I am not sure if my experience would help now but I submitted my husband's sponsorship in august of 2014.. We paid the full sponsorship fees but I was not approved as a sponsor due to a previous undertaking I signed in 1992. I sponsored my mother and her husband, he went on social assistance the last year of the undertaking and I was not aware he went on welfare. Even though I was not approved as a sponsor my husband's application was forwarded to the VO and my husband was given a date for an interview. I contacted CIC and they told me that the VO makes the final decision. I contacted the ORU and paid the full amount just before my husband had the interview but I did not have payment confirmation at the time. I sent a letter explaining the circumstances and copies of the payment draft I had sent to the ORU and I pleaded for them to make an exception, in the letter I also included the ID of the CIC person that gave me the information about the VO making the final decision. The officer that interviewed my husband gave us 2 months to send the payment confirmation from ORU which we did a week after the interview. I also faxed the re-payment confirmation to CIC Mississauga and I called later to confirm that CIC had made the changes to my file. Now we are waiting for a decision on his ARC application but my MP contacted the VO and was told that my clearance was cleared as a sponsor, my husband passed the background check and we are just waiting for a response on his ARC application
