Skilled spouse not sure about the best way to get a PR: skilled worker or wife?

[Balia]

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

 

[CharlieD10]

Based on your nationality and location, either Skilled Worker or spousal application is going to take a while for you.

Yes, some countries have shorter processing times than others. The US, certain European and Indian visa offices are the fastest. African, Caribbean, some Asian/Mid-East and Latin American offices take longer than those offices. That's just how it is.

 

[canadianwoman]

Dakar is not listed on the timeline chart, but most African visa offices take a long time, on average, to process spousal PR applications. So a FSW application might well be faster than a sponsored spouse application for someone from Africa. In addition, you can guess pretty accurately whether you will be accepted as a FSW - its requirements are fairly objective. But for a spousal application, you have to prove your marriage is genuine.
One consideration is that if you have a lot of proof that your marriage is genuine, then your spousal PR app will probably be processed more quickly than the average.

One possibility for you, since you have a visitor visa, is to come to Canada as a visitor, and then apply inland with a spousal sponsorship. Usually applying outland is much faster, but not for people from Africa. The disadvantage is that you cannot leave Canada while your application is being processed, and you cannot appeal a refusal. The advantage in your case is that first-stage approval will be in about 9 months, and you can start working then and get health care: this is faster than a FSW app, and probably also faster than an outland spousal app through Dakar.