Your application should have gone to the Case Processing Centre in Mississauga, ON first - they'll assess you as the sponsor. That process is currently taking about 24 days. You'll get a letter from them notifying you of the decision. If you're approved, CPC-M will transfer your file to the overseas visa office in London, where they will assess your relationship and your partner's eligibility. London is currently finalizing applications in 3-9 months, but you'll have another 6 weeks or so added to your timeline for completion and receipt of the Quebec Selection Certificate paperwork that CPC-M will send to you that you need to fill out and get back to them before London starts processing.
To answer your second question about whether or not your partner can come to Canada to stay with you during processing - he is from a visa-exempt country so he is pretty much able to come to Canada and visit without too much problem . . . so the "normal" answer to this question would be "Yes" - although he would not be able to work or go to school while in Canada without a special permit. However, if you bring him to Canada you will seriously undermine the credibility of your PR application. You should be aware that the conjugal partner category is the most difficult Family Class category to be approved in because you need to be able to demonstrate that you
cannot marry, and that you also
cannot live together to meet the one year co-habitation requirements for a common-law sponsorship. It will be very difficult to prove, when you have a partner in a visa-exempt country, that it is impossible for you to either marry or establish a common-law partnership due to persecution or prejudice as a result of your relationship. If you bring him to Canada while the application is processing, you're only proving that you actually have the ability to chose to marry or establish a common-law partnership. Simply not
wanting to marry or live together is not reason enough for CIC to approve a conjugal ap.
You should read through the information in Sections 5.25-5.26 of
the OP2 Processing Manual about conjugal partner sponsorships. I don't know what your situation is and why you are not marrying before trying to sponsor him, but if you are considering marriage in the future I would suggest that you withdraw your conjugal partner sponsorship application now and re-file after you marry; or bring him to Canada now and get married . . . and then switch your category from conjugal to spouse (See Section 5.51 of the manual).
I know I only have the "basics" here about your relationship, and I'm not here to make judgments . . . it's just that the parameters for conjugal partner sponsorship success are pretty narrowly defined, and there's not much that would keep a "normal" Canada/Ireland (UK) couple from establishing a common-law partnership or marrying in order to meet the requirements of family class sponsorships. I don't think you have much of a shot at success with this current application as it stands and that's a frustrating waste of your money and your time.
