Hello and happy holidays!
My wife and I are stumped and confused with a current issue we are facing, and we would greatly appreciate any hep you have to offer.
My Wife is Australian citizen, I am Canadian citizen. We were married here in Canada. She most recently arrived here in Canada on May 7th 2012. We understood that as a visitor, she can drive legally in Canada for 6 months with her Australian driver’s license. Our question is this: She applied for an extension on her visitor visa Oct. 6th (which is a month before her original visitor visa expires) this was for another 6 month extension of her visitor visa. She applied for this because just previous to that we sent in her application for permanent residency in Canada and also my sponsorship forms. We knew my wife would have to apply for the visitor visa extension because we would be waiting for the results of her permanent resident visa application package for possibly up to 18 months. One thing we are confused about is, can she still drive legally? Is there a way to “renew” this 6 moths of legal driving? Or can she not drive until she:
A: Leaves Canada to go to Australia and then come back again, or,
B: Until she receives her permanent residency visa where she can then apply for a Canadian Driver’s license.
Another important thing to add is because the Canadian visa office usually takes around 90 days to complete the application for visitor extension visa, she is under what they call “implied status” So we are not sure if this contributes to the issue in any way?
It just feels unfair to us that she could be waiting for up to 18 months for the permanent resident visa forms to be accepted before she can drive. And where we are living right now it is very important that she can be able to drive as I work out of town often and the closest food store is 20 minutes away with no bus route. We are in the province of British Columbia. Thank you very much for your help. WE really appreciate it!
Adam Dobres.
My wife and I are stumped and confused with a current issue we are facing, and we would greatly appreciate any hep you have to offer.
My Wife is Australian citizen, I am Canadian citizen. We were married here in Canada. She most recently arrived here in Canada on May 7th 2012. We understood that as a visitor, she can drive legally in Canada for 6 months with her Australian driver’s license. Our question is this: She applied for an extension on her visitor visa Oct. 6th (which is a month before her original visitor visa expires) this was for another 6 month extension of her visitor visa. She applied for this because just previous to that we sent in her application for permanent residency in Canada and also my sponsorship forms. We knew my wife would have to apply for the visitor visa extension because we would be waiting for the results of her permanent resident visa application package for possibly up to 18 months. One thing we are confused about is, can she still drive legally? Is there a way to “renew” this 6 moths of legal driving? Or can she not drive until she:
A: Leaves Canada to go to Australia and then come back again, or,
B: Until she receives her permanent residency visa where she can then apply for a Canadian Driver’s license.
Another important thing to add is because the Canadian visa office usually takes around 90 days to complete the application for visitor extension visa, she is under what they call “implied status” So we are not sure if this contributes to the issue in any way?
It just feels unfair to us that she could be waiting for up to 18 months for the permanent resident visa forms to be accepted before she can drive. And where we are living right now it is very important that she can be able to drive as I work out of town often and the closest food store is 20 minutes away with no bus route. We are in the province of British Columbia. Thank you very much for your help. WE really appreciate it!
Adam Dobres.
