little about what they do in that time frame (which is just to check if you have included all the necessary documents and fee) I would say it would take someone the maximum of 2 hours on one file, and for that the duration is normally 3 months. So that would mean further processing takes about roughly 5-8 hours?

Q. I have a couple of questions I am hoping you can help me with. I am going to be marrying my boyfriend here in Canada. He is from the US. We have decided that he will be coming to live here, but I am a student, and I was wondering if I can sponsor him, although I have not had an income for the past 8 months. I have worked almost 10 years previously, but I had decided to make a better life for myself. Will it be a problem? If he wants to come while the papers are being processed, would he be able to get a job of some sort with a temporary SIN number? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

The federal government plans to introduce regulations to govern immigration consultants. At the present time such regulations do exit and are needed to protect the public against unscrupulous immigration consultants. The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, the Honourable Denis Coderre recently said that “there are too many horror stories” and that the time as come to regulate this field. He also indicated that “the people who are really professional, and there are some, they are pleased with my announcement because they say it’s about time we are doing something about it”.

Tundra Semiconductor Corp. recently conducted an innovative experiment that had nothing to do with making chips.