If you didn’t get an AOR yet…
So it’s been 4-6 weeks and you still haven’t seen the email you’re expecting. (ETA: timelines are getting longer. Rely on what others who sent at the same time you did are reporting). Others with your timeframe are reporting AORs.
Find the receipt number on your receipt for the $75 fee you paid. It starts with R.
Log in here: https://services3.cic.gc.ca/ecas/introduction.do?app
The first two pages are check boxes and acknowledgments; once you do those you get to a third page where you enter your info and there is a dropdown where you can use the R number to log in (also called IMM).
At this point it will say either they can’t find you OR that they sent you an acknowledgment on DATE.
If they can’t find you, it’s because you mistyped data when trying to log in (so try again, use your maiden name) or because you aren’t in the system yet. (ETA for clarification: if you aren’t in the system yet, you are probably still in a To Be Processed pile.) Or if your app was screwed up in some way, it may be on its way back to you.
If you show up, but never got the emails, it’s probably because your email address was entered incorrectly when they scanned your forms in.
At this point you can try submitting a webform to let them know you didn’t get your AOR and asking them verify that your email address is [whatever it is]. I did this and it was useless. They gave me no acknowledgment that they understood anything I said and just replied with boilerplate asking me to send them all my information again.
So I called. I got a free trial of an app called Burner, chose a Canadian number, and spent about 20 minutes on hold and working through the phone tree until I was connected to a nice woman who could see my email and read it back to me.
It was off by one letter. Got that corrected and I asked her to resend my AOR. I got it a few days later to my email.
(I should’ve asked her to also correct it on my minor children’s applications, too, but forgot. Don’t be me!)
Since this time, others have discovered you can call the Toronto airport from outside Canada to reach the IRCC. The number is 905-676-3640 and you’ll get an option to connect to IRCC.
I hope this is helpful! I post it all the time in comments but decided to make a standalone post to help those searching. I learned absolutely everything here from others in this forum.