Inland Spousal Sponsorship

[LeiaMcAllister]

Hello,

Thanks for any information you guys can provide, I'm having an issue with obtaining a marriage certificate.

I was married on January 30th, 2019. I've been reviewing all the rules for spousal sponsorship and the system doesn't make any sense. The officiant sent in the paperwork via registered mail yesterday to register the marriage. I just spoke with service Ontario who said it will take two weeks for them to receive the paperwork and register that they've received it, and a total of 14 weeks to register the marriage. The application for spousal sponsorship states it requires the marriage certificate for the application to be complete and they will reject the application without one.

I looked at requesting the marriage certificate, I can request the marriage certificate on an expedited basis (so it will only take two weeks to receive it once it's registered) but it typically takes longer.

From what I'm seeing that means it will take four months from the date of the wedding to receive the marriage certificate even on an expedited basis. This doesn't seem correct to me, was I speaking with an incompetent advisor on the phone and is there a way to get the certificate sooner?

If not, what is the best way of dealing with the wait times in your experience? Work within the system or escalate the issue up through management up to the minister for a poor and dysfunctional government system?

The issue is my wife entered Canada on an SX-1 visa in September. After reading the rules we came to understand that she cannot renew her visa and continue studying English, but she can stay as a vistor and apply from within Canada? This part we're not clear on. It also looks like there's no way to obtain the paperwork the spousal sponsorship requires before her vistor visa expires.

 

[np08]

You can extend her visitor status. Just remember to send the extension request before the expiration of her current status. Then you can apply inland and also apply for a work permit for her.

Unfortunately, I see Ontario mentioned a lot when it comes to these very long waits for marriage certificates. Not sure why that's so. In Alberta, they tell you it can take up to four weeks, but it seems the actual average is closer to two (we got ours in 10 days). It still took us three and a half months to apply because we wanted to get as much address proof and other required documents before sending in the app, though.