Question about sponsoring conjugal partner

[smallcoffee]

Hello,

I am a Canadian citizen by birth. I've been living in France for a few years where I met my girlfriend (Finnish citizen). We have a baby now (born in Finland) and I am in the process of requesting a citizenship certificate for the baby.

1) We are now all living together in France but due to logistic and work reasons we were unable to live together for at least one year. Can this still be considered a Common-Law Relationship?

2) Is it possible for all of us to move to Canada during the sponsorship process and ask for work permit for my girlfriend? Or we must wait for the sponsorship to complete?

3) Should I wait for my daughters citizenship certificate before starting the sponsorship process for my girlfriend?

Thank you for your time

 

[kcward7]

Hello,

I am a Canadian citizen by birth. I've been living in France for a few years where I met my girlfriend (Finnish citizen). We have a baby now (born in Finland) and I am in the process of requesting a citizenship certificate for the baby.

1) We are now all living together in France but due to logistic and work reasons we were unable to live together for at least one year. Can this still be considered a Common-Law Relationship?

2) Is it possible for all of us to move to Canada during the sponsorship process and ask for work permit for my girlfriend? Or we must wait for the sponsorship to complete?

3) Should I wait for my daughters citizenship certificate before starting the sponsorship process for my girlfriend?

Thank you for your time

Firstly, you do not qualify for the conjugal stream of spousal sponsorship as there are no legal or immigration barriers preventing you from living together or marrying.

1. To establish common law you must live together for 12 months consecutively with no significant breaks in a marriage like relationship. Once common law is established, some time spent apart is acceptable pending it's for valid reasons. It sounds like you have not established common law.

2. The work permit is part of the inland application and the sponsor and applicant must both be living inside Canada at the time of submission to submit an inland application.

3. I'll leave this one to someone else.

 

[starnaenae]

you cannot sponsor your girlfriend. if you are common law, meaning you have lived together for at least 12 consecutive months then you can sponsor her as common law under spousal. there are two routes - you can stay in france and wait till it is complete (called outland), or you can come to canada and hope she is able to enter (she may need a visa or will need an ETA -- look up visa requirements for her) and apply from within canada and submit an open work permit at the same time (called inland). she must remain in canada during this time. i would wait to get your daughters paperwork before trying to come here as you will need a visa or ETA for her (not sure if country of birth is visa exempt)

 

[Rob_TO]

1) We are now all living together in France but due to logistic and work reasons we were unable to live together for at least one year. Can this still be considered a Common-Law Relationship?

No, it must be 12 continuous months. There are absolutely no exceptions to this, for any reason. So if you started living together on Jan 1, you must still be living together Jan 1 of the following year.

The only leeway is for very short/temporary breaks during the 12 months, so say quick trips of a few weeks apart. This will not break the 12 months if it happens in the middle sometime.

2) Is it possible for all of us to move to Canada during the sponsorship process and ask for work permit for my girlfriend? Or we must wait for the sponsorship to complete?

Assuming you can live together 12 months to become common-law, or you get married, only then can you apply for her PR.

If she comes to Canada as a visitor (Finnish passport holders just need an eTA), then if you're married/common-law she can apply for PR along with Open Work Permit, and stay in Canada for the entire process.

3) Should I wait for my daughters citizenship certificate before starting the sponsorship process for my girlfriend?

You need to worry about becoming common-law or getting married first.

However you can apply before she gets her citizenship certificate. You would just indicate in the app she's a Canadian citizen and is not a dependent in the PR app, and will send the citizenship paperwork once it's received.


On a side note, keep in mind for CRA tax purposes you are already common-law since you live together and have a child together (having the child exempts the 12 month requirement). So you will be common-law for Canadian taxes, but not common-law for immigration.

 

[smallcoffee]

thank you all for the answers, very appreciated