Regulations Changed September 30, 2010

[rjessome]

And another article is here: http://smartcanadian.ca/2011/03/29/visa-rule-for-sponsored-spouses-to-change/
Sorry rjessome if you don't like me doing this, I can stop. I just thought that sometimes different articles spark more debate and discussion to people.

Hey girl, post all you like!  I like debate.  It gets people thinking.  I had already read the first article but not the second.  Thanks!  However, the 2nd got it wrong at the end.  The VO can ALREADY refuse if one of the two conditions has not been met.  That's where this original change from back in September came into effect, where they made the "or" into "and".  Little words, BIG meaning.

[BeShoo]

As long as their intentions of a life together are true and neither of them married solely ONLY for permanent residence then they should do just fine.

I know this message is quite old but I want to point out that the law and regulations don't say anything about "solely" or "only". The key word that they use is "primarily" so that's what you have to prove, that you didn't enter into the marriage primarily to gain advantage under the act.

[brin]

2) Your relationship is genuine, but you decided to start a conjugal, common-law relationship or get married in order to immigrate to Canada. Your application will be denied.

The new law is basically including scenario 2 and denying PR to all those couples who decided to get married or start living together, sharing responsabilities etc, just to gather proof in order to get PR.

This doesn't make sense to me...if two people are in love...isn't it natural that they would want to be together...how can you proove that you didn't get married to migrate? I thought the issue was with the genuiness of the relationship...now...it looks like even if the relationship is genuine, CIC is still going to question why you got married??!!??

[rjessome]

This doesn't make sense to me...if two people are in love...isn't it natural that they would want to be together...how can you proove that you didn't get married to migrate? I thought the issue was with the genuiness of the relationship...now...it looks like even if the relationship is genuine, CIC is still going to question why you got married??!!??

This change to the Act has been in force since last fall.  In my opinion, genuineness of the relationship is still given greater weight. This could have a bigger impact on arranged marriages where the sponsor and applicant are not known to each other before the marriage.  To my knowledge, this change has not been used very much to date to refuse couples.  There was a case that was quoted in a previous (old) thread but it was a marriage that wasn't even a formal arranged marriage (from a cultural perspective).  There were plenty of red flags and it would have likely been refused even without this change.