Lifer said:
I was pretty sure that when I read & signed my sponsorship agreement, it said that by becoming a sponsor i make myself ineligible for government assistance such as welfare and bankruptcy protection. I looked online to double-check that today, and couldn't find anything of the sort. Am I crazy? Is that part of the sponsorship agreement?
I ask because I'll be going back to university in the fall and want to know if I'm eligible for a)student loans, and b)low-income exemptions so I don't have to pay medical premiums while I'm in school.
Hi. There are two separate things to consider here.
The first is eligibility requirements for sponsorship. There are some eligibility requirements about *you* not being in bankruptcy and not being on welfare ("in receipt of social assistance"). Once permanent residence is granted, these conditions no longer apply. I'm not certain what happens if these circumstances arise after the sponsorship is approved but before the visa is issued.
The second thing is that you promise to repay any social assistance received by the sponsored person - not you - during the duration of the undertaking. If you're living together and you're both on welfare, then I presume this would mean the portion corresponding to the sponsored person's needs.
"Social assistance" is defined in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations as follows:
- “social assistance” means any benefit in the form of money, goods or services provided to or on behalf of a person by a province under a program of social assistance, including a program of social assistance designated by a province to provide for basic requirements including food, shelter, clothing, fuel, utilities, household supplies, personal requirements and health care not provided by public health care, including dental care and eye care.
My understanding is that the phrase "social assistance" is normally used for welfare and associated programs (like free dental care for welfare recipients in some provinces), and does not include student loans and bursaries. I'm not sure what the low-income exemptions you're referring to are, but if many people who aren't on welfare receive these, then they're probably not included.
In any case, the specific programs considered to be social assistance vary from province to province. These would be defined by federal-provincial agreements, except for Quebec where this would be defined by its own laws. So to give an exact list of programs considered "social assistance," you'd need to say what province you're talking about.
