Will these plans to acquire permanent residence work?

[Annmarie17]

For the last three years I have been in a long distance relationship with my American SO. In a month, he is coming to Canada to live with me and work for the next year on an open work permit in the International Experience Canada program, provided by Interexchange/SWAP. We plan on living together this year and gaining common law status.
Our current hope/plan is that in the first year, we can (continue) to collect documents for proof of our relationship and our common law status, and near the end of the first year, have him apply for a second run on the International Experience Canada program so that he may lawfully remain living and working with me for one more year, in the country, while our application for sponsorship (which we will send out ASAP once we have a common law status) is being processed.
I still have more research to do, but I thought by posting this I could receive some tips and feedback. My concerns are that him being in the country on the IEC program while his application is being processed would interfere with the application. I am also concerned that the application could take longer than 1 year to process, which would mean he would have to return to America, which I think would probably compromise our common law status?
I also saw on another website that for permanent residency application, candidates are supposed to have proof of funds of about 13,000CAD dollars, but I didn't see anything about this on the actual Canadian Immigration website. Could anyone disprove/verify that?
Any feedback is appreciated. Thanks.

 

[canuck78]

There is no income requirement for spousal sponsorship but you do have to show that you can support yourselves without government help. IEC is a common way younger people establish common law status so won't interfere with the sponsorship process. Your application should take less than 1 year if he is from the US but he can always switch to visitor status temporarily if it does take longer.

 

[1887CAN]

As has been stated by canuk78, you don’t need proof of funds/savings in a spousal sponsorship application. You do, however, need to prove that you, as the sponsor, can support both of you in the event that the principal applicant is unable to work for whatever reason.

You’ll be responsible financially for whomever you sponsor, for a three period after landing, regardless of whether you’re still in a relationship or not. If the principal applicant takes any government assistance in that time, you’ll be required to pay it back in full.

You need to prove at the time of applying that you have a source of income. Most common would be proving you’re employed. You could be self employed too, or prove that you have a regular source of income through investments, rental property income, etc. The income doesn’t need to be a traditional source, but stability would certainly help the IRCC officer, during assessment, to be satisfied that there won’t be any financial issues.

My wife has a regular employed job, so in my sponsorship application we submitted a letter from her HR department confirming her employment and salary, and a copy of the last NoA issued from the CRA.

As for the work permits, apply well in advance for any extension your partner would be planning, to ensure there’s no delays in it being issued. I’m not 100% sure, but although applying for work permit extensions gives implied status to remain in Canada during the processing, I don’t think you’re allowed to continue working once the initial work permit has expired.

Good luck, and I hope it all works out for you both.