Canadian Immigration Process from Egypt

It has been a few months since I last blogged. I ran into some mail from a faculty egroup that was about some C++ and ASP opening in Microsoft Egypt, the poster himself was accepted to work at microsoft redmond, don't know yet if he went or not. To know i visited his blog, then went on from blog to another and though what the heck it is time to blog all over again.
I decided to immigrate to canada since 1998, the first time i visited it, my visit to Edmonton at Alberta Province impacted and influenced my life and ways ever since. I came to know a developed world, where you really make use of your time, nothing stops your way, in fact everything is out there to help you do what you want only if you know how to communicate and use things right. It was a visit to my brother and it lasted two months only, later on i was hashed in the egyptian high school degree (thanawiyya amma), it was a hard time, from total developed lifestyle to complete mess, i then entered the what-so called university, for four years there i hope i would find something interesting, motivating or hopeful, it passed as well. After graduation i hurried to the CIC self assessment site, i hardly got the required points as i didn't have the minimum threshold of 67 points, the only way to get past that was to work fulltime for one year. I looked for an employer, i started with a localization house, then a shipment company then a software house. All three were totally different in management, size, environment, growth and learning curves.
The moment I realized that next month i will collectively have completed the required one year, i started looking for experiences and people who started the process and succeeded and others who are still in the process, i tried as well to do it in a group manner. I already knew that a friend of mine in saudia had applied and that he applied with the help of a lawyer whom his friend used as well. I started a short survey over the web to see how far is using a lawyer important and whether or not that lawyer is the right choice. Encouraged by the fact that many who applied without the use of a lawyer or a representative had the request rejected after waiting 10 months or more and how most those who passed and got their PR card applied through lawyers I decided to contract them.
At first the main lawyer who owns the office was my contact then after paying the first installment (about 500 dollars) i was assigned another contact to followup my papers and progress. i was mailed the sweet checklist and the most miserable mission i ever had to carry out started. The mission to collect, notarize and translate my governmental papers. I faced the hell of the egyptian red tape, employees who do not want to talk, help or even refer you to others. As i said earlier i tried to make this a group process, and indeed a friend of mine who works with me at my current employer decided to immigrate with me and we did both our papers together, that really helped. It took us more than a month to get an official translation/transcripts of our high school degreees, university degrees and birth certicate. I found an error in my mother's name, it took me three days to try to report that error and request its change and when i nearly reached the right person they told me sorry your national id record is currently locked, try again later. I told my lawyer about the mistake and he said we can live with it :)
One of the tasks would be the bank draft, we chose nova scotia bank to issue the bank draft to the receiver general of canada, the employee there was asleep it seems, he issued us a 550 canadian dollars bank draft for only 500, we had to go back to him after we knew and we gave him the extra money he didn't take and as we assumed he was going to freeze the transaction till we come back and pay the rest. The fact that time is considered useless among all those whom we dealt during the process is sad. Starting by the lawyer assigned assistant and how we receive replies on our email questions 3 or more days later to my own univesity admission office that made my transcripts in 2 weeks, 2 complete weeks claiming that the current dean is leaving and a new dean is coming, why on earth would i care who is where, all i need is their useless notarization, which happily was rejected later on from ministry of foreign affairs. They said well we don't recognize this stamp or khetm, please go back and make another one over it from the university 'amin' office. I went there, kept asking and kept being refered till i found some employee playing cards and others reading newspapers, it was still early in the morning. I told him my humble request to have his precious notarization. He then without even knowing or seeing my papers or thinking, told me to come 3 days later, it would be done by then. I flamed and started arguing but realized i won't reach any result with such a kind of people whose job was nothing but stop others progress.
I have no car and had to do all the tasks, paperwork and stuff using the sweet egyptian transport system under the sweet egyptian sun. I had some colour before initiating that paper collection campaign but now i am a total 'fa7ma', whenever anyone sees me asks if i was having a vacation at a beach or something, i reply saying well it was much more interesting than that :)
At last i sent my papers using fedex, they reached my lawyer just yesterday, now starts the long waiting time. They say that 80% of those who apply for a skilled worker Permanent Residence from cairo have their application finalized in about 35 months, which i think by its end i would be a very old man :P
If you need any help with your immigration plans don't hesitate to contact me and i will try to tell you what i know or refer you to who knows.