Thought i would share this topic that i saw just now
Changes to Immigration Regs affecting spousal/cl/cp applications expected soon.
« on: September 14, 2010, 12:56:07 pm »
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The chatter in the legal community is that this is going to happen sometime this fall however this is NOT confirmed. The government posted the proposed changes in the Canadian Gazette in April of this year (a requirement before an Act of Parliament can be amended).
Here is the Gazette posting:
http://gazette.gc.ca/rp-pr/p1/2010/2010-04-03/html/reg1-eng.html
The Canadian Immigrant magazine does a good job of explaining in basic terms what this means:
http://www.canadianimmigrant.ca/newsandviews/news/article/6878
IMHO, this is going to mean more refusals which in turn will result in an even larger backlog at the IAD. Oy vay!
To anyone who is planning to apply under this class in the future, PREPARE WELL! Marriage has long been viewed as the "easiest" way to get into Canada and with all the press regarding fraudulent marriages in the last couple of years, this government is reacting by making the rules even more strict.
On the bright side, hopefully this means there will be fewer victims of fraud. On the dark side, applicants and sponsors need to get VERY SERIOUS about their applications (as if they weren't already!) and never assume anything when it comes to immigration. Refusals will be common and will have nothing to do with genuiness but rather, because the VO feels the marriage was entered into for the primary purpose of immigrating to Canada. In other words, a VO could believe your marriage is real but that the only reason your spouse met and married you in the first place was because they wanted to immigrate to Canada.
I'm not posting this to scare anyone. Those who are already in process need not worry about these changes (which have NOT been proclaimed yet) as applicants in process would be assessed under the former Regs. But I've been around here long enough to know there are many readers who are thinking about getting married and/or sponsoring their partner at a later date and want them to be aware that it's going to get tougher and they need to be very thoroughly prepared.
In all honesty, my greatest fear is for those sponsoring partners from 3rd world countries where the socio-econmic status differs greatly as well as those entering arranged marriages. This is where the greatest impact will be felt in my view.
a baaaaay!
