A little application… 1

I have spent much of the last two weeks filling out the forms to support my application for Canadian permanent residency. You may ask how it can possibly take such a long time to complete a few forms, and indeed that is a good question. The answer – as hinted at in previous posts on the subject – lies in the fact that I am applying through the family sponsorship route with my spouse as the sponsor. This requires – rightly in my view – a fair amount of supporting evidence.

The process is clearly designed to weed out applications from those engaged in ‘sham’ marriages and focuses extensively on the course of the relationship. Amongst the questions to which I am required to respond are the following:

• Where and how did we meet?
• Was the meeting arranged?
• Were gifts exchanged at the first meeting?
• How did the relationship develop – meetings, dates, trips etc?
• Did our families and friends know about the relationship?
• When did my spouse meet my family and close friends?
• Are we married?
• When and how did we get engaged?
• Where was the wedding and who attended?
• Where did we go on honeymoon?
• Have we been living together – if so where and when?
• If currently not together, have we visited each other since parting?
• How often – by what means and in what language – do we correspond?

There is a fair bit more along these lines and for each answer we are required to provide supporting documentation in the form of photographs, itineraries, letters, emails and so forth.

Somewhat darker is the tenor of such questions as:

• Was there a formal celebration of your engagement? If not – why not? (my emboldening and italics!)
  

I don’t much care for the tone of this but I am certainly not going to take any chances, so I answer cautiously and completely.

Digging out the answers to all of these questions – not to mention the supporting documentation – takes a fair bit of time and effort. Kickass Canada Girl and I have been together for more than 7 years and, for a brain as old as mine, remembering all of the gruesome details takes some doing. I simply didn’t recall when the Girl first met my family! It took a fair bit of detective work – involving ploughing through old emails looking for hints (yes – I have kept all of the Girl’s emails – more than 3000 of them!) and decoding the cryptic cyphers that comprise her diary entries – to come up with a plausible timeline for the events of half a decade ago and more.

It is, however, well worth it for the ultimate prize – and this keeps me nicely focused whenever I get a little grumpy or start to cut up rough!