Emergency trips outside Canada prior approval of inland application

[deepblue2020]

Dear all,

Am a Canadian citizen planning to return to Canada with my family by this summer. Upon arrival, I intend to submit inland spousal sponsorship for my wife.

As I understand, upon submission of inland application, the person being sponsored is required to stay in Canada with the applicant until approval is sought. However, there might be need for my wife to take emergency trip outside Canada (e.g. due to critical condition to serious illness of senior family member).

Can I seek your advice with below please:

1. Whether the above is correct? If so, if there is a way for exception handling to ensure this will not affect the sponsorship application?
2. Is it more recommended to submit as outland sponsorship instead of inland at this moment if we need to cater the above unpredictable condition?

Thanks for your input.

 

[armoured]

There's no way to get a prior approval. If she had to stay abroad for long, it could indeed be considered abandoned and cancelled. As a citizen, why don't you apply now as outland?

Does she already have a visa?

 

[deepblue2020]

There's no way to get a prior approval. If she had to stay abroad for long, it could indeed be considered abandoned and cancelled. As a citizen, why don't you apply now as outland?

Does she already have a visa?

Thanks for your response. She does not need a visa to travel to Canada with her passport, but will obtain Electronic Travel Authorisation prior travelling. Besides, if there is a need for taking the emergency trip outside Canada afterwards, it should only last for 1-2 months and expected to be 1 time until sponsorship approval.

Believe it is still recommended for outland application?

 

[armoured]

Thanks for your response. She does not need a visa to travel to Canada with her passport, but will obtain Electronic Travel Authorisation prior travelling. Besides, if there is a need for taking the emergency trip outside Canada afterwards, it should only last for 1-2 months and expected to be 1 time until sponsorship approval.

Believe it is still recommended for outland application?

It's up to you. As far as I understand, there are no strict rules about how much time someone on an inland application can be outside Canada. If it's a short visit, likelihood of problem is smaller; but situations many applicants/PRs/etc run into is "it should only last for XX period" and then six months (a year, two years, etc) later they're still abroad dealing with whatever exigent circumstance came up. If your spouse didn't have (what appears to be) some ongoing family health issue, that would be - perhaps - a perfectly reasonable bet.

On the other side: as an outland applicant you can apply now. The only thing you 'lose' is the open work permit for part of the period (under the inland application process), and - in somewhat more specific circumstances - health insurance if the spouse has the open work permit and gets a job. If you as a family don't think the open work permit is an issue (ie don't need the employment income in the short term) and get supplemental insurance for your spouse, outland may be easier.

Since right now it's not clear how quickly either of these types of apps are being processed, it's basically impossible to say (or it's a slight bet either way) which would come through faster. You can obviously look at the inland/outland threads here and try to guess, but it's not determinative of what happens down the road. (allowing again for fact you can apply for outland while still abroad)

(Oh and ignore the published timelines - lots of issues)

 

[scylla]

Thanks for your response. She does not need a visa to travel to Canada with her passport, but will obtain Electronic Travel Authorisation prior travelling. Besides, if there is a need for taking the emergency trip outside Canada afterwards, it should only last for 1-2 months and expected to be 1 time until sponsorship approval.

Believe it is still recommended for outland application?

I would apply outland. Of course ultimately up to you.

It sounds like you're planning for something that has a realistic chance of happening (i.e. needing to leave Canada). Is there some chance that 1-2 months outside of Canada won't be enough and a longer time out of the country will be needed? Applying outland gives you the flexibility for all of this to be possible without jeopardizing the application.