conjugal sponsorship denied - now marriage

[cdnvan]

Hello - my same-sex partner and I recently received a message from CIC stating that we did not meet the criteria for conjugal partner classification - denied! It was certainly difficult news to receive, but we'd like to persevere.
We'd now like to get married and try under the spousal classification.

We don't want to 'waste' any more time, and we'd like to get married only 3 weeks after receiving our denied information. (he'll be visiting over the holidays!) The question is: does it look negatively if we get married so soon after the news? Or does it strengthen and prove our commitment for each other? The wedding will be a small affair, and his friends and family will not be present (because of the tight timeline) or should we wait?

Thanks for any advice you might have.

 

[canadianwoman]

I don't think it will look bad unless you have a lot of problem areas that would make your relationship look non-genuine anyway.
Can you get at least some friends at the ceremony? And preferably family? If his can't be there because of timing problems, you can explain this in the application. At the least do the most you can to make even a small ceremony look special.

 

[Creampop]

I don't think they will look at it negatively, I had a small wedding, me, him, his mom, my mom and our 2 sons we explained that due to others in our families not having passports this was all that could make it and once more of our family members had passports we would have a bigger celebration. Good Luck!

 

[tuyen]

We don't want to 'waste' any more time, and we'd like to get married only 3 weeks after receiving our denied information. (he'll be visiting over the holidays!) The question is: does it look negatively if we get married so soon after the news? Or does it strengthen and prove our commitment for each other?

In my opinion, yes, they'll look at it with suspicion. The obvious fact will be that you got married solely because your first attempt to get PR status failed. They'll see that marriage was an option right from the beginning, but you chose to try conjugal first, and went to get married only after your conjugal application was denied.

That doesn't mean they will deny you right off the bat, although you should be prepared to submit a LOT of credible evidence, as well as count on an interview. And speaking of which, you didn't mention if there was an interview requested during your first attempt. If there was, and you still got denied, then they were clearly not convinced of the genuineness of your relationship, which means far more scrutiny on your second attempt. If there was no interview requested and you were denied, then either you raised some big red flags, or you submitted pretty much nothing in the way of credible evidence to support your case. It's hard to say exactly why your application was denied, but then again, very few conjugal applications are ever approved at all.

 

[frege]

I agree with the advice Canadianwoman gave. I don't think the timing is a big problem in itself. There are cases of people who get married just before one of them is removed from Canada. The focus in these cases is clearly the genuineness of the relationship, not the timing of the marriage in and of itself. The timing is a problem if the courtship has been been short.

The fact that you didn't have an interview doesn't mean they didn't think your relationship was genuine, in the sense that a sham marriage would not be genuine because it involves bad faith. It probably means that they didn't think you had serious enough reasons for not living together or getting married already, so you didn't meet the definition of "conjugal partners." It would be perverse to now blame you for getting married.

For example, if two people are a genuine couple and apply as common-law partners, but are determined to have cohabited for only eleven months instead of twelve, they will be turned down. The lack of a continuous one-year period of cohabitation is unlikely to be held against them if they get married later on and apply that way. Meeting the criteria and being in good faith are two separate questions.

Nonetheless, you'll need to show your relationship is genuine, meaning mainly that you have a real intention to live together permanently. Since new regulations came into force in 2010, there is also, in theory, a condition that the marriage not be entered into primarily for immigration purposes. I say "in theory" because after searching, I can't find any example of marriages that have been found to be genuine at the time they occur but also entered into primarily for immigration purposes. The most likely candidates might be some arranged marriages.

That being said, the Canadian Bar Association warned about possible consequences of the amended regulations for legitimate couples not unlike yours.

https://www.cba.org/cba/sections_cship/pdf/immigration_refugee_regulations.pdf

"For example, consider a genuine romance between a Canadian resident and a foreign visitor. They decide to marry, but no date is set. The visitor applies to extend their status, so marriage can be pursued. The visitor extension is denied. The couple must separate, and pursue their application while apart for months and perhaps for more than a year, or accelerate their marriage date so they can pursue their application within Canada. Is the marriage genuine? Yes. Was there a significant intention that the marriage would facilitate acquiring status? Absolutely. However, despite the fact that these circumstances would not ordinarily constitute 'bad faith,' this couple would be vulnerable to refusal of the relationship using the proposed disjunctive test."

It's not clear to me whether the potential for genuine couples to be excluded this way has actually materialized or is still theoretical. Perhaps an expert can point out some cases that shed light on this issue.