Repeal is official: the 2 yr cohabit condition for sponsored spouses is removed

[dpenabill]

Privy Council notices indicate, as has been reported by the Canadian Council for Refugees and CBC, today, that the federal government is finally, officially eliminating conditional permanent residence for sponsored spouses and partners.

The Registration number is SOR/2017-0056 and the indicated publication date is May 3, 2017, meaning the change to the regulations will be published in the May 3 issue of the Gazette.

The Liberals had promised to do this some time ago, but like a lot of things on their agenda it has taken its time . . . while the amendment or in this instance the repeal of a regulation does not involve the same legislative process as is required for statutory provisions, Parliament is involved, and when properly done there are formal procedures including time for alternative or opposing views to be considered (Harper's government rammed changes through more aggressively, with virtually no opportunity for challenges to be considered, so these kinds of changes got done much faster then).

In any event, it will be official soon. No more conditional PR for spouses or partners.

 

[RyanDavis]

Hi,

I have a conditional permanent residency status with condition 51, 2 year cohabit condition.

Does this repeal (retroactively) remove my condition as well or is it only applicable to people who will apply for PR after May 3rd?

Will I still need to prove my fulfillment of condition 51 during citizenship process?

Thanks a lot in advance

 

[Rob_TO]

Will I still need to prove my fulfillment of condition 51 during citizenship process?

You never had to do this even before while rule was in force.
Assuming there was no investigation launched, after 2 years the condition 51 would have been automatically removed without any effort on your part.

 

[dpenabill]

Hi,

I have a conditional permanent residency status with condition 51, 2 year cohabit condition.

Does this repeal (retroactively) remove my condition as well or is it only applicable to people who will apply for PR after May 3rd?

Will I still need to prove my fulfillment of condition 51 during citizenship process?

Thanks a lot in advance

Beyond being sure, now, that the condition is going away, and will be gone for anyone who has not had proceedings taken against them for a failure to meet the condition, we will see the actual changes, including provisions governing when this takes effect, in next week's issue of the Gazette . . . most questions should be deferred to then.

But it is going away. And any PR still within the first two years can rest assured this is going away. Indeed, any PR who failed to meet this condition, but who has not had removal proceedings taken against him or her, will no longer be subject to the condition.

Moreover, my impression is that IRCC is not currently enforcing the condition, although exceptions to this are always possible in more blatantly obvious cases.

The notice does not indicate when the change actually takes effect, but again this should be known next week. My guess is either immediately or within a relatively short period of time. Without seeing it in its published form, I am not sure if this is still at a stage where there has to be a period for allowing challenges to be made before it becomes effective.

When it takes effect, my understanding is that it will remove the condition for all spousal sponsored PRs, including those who landed with this condition before this change, and again even those who failed to meet the condition (but who have not had proceedings for this brought against him or her).

For anyone who has already lost PR status due to a failure to meet the condition (that is, anyone who has been formally adjudicated to have lost PR status for the failure of a condition), this will almost certainly not have any effect; that is, it probably will NOT revive their PR status already lost due to the condition.

 

[dpenabill]

The removal of the cohabit condition for spousal sponsored PRs actually took effect April 13, 2017, the date the revised regulations were "registered."

So it is official. It is not that the condition will no longer be applicable, rather it is official that there is NO cohabit condition.



Other notable regulatory change:

Among other regulatory changes, the definition of dependent child has been officially increased to less than 22 years of age. This does not take effect until October 24, 2017.

In the meantime:
-- for affected applications made prior to July 1, 2014, there is no change, as there was no change for these applications when the Harper government lowered the age to less than 19.

-- for affected applications made between July 1, 2014 and through October 23, 2017, the Harper government changes still apply, dependent child still defined to be less than 19 years of age