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Balia

Newbie
May 23, 2011
3
0
Hi Everybody.

I am Senegalese woman and am married to a Canadian Citizen who lives in Montreal. I am currently in Dakar where I work. I am not very sure which route to take in order to enable a speedy processing of my PR. I am tired of the back and forth with my tourist visa and would like to settle to Montreal sooner rather than later. My questions are the following:
1. I qualify for both spousal application and Federal Skilled Worker (FSW) program. If I decide to go through the FSW, won\\\'t the Canadian immigration services require that I submit a spousal application, thus letting my status of spouse prevail over that of skilled worker? Are they in a position to oblige me to choose the spousal route or is that option entirely up to me?
2. I have been told by a lawyer that applying to PR as a FSW is much quicker (2 years of processing he said: 1 year for the Certificat de Selection du Quebec and 1 year for federal approval), in my case, than applying as a spouse (more than two years according to him). I am kind of confused as this is not the type of information I have been reading on this forum as it seems that spousal applications are processed relatively fast and certainly faster than FSW it seems. Could you please clarify that to me: which is one processed quicker between FSW and Spousal? Do you have an idea of the time it takes? Does the estimated timing that my lawyer gave us seem excessively long to you? Could the fact that I am Senegalese justifies these long delays in processing my PR vs say a EUropean or a US-Citizen applying to the same?

Thanks a lot for your help and looking forward to reading from you.

Balia
 
In my opinion spousal is the best way to go as it is the responsibility of the govt to reunite families. Hence Spousal visa is the fastest way to go. You won't have to give any exams(TEF, etc) and prove your work experience. Hence it will be cheaper

Though you need to check the processing time for both the categories

QSQhttp://www.cic.gc.ca/english/information/times/perm/skilled-que.asp

Family Classhttp://www.cic.gc.ca/english/information/times/perm/fc-spouses.asp


But your visa office Dakar, Senegal is not mentioned in the list.

Check the website of your visa office. Its much better if you directly contact them.

http://www.canadainternational.gc.ca/senegal/index.aspx?lang=eng
 
nano24482 said:
In my opinion spousal is the best way to go........

I second that, dont get confused. IF you already have your better half in Canada as a citizen/PR, go that way.
 
devilhimselff said:
I second that, dont get confused. IF you already have your better half in Canada as a citizen/PR, go that way.

Agreed - and spousal sponsorship is by far the fastest way to get PR. Usually it takes only 3 or 4 months.

Wayne.
 
nano24482 said:
In my opinion spousal is the best way to go as it is the responsibility of the govt to reunite families. Hence Spousal visa is the fastest way to go. You won't have to give any exams(TEF, etc) and prove your work experience. Hence it will be cheaper

Though you need to check the processing time for both the categories

QSQhttp://www.cic.gc.ca/english/information/times/perm/skilled-que.asp

Family Classhttp://www.cic.gc.ca/english/information/times/perm/fc-spouses.asp


But your visa office Dakar, Senegal is not mentioned in the list.

Check the website of your visa office. Its much better if you directly contact them.

http://www.canadainternational.gc.ca/senegal/index.aspx?lang=eng
Agreed and strongly reccommend