A PNP applicant (AOR Feb 2023) had everything complete except background checks, stalled since July 2023. Phone calls to IRCC only produced 'be patient'. The thread's collective experience:
- Going through your MP gets a substantive answer. Where call-centre agents gave nothing, contacting IRCC via the applicant's Member of Parliament produced a specific response: security checks are conducted by a third party (i.e. security partner agencies), IRCC has no control over their timeline, and all other assessments were complete. If you're stuck, an MP enquiry is the escalation that actually returns information.
- Long security screening is not rare. One member's took almost 10 months with the same explanation. Others in the thread had been in 'background verification in progress' for a year.
- What can lengthen it: members asked each other about government or military history — one confirmed their spouse (included in the application) had such a background, which the group associated with deeper screening. This is community observation, not an official rule.
- It's not a rejection signal. Nobody in the thread had seen refusals at this stage; the wait is opaque but usually ends in normal processing. Ordering GCMS notes is another way to see what's actually happening on the file.