Hi everyone,
First things first thank you for all the information on this forum, it's been already super helpful!
I tried posting in the "international study" forum first as it seemed more appropriate to my situation but I haven't gotten any replies yet (please feel free to give that post a read, it's much more detailed than this one but I don't think I'm allowed to copy-paste for spamming reasons!).
Here is my situation: I am French, my boyfriend is Irish and we live in Ireland. We have lived together for just over a year and dated for 5-6 years total. I have been accepted to a fully-funded PhD programme in Canada starting September 2018 so I need to apply for a study permit for the 5 years the PhD will take to complete. I don't expect this will be a problem as the university is paying me to come do the PhD in Canada and given that the university is really good it hopefully won't look strange that I'm moving halfway across the world for the programme! Also other French people have told me they didn't have any problems with getting study visas.
BUT...The issue is that I would like to bring my boyfriend. From what I understand international students are entitled to bring their common law partners with them and the partner can get an open work permit? My questions are:
1. Is it appropriate for us to do a joint (family) application, including a student permit for me and an open work permit for him, with him as my common-law partner?
2. Will it be an issue that we don't have joint bank accounts/life insurance policies (mostly because we are young and broke)? We've lived together for a year, before that we also lived together but not as "common law" I think as we had other roommates. We also had a long-distance period in 2014 where we visited each other often.
3. Will it be an issue that my partner doesn't have a job offer? He can send copies of his savings to show he can support himself while looking for work and my own university stipend will be enough to get us by until he finds work. He is currently a HR assistant at our home university.
I'm new to this process and welcome any advice/feedback/opinions!!
First things first thank you for all the information on this forum, it's been already super helpful!
I tried posting in the "international study" forum first as it seemed more appropriate to my situation but I haven't gotten any replies yet (please feel free to give that post a read, it's much more detailed than this one but I don't think I'm allowed to copy-paste for spamming reasons!).
Here is my situation: I am French, my boyfriend is Irish and we live in Ireland. We have lived together for just over a year and dated for 5-6 years total. I have been accepted to a fully-funded PhD programme in Canada starting September 2018 so I need to apply for a study permit for the 5 years the PhD will take to complete. I don't expect this will be a problem as the university is paying me to come do the PhD in Canada and given that the university is really good it hopefully won't look strange that I'm moving halfway across the world for the programme! Also other French people have told me they didn't have any problems with getting study visas.
BUT...The issue is that I would like to bring my boyfriend. From what I understand international students are entitled to bring their common law partners with them and the partner can get an open work permit? My questions are:
1. Is it appropriate for us to do a joint (family) application, including a student permit for me and an open work permit for him, with him as my common-law partner?
2. Will it be an issue that we don't have joint bank accounts/life insurance policies (mostly because we are young and broke)? We've lived together for a year, before that we also lived together but not as "common law" I think as we had other roommates. We also had a long-distance period in 2014 where we visited each other often.
3. Will it be an issue that my partner doesn't have a job offer? He can send copies of his savings to show he can support himself while looking for work and my own university stipend will be enough to get us by until he finds work. He is currently a HR assistant at our home university.
I'm new to this process and welcome any advice/feedback/opinions!!
