Hello Everyone. My name is Chris. This forum had been a great help for me while I was working on sponsoring my wife to come to Canada, so I thought I'd give a little back by sharing our experience, from start to finish, in hope that you might find it helpful. I know the hardest thing is waiting, and so hopefully the dates and timelines that I provide an idea of how long you have to wait for your spousal sponsorship to move forward.
Gathering Documents for Application
Very quickly about our situation: I was born in the Philippines but my family moved to Canada in 1995 and we became citizens in 2000 while we were still required to renounce our Philippine Citizenship. In other words, I am Filipino-Canadian with only a Canadian Citizenship/Passport. I met my wife online in 2015, and we got married in 2019. She is Filipina, obviously. And before we got married she visited me in Japan, where I was working at the time, once, and I visited her four times.. the last was for our "Pamamanhikan". We then got married in Hong Kong in May 2019 and she joined me in Japan for the last 3 months of my work contract there... She had a multiple-entry, 30-day visa to Japan so she returned to the Philippines 2x (staying 1 week each time) in order to "renew" her 30-day stay. Finally in August 2019, I finished my contract and we moved to the Philippines and started on her visa for Canada. At the time, I was expecting the process to take no longer than 6 months so I was preparing to return to Canada by February or March 2020 (I even had a job offer). But for various reasons, not just the pandemic, it took longer.
Our first problem was gathering the documents to submit for the application. The main reason: we decided to wait until she had her name changed on her passport before starting the application. I figured going through that process first will save us some headaches later. In one sense, it did. But it also delayed our sending her Sponsorship application in by about 3 months. First Problem: Our Report of Marriage to the Philippine Embassy in Hong Kong was not forward to PSA... So getting secured marriage document from the PSA took until the beginning of September (we arrived in the Philippines first week of August so almost a month) and about 3-4 visits to PSA Main in QC. In the meantime, we got PhilPost Postal IDs, mostly for me so I could open a bank account in the Philippines (that was easy to get, just had to get a barangay clearance) but it was her first ID with her married name.
After we got the status change/marriage certificates, we got her a new PRC ID (she was a teacher). For that, thankfully, we had a trip planned to Puerto Princessa in the middle of September and her she was able to get an appointment at the PRC there. Otherwise, she would have had to wait weeks for the PRC offices in Manila. Finally we were ready to get her passport, which we did end of September. That was pretty easy... DFA at Ali Mall had an appointment slot that we liked, etc. We got it expedited too, so by pretty much by 2nd week of October we were ready to submit.
Unfortunately, I was procrastinating a little with completing the application, etc and it took like 2 weeks to do that. I know that because the final item we needed, her NBI Clearance Certificate, we tried to get on Oct 31... I'm sure you Filipinos know the problem with that, it's a holiday and the NBI office was only open half day, and we arrived there at like 1:30pm or so. Then when we came back a few days later, she had a "hit" on her name, mainly because of her name change - anyway, it wasn't a problem but it added a few more days to getting her certificate. Finally 2nd week of November we completed her application and we felt ready to mail it all in.
IRCC Application
We did and we got AOR on 27 November 2019. Things progressed pretty quickly and normally after that...
First of all, despite our due diligence to make sure we sent in the right documents, they were not satisfied with our proofs of marriage. We sent in a copy of our original Hong Kong marriage certificate, along with the report of marriage to the Philippine Embassy on PSA paper (I think this basically serves as our Philippine Marriage certificate). So on March 6, we received a new request for an "Advisory on Marriage" ... This is basically the Opposite of a CENOMAR. In fact you apply for a CENOMAR to get it. While CENOMAR certifies no marriage, AOM certifies that you are indeed married... Unfortunately, as you can see from the date, this is around the time when the world started panicking about COVID-19.
Knowing that something extraordinary was happening, we decided to do both online and in person, and by 15 March 2020, we had the AOM and sent it in by email. Unfortunately, that was also the day NCR (and Cainta, where we lived) went into Community Quarantine. And so basically we heard.. nothing. Absolutely nothing for nearly 5 months. Well except for a March 16 automated acknowledgement of my email sending the document, followed almost immediately by a mass email explaining that the Embassy was going to operate under "reduced staff".
FINALLY, 24 August 2020, we got another email! Horay! Unfortunately, it was to tell me that I didn't actually attach a document to my March 15 email.*sigh*. I'll tell you what, I've never responded to an email faster in my entire life. Things progressed normally after that, or as normally as things will be Post-COVID I suppose...
Gathering Documents for Application
Very quickly about our situation: I was born in the Philippines but my family moved to Canada in 1995 and we became citizens in 2000 while we were still required to renounce our Philippine Citizenship. In other words, I am Filipino-Canadian with only a Canadian Citizenship/Passport. I met my wife online in 2015, and we got married in 2019. She is Filipina, obviously. And before we got married she visited me in Japan, where I was working at the time, once, and I visited her four times.. the last was for our "Pamamanhikan". We then got married in Hong Kong in May 2019 and she joined me in Japan for the last 3 months of my work contract there... She had a multiple-entry, 30-day visa to Japan so she returned to the Philippines 2x (staying 1 week each time) in order to "renew" her 30-day stay. Finally in August 2019, I finished my contract and we moved to the Philippines and started on her visa for Canada. At the time, I was expecting the process to take no longer than 6 months so I was preparing to return to Canada by February or March 2020 (I even had a job offer). But for various reasons, not just the pandemic, it took longer.
Our first problem was gathering the documents to submit for the application. The main reason: we decided to wait until she had her name changed on her passport before starting the application. I figured going through that process first will save us some headaches later. In one sense, it did. But it also delayed our sending her Sponsorship application in by about 3 months. First Problem: Our Report of Marriage to the Philippine Embassy in Hong Kong was not forward to PSA... So getting secured marriage document from the PSA took until the beginning of September (we arrived in the Philippines first week of August so almost a month) and about 3-4 visits to PSA Main in QC. In the meantime, we got PhilPost Postal IDs, mostly for me so I could open a bank account in the Philippines (that was easy to get, just had to get a barangay clearance) but it was her first ID with her married name.
After we got the status change/marriage certificates, we got her a new PRC ID (she was a teacher). For that, thankfully, we had a trip planned to Puerto Princessa in the middle of September and her she was able to get an appointment at the PRC there. Otherwise, she would have had to wait weeks for the PRC offices in Manila. Finally we were ready to get her passport, which we did end of September. That was pretty easy... DFA at Ali Mall had an appointment slot that we liked, etc. We got it expedited too, so by pretty much by 2nd week of October we were ready to submit.
Unfortunately, I was procrastinating a little with completing the application, etc and it took like 2 weeks to do that. I know that because the final item we needed, her NBI Clearance Certificate, we tried to get on Oct 31... I'm sure you Filipinos know the problem with that, it's a holiday and the NBI office was only open half day, and we arrived there at like 1:30pm or so. Then when we came back a few days later, she had a "hit" on her name, mainly because of her name change - anyway, it wasn't a problem but it added a few more days to getting her certificate. Finally 2nd week of November we completed her application and we felt ready to mail it all in.
IRCC Application
We did and we got AOR on 27 November 2019. Things progressed pretty quickly and normally after that...
- Dec 23 - Qualified as Sponsor / Received Medical & Biometrics Instructions (same day, separate emails)
- Jan 2 - Completed Medical @ BGC St. Luke's
- Jan 3 - Completed Bioemetrics @ VAC Manila
- Jan 14 - Processing officially begins
First of all, despite our due diligence to make sure we sent in the right documents, they were not satisfied with our proofs of marriage. We sent in a copy of our original Hong Kong marriage certificate, along with the report of marriage to the Philippine Embassy on PSA paper (I think this basically serves as our Philippine Marriage certificate). So on March 6, we received a new request for an "Advisory on Marriage" ... This is basically the Opposite of a CENOMAR. In fact you apply for a CENOMAR to get it. While CENOMAR certifies no marriage, AOM certifies that you are indeed married... Unfortunately, as you can see from the date, this is around the time when the world started panicking about COVID-19.
Knowing that something extraordinary was happening, we decided to do both online and in person, and by 15 March 2020, we had the AOM and sent it in by email. Unfortunately, that was also the day NCR (and Cainta, where we lived) went into Community Quarantine. And so basically we heard.. nothing. Absolutely nothing for nearly 5 months. Well except for a March 16 automated acknowledgement of my email sending the document, followed almost immediately by a mass email explaining that the Embassy was going to operate under "reduced staff".
FINALLY, 24 August 2020, we got another email! Horay! Unfortunately, it was to tell me that I didn't actually attach a document to my March 15 email.*sigh*. I'll tell you what, I've never responded to an email faster in my entire life. Things progressed normally after that, or as normally as things will be Post-COVID I suppose...
- Sep 23, Status online Changes to Decision Made
- Oct. 6, Passport Request
- Oct. 21ish, Passport returned with Visa & COPR / Flights Booked for 11 November 2020