What is the possibility of my Russian wife visiting me in Canada

[bugsyb62]

Looking to bring my Russian wife and step son to Canada. I am a 53 years old Canadian citizen, born in Nova Scotia and she is soon to be 50. Her son is 17 years old. I have known my wife since March 2011. We are on Skype with each other every possible moment. She gets up 4am in the morning to spend time with me, I come home at lunch time and stay up late at night to spend time with her as well. I visited her in April 2015, met her family and we did everything together for the 10 days I was there. We married in December 2015 and want to be together. We are both tired of the Skype life and wish to be together. We are sending in the documents for their PR applications and then want to bring them here to Canada. Also looking to get them a work permit, the place where I work said they will give them the opportunity to work there. How long should we say they will stay to apply for the visas? I heard there are new rules, but not sure exactly what they are. We have lots of proof of our relationship and just need a little help finishing everything before sending in the documents. We have all the necessary papers for him to come too including signed papers from her ex letting her son to immigrate to Canada.

 

[boshetunmai]

Focus on getting the PR applications submitted as soon as possible. Once they land as permanent residents, they can work without a work permit. As for getting them a visitor visa while their PR application is pending, it's pretty difficult due to the fact that they likely have more ties to Canada than to Russia. If you would like to apply for TRVs for them, be sure to submit documents that prove their ties to Russia (property ownership, employment status, etc.) and keep the visit short, such as 2-3 weeks. If the visa is approved for longer than that, you can have them stay longer of course and then explore the possibility of a work permit.

Hang in there. We all know how frustrating it is to be apart from our spouses, but the day will come when you all get to be together as a family. I tried getting a visitor visa for my Russian husband to visit me while his PR application was pending but it was refused (never mind the 3 other times he was refused before we got married.. very frustrating). I don't know what the processing times for PR applications are nowadays but we ended up waiting only 6 months before he was approved for PR and finally set foot in Canada.

Good luck!

 

[scylla]

How likely she is to be approved for a visitor visa depends on how effectively she can demonstrate ties to her home country, as well as things like her past travel history. However it does tend to be difficult to be approved in these situations. Ideally she should demonstrate ties like full time employment (including a letter from her employer confirming the length of her vacation), property ownership / rental, bank account / other assets. Keep the length of her visit to something reasonable like 2-3 weeks.

Note that having a job offer in Canada won't be enough for her to qualify for a work permit. Her employer in Canada will also need to obtain an approved LMIA. This will end up costing the employer around $2K between the fees and advertising costs - and probably take 4-6 months to process with no guarantee of approval. As part of this process, the employer will need to prove they were unable to find a Canadian to fill the role.