Residency revisited

The Citizenship and Immigration Canada website has been re-designed… and jolly nice it looks too. Whether it will be any easier to navigate than the old version remains to be seen. It is early days yet and – mindful of the morass of information that doubtless still lies behind the impressive new facade – I wouldn’t want to count any chickens.

Time – however – to get started…

My original post on the subject of Family Sponsorship for Permanent Residency outlines the basic application procedure that we must needs follow and the first thing to do now is to identify how this might differ as a result of both of the applications (the Kickass Canada Girl’s as sponsor and mine as the sponsored) originating from outside Canada.

Revisiting the online guides to glean further information I see that this new condition has been added since I last studied the detail:

Effective October 25, 2012, sponsored spouses or partners must now live together in a legitimate relationship with their sponsor for two years from the day they receive permanent residence status in Canada.

If you are a spouse or partner being sponsored to come to Canada, this applies to you if:

• You are being sponsored by a permanent resident or Canadian citizen
• You have been in a relationship for two years or less with your sponsor
• You have no children in common
• Your application was received on or after October 25, 2012

Fortunately, since the Girl and I have been married for more than three years already this condition will not affect us. Moving on…

Hunting further through the the CIC website (no mean feat, for it is a complex beast!) I (re)discover:

“Guide 3900 – Sponsorship of a spouse, common-law partner, conjugal partner or dependent child living outside Canada“.

In the depths of this document I find that which I seek:

If I live outside Canada, may I sponsor?

If you are a Canadian citizen, you may sponsor a spouse, a common-law partner or conjugal partner, or a dependent child who has no children of his or her own. However, you must demonstrate that you will live in Canada when the sponsored person becomes a permanent resident.

Note: Permanent residents residing abroad may not sponsor from outside of Canada. Canadian citizens travelling (sic) as tourists are not considered to be residing abroad.

At this point a small alarm bell sounds… I take a look at the sponsor’s document checklist:

…and see that it includes this item:

“Proof that you intend to live in Canada with your spouse…?” How on earth is one supposed to prove that?

It is difficult – off the top of my head – to imagine what sort of documentary evidence we could possibly provide that would satisfy this requirement. If the Girl had a job offer from Canada – mayhap – I guess that would count, but what if we are both intending to retire? Perhaps if we had already purchased a property in BC – but again – would we be likely so to do if there were still doubt concerning our right to reside in Canada?

Hmmm!

Further research is clearly required. I will report back with my findings.