When to start application for wife?

[Ramone]

Hi All,

Hoping you guys can help me. I'm a Canadian living in the UK with my UK wife. We were going to go back next year but we might just stay here for another 2 to 3 years. Can I begin sponsoring her now? Or should I just wait until before we leave for Canada? Or even apply in Canada?

Thanks,

Ra

 

[Sweden]

Hi All,

Hoping you guys can help me. I'm a Canadian living in the UK with my UK wife. We were going to go back next year but we might just stay here for another 2 to 3 years. Can I begin sponsoring her now? Or should I just wait until before we leave for Canada? Or even apply in Canada?

Thanks,

Ra

Hey Ra,

Welcome to the forum.
The process takes approximately a year - count 3 months to put the application together, then 3 months for the first stage, and 6 to 8 months for London to review and issue the PR - sometimes much quicker on the second stage, but this is an average. So you should start the process more or less a year before you are planning on going.
If you do it now, your wife will have to go to Canada and "land" - then she can return to the UK but not for too long.
You can also do the process once you are in Canada, and your wife, being from a visa-exempt country, can go with you but she won't have health care, and not able to work etc until she has her PR. So if you already know when you would be going, I think starting a year in advance would probably be the easiest.
Good luck,
Sweden

 

[Ramone]

Thanks SWeden!

 

[Azsereth]

I might be mistaken, but I think you'll also need to prove to the best of your ability that you'll move back to Canada when the application is complete.

 

[Sweden]

yes that's correct - if you are not living in Canada you have to prove that you will move to Canada once PR is approved. There are various ways of doing that, but I don't imagine that for now it is in your priorities as it won't happen for you for the moment...
You can already start keeping evidence of your relationship - pictures, flight tickets to holidays together, etc... that will come in handy when you put the application together.
Sweden