Excellent Service from the Canadian High Commission in Singapore!

My wife and I are visiting our daughter Karen in Canada and so need a Visitor's Pass to enter the country.
According to their Singapore web-site, the normal time needed for the pass is 6 working days.
We went there early on a Monday and were told that the visas could be processed and the passports only returned on the following Monday and that created a problem for us as we had planned to travel to Phuket on Saturday.
If you have not applied for a Canadian visa before, it's best to apply earlier rather than later. The form is a smart form that generates a bar-code that is read by a special machine so I guess your form is processed quickly without human intervention unless there is a "red flag" in your answer.
This is our 4th trip to Canada and so I guess that together with our age places us in a low-risk category.
Our wife told the lady of our travel plans and after some hesitation, she told us she would return our passports on Friday, and we were supposed to return them on our return from our 5-day Phuket trip for further processing on Thursday.
When I collected the passports on Friday, the visas had been approved!
I guess the lady was used to seeing many faces with looks of surprise and joy.
What a pleasant way to start a holiday to Canada.
My only grouse about the Visitor's pass application is that the processing takes place each time you visit. I suggest the USA 10-year visa system is less of a hassle and Canada can cut a lot of admin costs if they too follow the 10-year plan. Having such a visa also does not guarantee entry but subject to approval when you enter.