Your partner cannot sponsor you for work! if you have a family sponsored permanent residence application in process, he or she wont be able to sponsor you as an employer. An LMO requires that the job be advertised first and in the absence of any suitable Canadian applicants, a foreign national (NOT A FAMILY MEMBER) be selected for the job. Again will need to apply for a work permit and that will actually cancel one's family sponsorship application.computergeek said:Because it isn't employment, it is a grey area (you act as an independent contractor). I'd suggest that you speak with an attorney and (ideally) obtain an opinion letter stating that you do not require such a work permit. Alternatively, your spouse can sign up as the representative and you can assist (again, it's a grey area, but pragmatically speaking there's nothing that legally prevents you from assisting your partner in their work or business).
An option that I've suggested in the past is that you can have your partner sponsor you for the work permit as well (e.g., the partner starts a business doing X and then goes through the process of getting an LMO). Nothing says your partner has to do the paperwork - so if you're sitting at home twiddling your thumbs waiting for CIC, you could also be reading the HRSDC website and figuring out what the hoops are to getting an LMO. Employers can be surprisingly creative in their ability to tailor job offerings to a single candidate. This is the "not grey" method of doing this sort of thing, but it's intimidating for many people.
You can work online as long as you don't require a SIN or bank account for payment purposes. So international business options would be open.