Eligibility to Sponsor a Spouse or Partner to Canada
Have you started a sponsorship application and during the process you realized that you are ineligible to sponsor your spouse or common law partner to Canada or simply filed your application under wrong class? When you hire Akrami & Associates our immigration experts review your case thoroughly by assessing your eligibility and submitting your application under the most viable sponsorship category. For a sponsorship application to be successful you require ample supporting documents to support your case. When you start your application with Akrami & Associates we work together with you in collecting evidence of your relationship that ranges from photographic evidence, chat logs, gift exchanges, itineraries, medical and police certificates and much more. We help you demonstrate the details of your relationship and clearly present it in manner that the immigration officer reviewing your case will get clear picture of your relationship. To determine your Eligibility to Sponsor a Spouse or Partner to Canada continue reading below.
What is Sponsorship?
Sponsorship is when one person who is a Canadian citizen or Permanent Resident and sponsors their partner who is a foreign national to Canada for permanent residence. Permanent residence is a status that is in between being temporary resident and being a Canadian citizen. Permanent residence allows you to stay in Canada indefinitely so long you maintain your residency obligation which is 730 days out of every five year period. So once your partner comes to Canada and fulfills their residency obligations they can apply for Canadian citizenship.
Who can sponsor
In order to sponsor a foreign national to Canada they have to be either:
- Your Spouse (you have been married legally)
- Common Law Partner ( someone you have lived together continuously for a period of 12 months at some during your relationship)
- Conjugal Partner ( are partners that have had relationship for at least one year but these partner cannot get married or be in a common law relationship due either immigration barriers or legal barriers. For example, if you are in homosexual relationship in Iran you cannot get married due to its laws or in Philippines divorce is not permitted which makes it very hard to marry someone else) Conjugal sponsorships are only for individuals that have tried every means to get married or be in a common law relationship but were unable to do so due to immigration or legal barriers.
- homosexual relationship in country which does allow such relationships)
Who is Eligible to Sponsor?
In order sponsor your loved one to Canada you either have to be Permanent Resident or Canadian citizen. As Permanent Resident you have to be currently residing in Canada and in no other country, if you are Canadian citizen and you are not currently living in Canada you have to show that you have the intension and ability to resettle in Canada. For example, you are working in the Middle East and you have 6 year contract in Dubai and you meet a foreign national from there and decide to get married. You can sponsor that person to come to Canada but as the Canadian citizen you must show proof that once permanent residence is granted you will resettle in Canada. This can be done through employment contracts, letters of intent, property you own in Canada etc.
Should I submit inland or overseas application?
When you sponsor your partner to Canada whether it is a spouse, common-law or conjugal partner you have to routes to choose from. The first route is referred to outland and formally known as Family Class or inland formally known as Spouse or Common Law Partner in Canada Class.
Inland Sponsorship
In order to apply for inland application the sponsor and the applicant have to be in Canada. The inland application is a two-step process. The first step includes getting the sponsorship approval from Case Processing Centre Mississauga (CPC-M) which used to take about 11 months to get processed. During that time CPC-Mississauga assesses the sponsor’s eligibility to sponsor somebody for permanent residency. They check if the sponsor has a criminal record, if you have been on social assistance for the past 12 months, if you have sponsored before, if you have been in jail, if you have filed bankruptcy, if you owe the government money and many other things. Once the sponsor is approved meaning the sponsored has passed the first stage then the principal applicant gets assessed by CPC-M which takes approximately another 8 months. So a typical inland application takes from 1 to 3 years.
The benefit of inland application is that after 11 month period the principal applicant is eligible to apply for an Open Work Permit. The benefit of this is that the employer does not need to go through a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) . The LMIA is a long and tedious process, because the employer has to demonstrate recruitment efforts to Service Canada that there were no Canadians or Permanent Residents to fill the position and therefore had no choice but hire a foreign worker. So luckily, for an Open Work Permit the employer does not go through this process. The second benefit is that when submitting an inland application is that the principal applicant does not necessarily need to be in status. The big downside to inland application was the processing times. On December 15, 2016 immigration Canada has reduced processing times for inland and outland applications to 12 months.
Outland Sponsorship
The outland sponsorship is also a two-step process during the first stage the sponsor is getting assessed by CPC-M, which takes approximately 30 to 50 days rather than 11 months. Once the sponsor is approved the application gets transferred to Overseas Visa Office to the principal applicants’ country of origin rather than keeping the application at CPC-M. Processing times for outland applications ranges from 12-18 months. This all depends on person’s country of citizenship, where it is getting filed and how well prepared the application are. The benefit of submitting an inland application is that the principal applicant does not necessarily have to live outside of Canada in order to apply for outland application.The con side of submitting an outland application is that if interview is requested, the principal applicant has to travel back to their home country for the interview.
Contact Akrami & Associates
Sponsorship applications is a long tedious process and can be a big headache if you don’t know what you are doing or what you need to include with your application to be successful. The most educated people find it very difficult, because the government website is not very easy to navigate or getting the information you need to submit a strong application. Even though Citizenship and Immigration has provided the checklist and the forms for you to complete and submit but it does not provide details of what is expected and what the immigration officers will be looking for. At Akrami & Associates we do not just leave you with the forms but we will guide you every step of the way to compile a strong application. We will go through the document checklist and provide you step by step guidance of how and where you can get these documents. We will ensure your application is complete to avoid returned applications and to avoid refusals. Akrami & Associates is dedicated to reuniting loved one together, contact us today for a consultation at 416-477-2545.
With Akrami & Associates there is always a way!
