If your wife, the sponsor, goes on welfare at any time during the process of your application for PR, she is no longer eligible to be your sponsor. No, there is no government assistance provided to wives waiting for husbands.
Having different religions is just a factor (among many) that may be looked at by the VO for assessing genuineness of a relationship but it will not cause an application to be processed (overall) faster or slower.
If your wife is a PR she can "visit" you (she can't move to Pakistan) but I would recommend short periods (max of 1 to 2 months). If she is a citizen she has more options as citizens can sponsor their spouses while living outside of Canada.
thx bro .
CIC views an application to sponsor and application for PR of a spouse as a "choice", not a necessity. Therefore they don't have any obligation to provide financial support to the sponsor while waiting for the process to be completed.