My Daughter, who is 22yr old Canadian (Manitoba) citizen, is marrying a 22 american (Washinton state) the wedding is oct 18 here in Manitoba. He is planning to move here to live with her, and apply for PR, and Open work permit. They will live on savings and her income until he can work. Before they apply tho, they want to go to Georgia the end of Oct for his sisters wedding! So they would wait to submit the Inland spousal sponsorship until they are back. Any issue with that, or advise or things to prepare beforehand?
He could also get the Citizenship by descent, as his great grandparents were born in Canada, but it seems that could take longer till he could start working??
The constraint in applying is when he will get the marriage certificate - which in most provinces is 2-8 weeks to receive. (No, the thing the officiant will give at the wedding is not sufficient, and it will probably be returned). In practice that means they should just go to the other wedding and submit the sponsorship application afterwards.
As noted: he can't 'move' to Canada until he has status - as a US citizen, he can /visit./ For the most part this will not be an issue if he does not show up with all of his worldly belongings (eg truck with furniture). Just say outright he is visiting and getting married etc. He can/should admit that he will apply for PR but only remain as long as he's allowed to and his status is valid. (In practce that means he can apply to extend etc).
Now the citizenship wrinkle: I would still strongly suggest he get the documents and apply - he'd still get citizenship quicker, and easier to have that in Canada then just PR status (arguably). There's a wrinkle, though, and so may be easier to apply ... not right away.
The wrinkle: if when he submits the spousal spnsonsorhip they think he's a Canadian citizen, they WON'T approve the sponsorship. (A citizen is not eligible to become a PR). Do they have a process to put this on hold while they evaluate the citizenship app? I don't know. I believe he would also NOT be eligible to get a work permit - citizens are not eligible for them.
So I think the least confusing steps in the process would be for them to submit the sponsorship app first, and at least apply for the work permit, and only then apply for citizenship. (I'm kind of also assuming he doesn't have all the docs in hand, eg notarized copies of everything etc). (He might even want to wait until he gets PR status, since it's possible that would be quick.
The only reason I say that is that as far as I understand, there's no easy /process/ for a citizen-by-descent (under C-3) to get things like work permit (social security card), health card, etc, while they are in-country. They can apply 'urgently' - not clear to me how fast that actually is. So the path of applying for sponsorship is at least fairly straightforward and he'd be able to maintain status while this goes on. It may be at least worth getting a lawyer's input through a consultation (they can still do the paperwork themselves).
That said, others might have better info. I'm not folloiwng this all that closely, and it seems to be changing fast. It seems that the reddit.com 'subredit' on Canadian citizenship has the most active forum and discussions by people who are actually applying. (Caveat, most seem to be outside Canada). So he really should check that and other resources out:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Canadiancitizenship/
Good luck to them.
