Questions on Spousal sponsorship

[elvislevel]

Thanks guys. I guess it is fair enough that couples living appart a lot would be obliged to make a tighter case.

Concerning the visa, I could not imagine her leaving the country and letting the visa laps, so we have been thinking about differnt things, it seems. She has a multiple re-entry visa good until 2014. The situation that might occur is that in Dec the application is submitted then in March she goes to Japan to visit some friends then returns in a couple of weeks, still with a year on her visitors visa.

Concerning inland vs out, my thinking was that the point of doing it inland is because this is where we live. Our house is here and our kids go to school here. It was also my understanding that OHIP could be applied for while the application is on going when applying inland. Also, the first two people I talked to about this said it was either easy to travel or very easy.

How do you know what extra information particular VOs expect if you did not happen to read it here? Does Mississauga expect letters from friends?

I will try giving the CIC a call. I hate doing this because I expect to wait a long time and get conflicting information. I prefer talking to people who have actually been in this sitation rather than have just read about it.

 

[Sweden]

Thanks guys. I guess it is fair enough that couples living appart a lot would be obliged to make a tighter case.

Concerning the visa, I could not imagine her leaving the country and letting the visa laps, so we have been thinking about differnt things, it seems. She has a multiple re-entry visa good until 2014. The situation that might occur is that in Dec the application is submitted then in March she goes to Japan to visit some friends then returns in a couple of weeks, still with a year on her visitors visa.

Concerning inland vs out, my thinking was that the point of doing it inland is because this is where we live. Our house is here and our kids go to school here. It was also my understanding that OHIP could be applied for while the application is on going when applying inland. Also, the first two people I talked to about this said it was either easy to travel or very easy.

How do you know what extra information particular VOs expect if you did not happen to read it here? Does Mississauga expect letters from friends?

I will try giving the CIC a call. I hate doing this because I expect to wait a long time and get conflicting information. I prefer talking to people who have actually been in this sitation rather than have just read about it.

Good luck with giving CIC a call, it's usually a long wait...

Outland versus Inland has more to do with the forms you use and the office that processes your application but you can do while in Canada (quite a few people from visa exempt country do that).
Downside is yes - no OHIP (but if you live in BC or Alberta it's different), and she won't be able to work. AS mentioned, she also won't have implied status anymore while her visa expires, but if she has a valid visa, and she applies for an extension while her PR is already on going, there is a good chance that she will be approved.

For extra documents - look at the Region specific guideline for your "possible VO" to get an idea. BUt as you have been married 15 years and 2 kids, proofs of all that, together with the list provided by CIC in the guideline should be enough.

Good luck!
Sweden

 

[Rob_TO]

How do you know what extra information particular VOs expect if you did not happen to read it here? Does Mississauga expect letters from friends?

In your case you won't need to worry. Tons of extra proof is mainly required in cases where couples need to prove a common-law relationship, are living apart, or were together only a short time before getting married.

In my case i needed to prove common-law relationship while my girlfriend was living with me here in Toronto. Ours was a very minimal application, and basically we only provided:
- copy of my work benefits plan, showing she was listed as my spouse and also as beneficiary for insurance
- joint credit card
- couple of pieces of her mail showing we share same address
- letter from my mom as character witness to relationship
- airplane tix for visiting korea to meet all her family
- some pictures of us meeting each others friends and family, announcing our engagement, and travelling together (around 20 pictures total)

And that was it. We also just stuck to the few lines of space provided in the application page to explain details of our relationship (some people write huge essays). So for yours as married for a long time with a few kids, i wouldnt worry at all about providing tons of proof.

The main reason people apply outland vs inland even though they are in Canada already, is the quicker processing times. In our case our application with VO office in asia flew through the process in 4 months flat, though we were extremely lucky i think as that is not usual.

For outland apps you can get a SIN card on same day of landing, and OHIP have to wait 3 months from landing. I would do a thorough check how soon you can get SIN/OHIP if you use inland, compare the wait times for inland vs outland (in your case i guess would be Beijing visa office), and see which one would be quicker. One more risk with outland while you're in Canada is if you need to do an interview it will be in Beijing so you'll need to book a trip just for that (but again, in your case there should be zero reason for an interview).
Good luck!

 

[elvislevel]

Thanks again. I am not too concerned about the proof of relationship any longer, so thanks for that. I am curious if anybody has a view on the issue of traveling outside of the country with an inland application active. Earlier concerns seemed to assume my wife would be applying for a visitors visa from outside Canada to get back in, which the authorities might sniff at. But this is not the case. My wife has a multiple re-entry tourist visa good for over a year. When the inland PR application is in does anything happen to this tourist visa, given she will have permission to stay in Canada as a deemed resident or some such thing? Can one hold both a visitors visa and this sort of proto-residence status at the same time?

Rgds,

EL