Spouse Taken Off Disability in the Middle of PR processing...

[Snibbles]

Hey all,

Panicking a bit here. I'm an Inland applicant for PR. My Canadian spouse is disabled (schizophrenia) and sponsoring me while on disability. However, her disability for 2018 just got rejected by the medical board because the paperwork was deemed incomplete (family doctor who is very old left out a whole form) and as a result, she was placed on general assistance (i.e welfare) for February.

We all know you can't sponsor on welfare.

My spouse's case worker is going to forward the medical board the missing form when we get it filled out on the 19th. If it's rejected again, we will appeal the decision. Worst case, if she still doesn't qualify for disability, she'll get off general assistance immediately and we'll be asking for some parental help to make ends meet until my OWP comes through in late Feb/early March.

My issue is that I'm terrified IRCC will see that she was on welfare in February and reject her sponsorship. If she gets back on disability in March will it matter what happened in February?

If IRCC does raise an issue and rejects her as a sponsor, do they send a letter or notice beforehand that they're about to reject your application?
Would I have an opportunity to provide more information to them or would that just be the end of it and back to square one?

 

[Snibbles]

Anyone know? Can she just not collect general assistance payments until a decision is made on her file for disability?

 

[scylla]

This is a very unique case - and I doubt anyone here has been in the exact same situation and can offer you any real advice. You'll just have to wait and see.

My guess is that it's a matter of timing and luck. If CIC has already completed verification of her financial situation, then it's quite possible they won't catch the fact that she was switched over to the regular payments for a month or two. Or it's possible they may be starting that verification now and will find out which would then impact the application.

If CIC figures out that she's been switched to regular social assistance, then you should be expecting a refusal. Not sure there's really anything you can do but wait and see - and obviously do what you can to move her back to disability asap.

 

[Snibbles]

This is a very unique case - and I doubt anyone here has been in the exact same situation and can offer you any real advice. You'll just have to wait and see.

My guess is that it's a matter of timing and luck. If CIC has already completed verification of her financial situation, then it's quite possible they won't catch the fact that she was switched over to the regular payments for a month or two. Or it's possible they may be starting that verification now and will find out which would then impact the application.

If CIC figures out that she's been switched to regular social assistance, then you should be expecting a refusal. Not sure there's really anything you can do but wait and see - and obviously do what you can to move her back to disability asap.

Thanks,

To be on the safe side we're going to see if her file can be closed completely and pay rent with parental assistance. It could be reopened when a decision has been made for disability.

 

[Snibbles]

Luckily it looks like if a rejection is in question, it seems like a "procedural fairness letter" allows for the sponsor and/or primary applicant to provide more info about the situation?

"Procedural guidelines when refusing an application without an interview
The officer must apply the principle of procedural fairness in all cases...
Procedural fairness provides that before making a final decision that is based on evidence submitted by a third party that was not publicly and reasonably available to the applicant, the applicant should be made aware of the contradiction and provided an opportunity to address the evidence received from a third party"

If this is true, this is good news, I was afraid that applications are outright rejected without any opportunity to provide more info.
Other good news is that my wife is eligible to get back on disability as she had the paperwork redone by her doctor. It will take until mid-February however. My parents have offered to pay our rent this month so that my wife doesn't need to collect social assistance.

I talked to a few people at the call centre who agreed that in this situation, the best thing would be to use the IRCC webform to update my PR case and show that we did not collect any social assistance and include other paperwork to prove the situation.