PGWP about to expire and we have not received our Marriage Certificate

[origcoburn]

Hi there!

Pretty much the title sums it up. We got married recently and my husband is sponsoring me to stay in Canada. I have been working here for almost 5 years (2 of those part-time as a student) As of now, I have a Full-Time job as a Retail Restaurant Supervisor and my PGWP is about to expire. Someone told me that as long as I apply for the Open Work Permit along with Family Class Spouse Sponsorship, I can keep working until I get my Open Work Permit, the thing is that we have not received the marriage certificate that we need to send the application. I cannot stop working because that would mean touching the savings that we want to use to buy a house, it is just not an option. Is there any other way to do this? I have approximately 3 weeks to get this sorted out and it is impossible to talk to an agent at the moment.

Has anyone been through this? What can I do? If my permit expires before I submit my application. What do I have to do? Do I need a visitor visa?

 

[scylla]

Hi there!

Pretty much the title sums it up. We got married recently and my husband is sponsoring me to stay in Canada. I have been working here for almost 5 years (2 of those part-time as a student) As of now, I have a Full-Time job as a Retail Restaurant Supervisor and my PGWP is about to expire. Someone told me that as long as I apply for the Open Work Permit along with Family Class Spouse Sponsorship, I can keep working until I get my Open Work Permit, the thing is that we have not received the marriage certificate that we need to send the application. I cannot stop working because that would mean touching the savings that we want to use to buy a house, it is just not an option. Is there any other way to do this? I have approximately 3 weeks to get this sorted out and it is impossible to talk to an agent at the moment.

Has anyone been through this? What can I do? If my permit expires before I submit my application. What do I have to do? Do I need a visitor visa?

Which province are you in? How long ago did you get married and when did you request the marriage certificate?

You are in a bit of a bind right now...

In order to continue working and have the OWP approved, both the OWP and your complete spousal sponsorship package have to be received together by IRCC before your PGWP expires. Your spousal sponsorship application will be incomplete without the marriage certificate. This is a mandatory document.

You can apply to change your status to visitor if you run out of time. However this would mean you need to stop working.

 

[origcoburn]

Which province are you in? How long ago did you get married and when did you request the marriage certificate?

You are in a bit of a bind right now...

In order to continue working and have the OWP approved, both the OWP and your complete spousal sponsorship package have to be received together by IRCC before your PGWP expires. Your spousal sponsorship application will be incomplete without the marriage certificate. This is a mandatory document.

You can apply to change your status to visitor if you run out of time. However this would mean you need to stop working.

We are in Ontario. We got married at the beginning of March. We sent a letter of urgency asking to get the process done quickly but Service Ontario said that they did not know how long it would take.

 

[scylla]

We are in Ontario. We got married at the beginning of March. We sent a letter of urgency asking to get the process done quickly but Service Ontario said that they did not know how long it would take.

Yeah - it's a dice roll with Ontario. Sometimes marriage certificates are received fairly quickly and sometimes they aren't.

Have the application 100% ready to go and hope you receive the marriage certificate in time.

If you don't, then apply to change your status to visitor before the PGWP expires and stop working. You'll be able to start working again once the OWP is approved (expect this to take many months).

The only alternative I can see is if you happen to qualify as common law (i.e. have lived together continuously for at least one full year). If you are common law, then you can submit an application under this stream vs. married. You'll need to have hard evidence to prove the full year of cohabitation (e.g. joint leases, joint utilities, joint bank account statements, etc.).