Family and Spousal Sponsorship

Canadian Immigration and Citizenship Consultants (CICC)

Permanent Residents and naturalized Canadians who have come to Canada alone will want to sponsor their dependents and spouses after they have their permanent residency if they did not at the time they applied for PR. This is called the ”Family Sponsorship” or the “Spousal Sponsorship”. These programs allows for PRs and Canadians to bring in their families and allows them to also get permanent residency.

Many Canadians who have lived in Canada may decide they want to return to their home country and get married. After their nuptials, they can also sponsor their new partners and bring them to Canada. We are one of the many countries that recognize and allow same sex relationships so spouses can be allowed to sponsor same sex partners.

Common law relations for the purpose of immigration are recognized if you and your partner have lived together for a period of one or more years. This person is considered a spouse even though you have not formalized the relationship. In some countries divorce is not allowed and couples have separated and started another relationship so in these cases, common law couples are very common.

For those of you who live in countries that allow for one or more wives, in Canada this is not recognized and illegal. It is considered polygamous and not allowed in Canada. Therefore you will have to select only one of your wives to bring and divorce or leave the others.

Children

In some instances you may have a blended family where each partner has children. For that matter you may have had another child with another partner which was declared but not previously able to enter Canada. This is considered family sponsorship where your dependent child can be sponsored to Canada up to the age of 21 if they are attending school.

Many families have undeclared children or find out about a child they had without their knowledge after they have already settled in Canada. If that child was previously not declared, they may not be able to be considered for this program. For more information please Contact our office.

Family and spousal sponsorships are an important program for the Government of Canada. They believe in keeping families together wherever possible and they take great care to process these files as quickly as possible. One of the priorities of Canada is to make sure that children are protected and to have them be together with their parents.

For more information on how to bring your family member into Canada, please provide us with your questions. Contact our office today.