Once you're married to your Canadian you're eligible to be sponsored by him for permanent residence. You have to have permanent resident status in order to live/work in Canada permanently. Until then you can only visit Canada. You won't have the right to "live" here, or to work or go to school. The sponsorship process, if you apply "
outland", will take about 4-10 months total to be finalized as long as you have no complications. Applying outland is preferable to the "inland" process (which is handled completely within Canada) because it's a faster process and you preserve the sponsor's right of appeal. The outland application would go to the Case Processing Centre in Mississauga, ON first, where the sponsor is assessed for eligibility. That's currently taking about 60-65 days, and then (if the sponsor is approved) your case would be transferred to London where they assess you. That takes from 2-8 months. If you applied inland you would not see your case even being looked at to assess first stage approval for 6-7 months - and then it's another 6-12 months after that before it's finalized. And you forfeit your right of appeal when applying inland.
It is possible to stay with your new spouse in Canada while having an outland application in process - but you need to qualify for temporary entry in order to do that. As a visa-exempt national, you'll be assessed at the Canadian port of entry when you come to Canada and you'll need to demonstrate that you don't intend to stay in Canada for longer than you're authorized to stay. It's usually best to approach with a return trip itinerary and a valid reason for visiting - and that reason should not be that you're coming to Canada to get married and apply for PR!! That gives them reason to believe you will NOT return home when you're supposed to and they have no guarantee that your "intended" will actually apply to sponsor you, so they can refuse you entry for that. Better to maintain that you're coming to visit friends and intend to return in a couple of weeks. Then, once you're in Canada, you get married and then
apply to extend your status based on your qualification for permanent residence.
Also - be careful what you carry with you when you enter. If you're bringing things like rings, a wedding gown and such, and they search your luggage, you'll be toast. Even a paper with wedding vows written on it can open a huge can of worms. Best to ship any/all of that type of stuff separately.
There's a lot of steps to the process - best to take one at a time. Come back and we can help you all along the way.
