Hello everyone,
So I am a US citizen looking to immigrate to Canada as a common-law partner to my boyfriend. I came to Canada in mid March of 2017 under a temporary one-year open work permit (IEC class). I had reapplied for a second year in which I got approved, and just picked up my second year-long open work permit a couple of days ago by flagpoling at the Rainbow Bridge border crossing in Niagara Falls. Upon getting my taxes done, I was advised that since I have lived with my boyfriend for a year now, we need to change our marital status from Single to Common Law with the CRA.
We plan on doing this, and we have discussed having him sponsor me as his common-law partner so I can immigrate here on a PR visa. As I heard it can be a bit more difficult to prove a genuine relationship with common-law than marriage, I would like some advice on what would be best to give me the best chance at having my application approved. Here are some of our circumstances...
- We have been in a genuine LDR relationship from June 2011 up until I moved here last year. We met on an online game and things just went from there. I don't really have any copies of any tickets showing I visited Canada, but I do have plenty of visa stamps in my passport - they were all lost in the move to Canada. Boyfriend has more physical proof that he came and visited me in the form of boarding passes and whatnot.
- Our hydro bill is in both of our names, and we have enough to show we lived here together for a year.
- Internet bill is in my name only, but I can get proof with that that I have been at my current address for a year.
- A weird thing happened when we got our apartment in that I wasn't physically put on the lease - instead it was my boyfriend as well as his dad (who was our co-signer). Would I be able to use the lease agreement to at least show my boyfriend also resided at this address, along with a letter stating that our landlord recognizes that we were both present at our current address for a year, or over? She is aware I live here and I'm actually the one who deals with her more often than my boyfriend.
- Boyfriend's primary proof of address would be his bank statements as well as his T4s and tax documents, as they were mailed here. I also have T4s and tax documents that show I resided at this address - my bank statement wouldn't match up as I forgot to change my address to my current one until recently. Would this be considered good proof?
- As for supplemental proof that our relationship is genuine... We have a crap ton of things like text logs, skype chat logs, facebook messenger logs, could probably get call logs, etc that could go back as far as a number of years ago. We could also get supporting letters from his parents acknowledging the legitimacy of our relationship as I am on very good terms with them.
- We don't really have any pictures - we both hate having our pictures taken (we literally only have 1 picture where we are together, and that is with a group of friends). I have a few where I shot pictures of him and wrote some sappy thing on facebook, but that's as close as we got. Would this be an issue? It seems a lot of people use photos as supplemental proof of legitimacy.
Any advice would be welcome.
So I am a US citizen looking to immigrate to Canada as a common-law partner to my boyfriend. I came to Canada in mid March of 2017 under a temporary one-year open work permit (IEC class). I had reapplied for a second year in which I got approved, and just picked up my second year-long open work permit a couple of days ago by flagpoling at the Rainbow Bridge border crossing in Niagara Falls. Upon getting my taxes done, I was advised that since I have lived with my boyfriend for a year now, we need to change our marital status from Single to Common Law with the CRA.
We plan on doing this, and we have discussed having him sponsor me as his common-law partner so I can immigrate here on a PR visa. As I heard it can be a bit more difficult to prove a genuine relationship with common-law than marriage, I would like some advice on what would be best to give me the best chance at having my application approved. Here are some of our circumstances...
- We have been in a genuine LDR relationship from June 2011 up until I moved here last year. We met on an online game and things just went from there. I don't really have any copies of any tickets showing I visited Canada, but I do have plenty of visa stamps in my passport - they were all lost in the move to Canada. Boyfriend has more physical proof that he came and visited me in the form of boarding passes and whatnot.
- Our hydro bill is in both of our names, and we have enough to show we lived here together for a year.
- Internet bill is in my name only, but I can get proof with that that I have been at my current address for a year.
- A weird thing happened when we got our apartment in that I wasn't physically put on the lease - instead it was my boyfriend as well as his dad (who was our co-signer). Would I be able to use the lease agreement to at least show my boyfriend also resided at this address, along with a letter stating that our landlord recognizes that we were both present at our current address for a year, or over? She is aware I live here and I'm actually the one who deals with her more often than my boyfriend.
- Boyfriend's primary proof of address would be his bank statements as well as his T4s and tax documents, as they were mailed here. I also have T4s and tax documents that show I resided at this address - my bank statement wouldn't match up as I forgot to change my address to my current one until recently. Would this be considered good proof?
- As for supplemental proof that our relationship is genuine... We have a crap ton of things like text logs, skype chat logs, facebook messenger logs, could probably get call logs, etc that could go back as far as a number of years ago. We could also get supporting letters from his parents acknowledging the legitimacy of our relationship as I am on very good terms with them.
- We don't really have any pictures - we both hate having our pictures taken (we literally only have 1 picture where we are together, and that is with a group of friends). I have a few where I shot pictures of him and wrote some sappy thing on facebook, but that's as close as we got. Would this be an issue? It seems a lot of people use photos as supplemental proof of legitimacy.
Any advice would be welcome.
