Leave to remain

in·def·i·nite

(adjective)
1.   not definite; without fixed or specified limit; unlimited: an indefinite number.

2.   not clearly defined or determined; not precise or exact: an indefinite boundary; an indefinite date in the future.

For those who came upon this post whilst searching the InterWebNet for information related to applying for Indefinite Leave to Remain or Permanent Residency for Canada – or for those who, like me, just require a sense of completeness or closure – I thought I should provide a brief overview of the tortuous passage that the Kickass Canada Girl and I negotiated earlier this year – and of how that particular journey ended.

As the Girl is – obviously – Canadian and I am far too old to be considered of any use to the Canadian (or indeed any other) economy, my particular route to permanent residency was inevitably going to involve sponsorship by my spouse – the aforementioned KACG. The thinking and logic behind this were outlined in ‘A Tough Occupation‘.

I subsequently gave more details of the Girl’s side of the process in ‘A Word from our Sponsor‘ and an outline of what I would be required to do in ‘Prerequisites‘. ‘Doctor, Doctor‘ tells the convoluted tale of the hoops through which this particular applicant had to jump to acquire the necessary medical certificate, whilst ‘A Little Application… 1‘ and ‘A Little Application… 2‘ completed the description of the plethora of forms that must be filled out and the extensive quantity of supporting information that must be submitted along with them. By the end of June – when I traveled to Victoria to spend a couple of frazzled weeks with the Girl and our dear friends in Saanichton – everything was complete on my side and I carried a weighty package of documentation with me which I handed over to the Girl to accompany her submission to Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

At this point the trail goes cold. Those who follow these things avidly will be wondering what has happened to my application since then and what effect our recent change of plan will have had upon it.

The short answer is – nothing!

The application was never actually submitted. The Girl – who as part of the sponsorship deal was going to have to agree to support me financially (if so called upon) for three years – was not able to file her submission as her employment details could not be completed until her six month probationary period was up. As it turned out her appointment was confirmed a mere couple of weeks before things turned bad and the whole deal went ‘tits-up’ – to avail myself of the vernacular. The completed forms and supporting documentation are once again crossing the Atlantic as I write, this time to be put into storage until such time as we are ready to start the process over again.

As it happens this is a good thing, since once permanent residency has been granted there is a time limit for moving to Canada. It would have been most annoying for the application to have succeeded and for us then to find ourselves unable to avail ourselves of it before it expired.

Once again we find ourselves looking on the bright side – which is, of course, a good thing!