Different Religions

[amikety]

In your case i would suggest to marry him in Egypt, according to Islamic sharia' Muslims men can be married to Jews or Chrisitians ladies, you mentioned you can do that but what rights are you loosing? it is totally fine. and as long as this Happens you will receive the marriage certificate from the government.
Conjugal relationships are not possible in Muslim countries as non couples can not life together. So the best is to apply under the spousal class.
Beside getting a TRV to Canada is really difficult

Conjugal doesn't require the couple to live together, only to maintain a romantic relationship for at least one year. Something, such as a ban on cohabitation, would be a good start for a proper Conjugal application. Living together is refered to as Common-Law Class.

mmle, here is the Pinoy thread I was referring to earlier. Reading through a few pages might give you an idea of what Conjugal requires.

http://www.canadavisa.com/canada-immigration-discussion-board/updated-topics/-t51925.0.html;topicseen

 

[Camelboy]

Sorry mmle & Amikety to mix up the common law and conjugal. For the conjugal, if i am not wrong it can only applied if you are unable to get married and live together , you must prove both these, because the CIC will expect you either to be married or a common law, if both can not be done then conjugal may apply it is the last route, so you should have a strong case why you can't get marriage. Just losing rights i guess will not be sufficient.

 

[amikety]

No worries. I can't tell you how many times I've posted something stupid and been corrected!

I think it will depend on what rights are lost. If they're clear violations of Canadian rights, she may have a case.

 

[shamsuannahr]

Hi mmle, have you browsed through the Cairo visa office thread? http://www.canadavisa.com/canada-immigration-discussion-board/-t69666.0.html

I think it would help you to post your question there. First, as you found out, yes, there is civil marriage in Egypt (you can perform a civil ceremony at the Ministry of Justice, as my husband and I did), and the only restriction on religious marriages is that a Muslim woman cannot marry a non-Muslim man. Any other combination is fine. When your boyfriend applies for a family-class visa (conjugal or spousal) through the Cairo visa office, there will be a mix of Egyptians and Canadians evaluating your file. They will be measuring your case against what they believe are the cultural norms for Egypt (or for mixed Egyptian couples). I don't know for sure, but I would guess there is a good chance they would reject a conjugal application out of hand, because the only culturally appropriate relationship between a man and a woman here is marriage. They might excuse you for not knowing that, but they would expect your husband to know, and probably doubt the sincerity of his intentions if hasn't committed to you in the only way that counts here, especially after 4 years. I'm not sure what rights you've been told you'd be giving up if you got married in Egypt, but as long as you didn't apply for Egyptian nationality, your Canadian passport would trump anything Egypt might throw at you. Last, as other people have noticed, it is incredibly hard for Egyptians to get tourist visas to Canada. The visa office is corrupt, and there were several posts on the thread above about how impossible they make it for Egyptians to travel. So the best route for your boyfriend to go to Canada would be a student visa, IF you decide not to try the spousal visa. However, I don't know what happens if his student visa (which is good for the school year) expires before an inland application (which can take 2+ years) is successful- maybe someone else answered this already.

I'm not trying to pressure you to marry your boyfriend, just trying to provide you with more information... Again, I encourage you to ask your question on the Cairo VO thread because there are lots of Egyptians and Canadians there who can advise you!

 

[shamsuannahr]

One last thought: bear in mind that the primary purpose of the Cairo visa office is to weed out relationships/marriages of convenience (they actually use this acronym in their official documents)- so the more you can show that your relationship is legit (your family and friends know about it, you share expenses, you have pictures from outings together, you have chat logs, plans for your future, etc), the more successful your app will be. Does your family know about your relationship? Even if you can't tell his parents about your relationship, it would help your app to tell your parents in Canada, have them skype with him etc (if this is possible for you).