Sponsoring a Spouse or Partner to Canada
If you are a Canadian Citizen or a Permanent Resident of Canada you are able to apply to sponsor your foreign national spouse, common law partner or conjugal partner to immigrate to Canada. This includes same-sex spouses and partners.
The application is a two part process. First the sponsor is assessed to see if they meet the definition of a sponsor and then the foreign national is assessed to see if they meet the eligibility requirements. Currently the first phase of this process is taking twenty-seven days for those whose spouse is outside of Canada and eleven months for those whose spouse is in Canada. It is important to keep in mind that a Canadian Citizen (not Permanent Resident) can sponsor their foreign national spouse even if they are living outside of Canada, as long as they can show that they will return to Canada to take up residency with their spouse. The second phase of the process is currently taking eight months for those whose spouse is inside of Canada and between eight and thirty-one months for those whose spouse is living outside of Canada. The processing time varies with the Canadian embassy and a full list of processing time can be found on their website:
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/information/times/perm/fc-spouses.asp
Due to a large amount of marriage fraud in the past, Canada made several important changes to the spousal/partner class in 2012. As of October 25th, 2012 those being sponsored by their spouse or partner who have been in a relationship for less than two years and have no children together have to remain living together in a genuine relationship for two years after the date of immigration in order to maintain their permanent resident status.
The second major change was implemented on March 2, 2012. After that date anyone who was sponsored to Canada as a spouse, common law partner or conjugal partner cannot sponsor someone else as their spouse, common law partner or conjugal partner for five years from the date of immigrating to Canada. Even if they obtain Canadian Citizenship they have to wait the full five years to sponsor someone else.
While Canada is known for family reunification there are certain factors which may bar someone from sponsoring a spouse or partner to Canada such as (this list is not exhaustive):
- You have been convicted of an offence which was of a sexual or violent nature or you threatened to commit such an offence;
- You are currently in prison;
- You have declared bankruptcy and you have not yet been released from it;
- You are under the age of 18.
Similarly a foreign national spouse can also be found inadmissible to Canada for a variety of reason (You can read more about this in our previous blog on inadmissibility). It is important to note however that the low income cut off requirement and medical inadmissibility do not apply to those applying for immigration under the spouse/partner category.
To find out more about sponsoring a spouse or partner to Canada you can visit Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s website or contact an authorized representative.
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/sponsor/spouse.asp
