First of all, I am sorry to hear your story. Canadian gov agencies are famous for their inefficiency and inflexibility, but notorious for their cruelty. I think they have the right to question all of our marriages as we have to prove we are in a genuine committed long-term relationship. But IRCC and Canada did fail to acknowledge certain cultural customs, whereas NZ did better in this regard. I think the pandemic gave them a perfect reason to deliberately do certain things, such as the cut-off of March 18, hold applications with outland dependents without valid reasons. Also IRCC is very subjective to grant the authorization letter. Maybe try to get him to Canada first with a visitor visa and the authorization letter, and it would be easy to get a SOWP inland.