Interview Waiver

A personal interview may or may not be required as part of the Canadian immigration application process. It is always left to the discretion of the Citizenship and Immigration Canada Officer as to whether or not a personal interview is necessary.

Under the Skilled Worker category of Immigration, the selection criteria are objective. As a result, Citizenship and Immigration Canada Officer can often assess an applicant’s qualifications based solely upon the information and documents submitted in support of the application. In such cases, the personal interview is generally waived. Submitting a perfected application maximizes the chances of an interview waiver.

Personal interviews may be scheduled for the following reasons:

• To clear up inconsistencies in the information and/or documents submitted.
• To complete missing information.
• To address concerns that the Citizenship and Immigration Canada Officer may have with respect to the accuracy and truthfulness of the information and/or documents submitted.
• To question matters involving security and/or criminality.
• To audit the process of granting interview waivers.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada Officers are not permitted to conduct personal interviews for the purpose of determining language proficiency. The assessment of English and/or French language ability must be made upon the written Statement of Language Ability and supporting documents submitted with the application or according to the scores awarded on the standardized language tests approved by Canadian Immigration authorities.

If a personal interview is required it will generally extend processing delays by three months or even longer.