I decided to re-visit this thread after reading every case on CanLII referenced under "marriage(s) of convenience". And no, I'm not kidding, I read ALL of them. Nearly 800 of them, took me a good few weeks, but I wanted to understand how the Regulations were applied previously and what I would now find myself up against.
In a strange way, after reading all those cases, I find myself reassured. It became obvious to me that the "Bad Faith" Regulations are designed to weigh the intentions of the sponsored party, and by changing the "AND" to "OR", the legislators have decided to weigh them more stringently. It used to be that in order to succeed on appeal, an appellant only needed to prove one of the prongs of the test did not apply, i.e. either their marriage was genuine or it was not entered into primarily for immigration purposes, now they are going to make us prove both by giving the VOs more discretion to examine the relationships.
I get the feeling the legislators are trying to focus more attention on the intentions of the sponsored spouse, in order to weed out those who will pursue a Canadian spouse only to abandon them at the airport or shortly thereafter. The marriage/relationship is "genuine", in that it is legal and they do want to be with the Canadian partner...but the primary purpose of that marriage, of that entire relationship, is merely to give them status in Canada, and once achieved, they no longer want to be in the relationship.
The legislators are also trying (IMO) to address what is seen as a growing trend of marriages undertaken solely to bring the sponsored spouse to Canada, i.e. somearranged marriages. I was incredulous at the number of cases I read of "serial sponsoring spouses" who would wed, sponsor, divorce, wed, sponsor, divorce multiple partners. In some egregious cases, it was obvious that the marriages were arranged solely for the gaining of status for the sponsored spouse, neither party had any intention of making a marriage of it, and would quite likely do the same themselves. Yes, there are some out there making a business out of spousal sponsorship, and the government is trying to clamp down on them too.
The point is...the bad apples are ruining it, for both sides of the equation in genuine relationships (sponsor and partner). The government has decided to be more pro-active, so genuine couples will have to do the same. Gird up your loins, folks...if you don't want to get swept away with the scammers. Because you know what? I can bet you the scammers are going to ramp up their game too!
