Indigo - No, I don't have a link that applies to what I said earlier. I am basing what I said off everything I know about how government applies legislation. It has never been the practice to apply new regulations to persons/situations already considered final under a previous version of a regulation, or under a statute that is being replaced or repealed. However, where a situation is on-going but not concluded before the enactment of a regulation, the situation is then assessed under the new regulations, and not the old because it no longer has any force.
For example, IRPR Section 4 (the "bad faith" marriage regulation) was amended with effect on Sep 30, 2010. What had previously been a disjunctive test (the appellant had to prove EITHER their marriage was genuine OR it was not entered into for immigration purposes in order to win on appeal) became a conjunctive test (the appellant now has to prove their marriage is genuine AND is not entered into for immigration purposes in order to win on appeal). All appeals with decisions made on the version of Section 4 that applied before Sep 30 were final and those decisions could not be interfered with, so the change to the regulation did not result in the Minister suddenly filing a rash of judicial review requests to have those previous decisions overturned. However, all appeals still outstanding as at Sep 30, 2010 (i.e. a decision had not yet been made, but the appeal was filed when the previous version of the regulation was in force) had then to be considered under the new version of Section 4 before a decision could be made. It didn't matter that the appeals had been filed when the previous version of Section 4 was active, what mattered was that version no longer had any force, and the new version and new conjunctive test had to be met in order for appeals to succeed.
In other words, it is not logical to assume that they would apply the conditional visa rules to applications already finalised- the spouse is landed and there is no changing their situation. The legal implications alone would be enormous if Canada attempted to change the situation of persons already landed and whose undertaking periods were already underway or even complete. It is NOT however, "retroactive" if they apply the new regulations to applications that are finalised AFTER the new regulations are gazetted.
Your spouse is perfectly free to sponsor you, (I repeat), because the sponsorship bar would not apply to Canadians who previously sponsored a spouse, it would apply to sponsored spouses who then left their sponsors, married someone new and tried to sponsor that someone else to Canada as a spouse. The bar would act to prevent them from doing so for 5 years (or however long they decide on).
I hope that was clear, it's late, and I'm trying to explain the rigmarole that is government regulation as simply as I understand it.
