Conjugal Sponsorship

[Sahara18]

We were looking unto this too. Weve read it from the CA gov website.

"Although the intention of the conjugal partner category is to accommodate Canadians and permanent residents with foreign partners who can neither marry nor live together, the inability to marry cannot be an absolute requirement, since this could have the effect of “forcing” those couples to marry who may have chosen not to. Persons who have established and maintained a conjugal relationship for one year and who do not intend to marry might be conjugal partners if they have been unable to cohabit because of an immigration impediment or other serious barrier. The key to determining whether an individual is a conjugal partner is whether they are in a conjugal relationship with their sponsor and whether there is a compelling barrier to continuous cohabitation."

 

[armoured]

We were looking unto this too. Weve read it from the CA gov website.

"Although the intention of the conjugal partner category is to accommodate Canadians and permanent residents with foreign partners who can neither marry nor live together, the inability to marry cannot be an absolute requirement, since this could have the effect of “forcing” those couples to marry who may have chosen not to. Persons who have established and maintained a conjugal relationship for one year and who do not intend to marry might be conjugal partners if they have been unable to cohabit because of an immigration impediment or other serious barrier. The key to determining whether an individual is a conjugal partner is whether they are in a conjugal relationship with their sponsor and whether there is a compelling barrier to continuous cohabitation."

Two points:
1) you said one post above that you DO intend to get married - someday.

2) Read that text again carefully: note that it says the 'inability to marry cannot be an ABSOLUTE requirement.'

I read that text to mean very clearly that they can make it VERY HARD indeed to qualify, even where it is not an absolute requirement. I.e. you MIGHT just qualify under this if you make a very clear case that for some deeply personal reasons you are both ABSOLUTELY opposed to the institution of marriage, like some ancient anabaptistic sect or something. Or perhaps some other cases.

You will see again and again: COMPELLING barriers. So far you have not established that remotely convincing in a forum, let alone to IRCC.

By all means, apply under this form. You'll waste a lot of time and very high risk of refusal (with appeals, etc) for the high principle that it's kind of inconvenient and you don't really want to get married right now but sure later when you can have the exact ceremony you want. Doesn't sound like compelling barriers at all.

Keep in mind that as it is, most PR applications are running 12 months or more, and complex cases with refusals considerably longer. From what I've seen of conjugal cases with outright legal barriers ( as described elsewhere) they tend to take longer.

If that's worth it to you, by all means.

 

[armoured]

Just to note - I have no stake in this and it doesn't bother me at all if you want to go that route.

But the context is that the conjugal sponsorship is really meant to be the "last resort", for people who really have no other option but to apply this way - and as a result you should expect the scrutiny to be very high indeed and with refusal if it doesn't meet a rigorous test of what last resort really is.

 

[ConfusedInCanada2020]

Keep in mind that one of the two members of the couple must be outside Canada to submit a CONJUGAL application. We have been down this road. If not, the application will be RETURNED (but not necessarily refused). The best solution may be to live together in Canada (one year, at least in Ontario that's what it is and maybe every where here) and then file a COMMON-LAW application. I hope this helps.

 

[scylla]

We were looking unto this too. Weve read it from the CA gov website.

"Although the intention of the conjugal partner category is to accommodate Canadians and permanent residents with foreign partners who can neither marry nor live together, the inability to marry cannot be an absolute requirement, since this could have the effect of “forcing” those couples to marry who may have chosen not to. Persons who have established and maintained a conjugal relationship for one year and who do not intend to marry might be conjugal partners if they have been unable to cohabit because of an immigration impediment or other serious barrier. The key to determining whether an individual is a conjugal partner is whether they are in a conjugal relationship with their sponsor and whether there is a compelling barrier to continuous cohabitation."

Did you move in together last year after the law regarding cohabitation was changed? If you did, then I think that will help your case.

 

[Sahara18]

Keep in mind that one of the two members of the couple must be outside Canada to submit a CONJUGAL application. We have been down this road. If not, the application will be RETURNED (but not necessarily refused). The best solution may be to live together in Canada (one year, at least in Ontario that's what it is and maybe every where here) and then file a COMMON-LAW application. I hope this helps.

 

[Sahara18]

Hi thanks for responding..

We both work and lived in Dubai. We applied it from here too.

thats actually one thing we were thinking as they should have had returned our application if they knew we warent applicable. But They asked for medical,bio,so as other supposting documents before giving us PFL.

 

[Sahara18]

Did you move in together last year after the law regarding cohabitation was changed? If you did, then I think that will help your case.

Did you move in together last year after the law regarding cohabitation was changed? If you did, then I think that will help your case.

 

[scylla]

Hi thanks for responding..

We both work and lived in Dubai. We applied it from here too.

thats actually one thing we were thinking as they should have had returned our application if they knew we warent applicable. But They asked for medical,bio,so as other supposting documents before giving us PFL.

Applications are only returned if they are incomplete (e.g. you are missing a key document, form, signature). If IRCC doesn't think you meet the requirements to apply once they reach the relationship assessment phase (which happens after medical and biometrics), then the process is to issue a PFL to give you the opportunity to argue your case for why you believe you do in fact qualify.

 

[Sahara18]

Hi Scylla, Thanks gor responding..

We actually did, I got back from the Netherlands, were i had work to do for a year . Then covid hits and so they reform the Law around november 2020. We launched the application at Feb 2021

May i know your insight as to how it will be able to help us . We have given 30 days to send explanation on this.

Will really appreciate your help

 

[Sahara18]

Applications are only returned if they are incomplete (e.g. you are missing a key document, form, signature). If IRCC doesn't think you meet the requirements to apply once they reach the relationship assessment phase (which happens after medical and biometrics), then the process is to issue a PFL to give you the opportunity to argue your case for why you believe you do in fact qualify.

 

[scylla]

Hi Scylla, Thanks gor responding..

We actually did, I got back from the Netherlands, were i had work to do for a year . Then covid hits and so they reform the Law around november 2020. We launched the application at Feb 2021

May i know your insight as to how it will be able to help us . We have given 30 days to send explanation on this.

Will really appreciate your help

I'll be honest. I think you have a real uphill battle because you don't meet the requirements for conjugal.

I unfortunately don't see a strong argument for conjugal in your case. However try submitting what you can and who knows, you may get lucky. If you haven't already, you'll definitely want to show evidence that you have combined your finances (e.g. joint bank accounts, joint credits cards, naming each other as beneficiaries, etc.). One of the requirements of conjugal is that you must demonstrate a "marriage like relationship" - this extends to showing joint financials. When I think it through some more, I think the fact that common law living is now legal in Dubai most likely complicates your case (ideally you should have lived together for a year there and then applied). You basically have no barriers to either marriage or common law now which makes conjugal super challenging to substantiate.

Based on the experiences of others on this forum, trying to argue that you didn't want to get married has a low chance of succeeding as an argument for conjugal. The challenge with arguing that you want to get married on your own time / schedule is that this can make it sound like you're not ready for this level of commitment and aren't truly in a "marriage like relationship" but are simply dating.

Make the best argument you can to respond to the PFL.

I think you should be prepared for the fact that your application is most likely going to be refused. If that happens, you'll either need to get married or live together for a year somewhere continuously to become law before you'll be able to resubmit the sponsorship application. I would not recommend appealing if you are refused. I don't see an appeal succeeding if you are refused.

 

[k.h.p.]

Applications are only returned if they are incomplete (e.g. you are missing a key document, form, signature). If IRCC doesn't think you meet the requirements to apply once they reach the relationship assessment phase (which happens after medical and biometrics), then the process is to issue a PFL to give you the opportunity to argue your case for why you believe you do in fact qualify.

It's not so much "argue your case for why you believe you do in fact qualify" as it is "provide the decision maker, who is about to refuse your application, with vital information that they have not yet seen that would have a material impact on their decision." Too many people think that getting a PFL means that they can finally engage in a debate with IRCC over rules they don't like, instead of seeing it as an element of procedural fairness to prevent a patently unfair outcome from happening solely on the basis of information available not being in front of the decision maker.

 

[Sahara18]

We are stressed out and really hoping a genuine letter of intent will help, we have put out heart and genuinely believe that marriage should not just be a reason for the sake of PR, My partner lost his job recently due to covid, And our plans should be going back to settle down in CA. We are sincerely in distress as to the fact we might forcely get married just because of this. Without our family and friends. Given its pandemic.

 

[Sahara18]

Th

It's not so much "argue your case for why you believe you do in fact qualify" as it is "provide the decision maker, who is about to refuse your application, with vital information that they have not yet seen that would have a material impact on their decision." Too many people think that getting a PFL means that they can finally engage in a debate with IRCC over rules they don't like, instead of seeing it as an element of procedural fairness to prevent a patently unfair outcome from happening solely on the basis of information available not being in front of the decision maker.

L