Family Sponsorship Visa

If you are a permanent resident of Canada and have a family member who wishes to visit Canada, you can quickly fulfill their wish by opting for the family sponsor Canada visa for them. This visa can also help you make your family member a permanent resident of the country. After all, one of the mainstays of the Canadian immigration system is family reunification.

The family sponsor visa helps reunite families by letting an adult Canadian citizen or a permanent Canadian resident sponsor a family member to immigrate to the country. The person you wish to sponsor needs to be your immediate relative if you are planning to opt for the family sponsorship program. It can be your spouse, parents, grandparents, dependent child or children, nephew, grandchild (who is less than 18 years of age, is unmarried, and is an orphan), sibling, and niece.

Process: Sponsoring Your Grandparents and Parents

Under the family sponsorship program of Canada, you are allowed to sponsor your parents and grandparents. Upon submitting an interest to sponsor, you will be asked to provide a complete application form. This will allow you to sponsor your grandparents and parents and let them become permanent residents of Canada. When you submit, you will have to:

  • Financially support your parents and grandparents and their dependents.
  • Ensure that they do not require any type of social help from the Canadian government.

Process: Sponsoring Your Spouse, Child or Partner

If you wish to sponsor your spouse or partner or dependent child and make them permanent citizens of the country, you may do so under the Canada family sponsorship program. To do so, you need to be capable enough to:

  • Financially support them.
  • Ensure that they are never in need of any social assistance from the government of Canada.

Whom Can You Sponsor?

You are be allowed to sponsor your grandparents or parents who have either adopted you or are related to you by blood. If they are divorced or even separated, you will be allowed to sponsor their common-law partner, conjugal partner, or spouse.

While filling the application form, you will be allowed to mention the names of your siblings or half-sisters and brothers only if they qualify as being dependent upon your parents or grandparents. You can also sponsor more than a single person, provided you meet the financial requirements of all those whom you wish to sponsor along with their dependents.

The people whom you sponsor also need to prove that they meet with eligibility criteria. They need to submit:

  • All the necessary documents and forms along with their application.
  • Any additional data that may be requested from you during the processing of the application. These may include police certificates, biometrics, and medical exam certificates.

Spouse

When you talk about your spouse, it means:

  • A person to whom you are legally married in your country of origin
  • The person is a minimum of 18 years of age

Common-Law Partner

On the other hand, your common-law partner is a person who:

  1. Is not legally married to you
    Can be either a male or a female
  2. Is a minimum of 18 years of age
  3. Someone who has been staying with you for 12 straight months. This means, both of you have been staying together for 1 whole straight year in a conjugal relationship with the absence of any long period of separation.

You will have to furnish proper documents that will act as proof of your common-law relationship.

If by any chance, both you and your common-law partner opt to end your relationship, the Canadian law will also consider the relationship to be over between the two of you.

Conjugal Partner

You can also make your conjugal partner one of the permanent residents of Canada with the help of the family sponsorship program of the country.

Conjugal partner is person who:

  • May either be a male or a female
  • Is not legally married to you and is neither in a common-law relationship with you
  • Is above the age of 18 years
  • Both of you have been in a relationship for a minimum of one year
  • Does not reside in Canada

Cannot live with you in their country of origin or even marry you due to various legal or immigration reasons that may include their sexual orientation, marital status, and persecution.

Dependent Child

Coming to the topic of dependent children, it basically refers to either your child or a child who belongs to your spouse or your common-law partner.

The child needs to be under the age of 22 years and should not be in any type of relationship. This means that the child should not be legally married or should not have a common-law partner.

Kids above the age of 22 years can only be termed as dependent if they had relied on you or their parents for monetary support before the age of 22 years and are still unable to support themselves financially due to either physical or mental challenges.

If you wish to sponsor your family member or relative to help them enter Canada and become a permanent resident of the country, you need to fulfil certain criteria yourself.

  • You need to be a permanent resident of Canada.
  • You should be above the age of 18 years.
  • You must reside in Canada, unless you happen to be a Canadian who resides abroad and wishes to come back to Canada.

There are certain categories of individuals who are not allowed to sponsor for their families or relatives:

  • If you are a prisoner
  • If you are about to go bankrupt
  • If there is a possibility of you receiving a removal order
  • If you have been convicted of an offense that is of sexual or violent nature and has resulted in the physical harm of a family member.
  • If you have failed to pay back various immigration loans or have either missed or made late payments.
  • If you have failed to pay towards child support expenses.
  • If you have already sponsored a member of your family in the past and had failed to fulfill the criteria required.
  • If you have been sponsored by someone else within the last 5 years.

First of all, to sponsor your family members to become a permanent resident of Canada, you need to be over the age of 18 years and a citizen of Canada. You also need to submit both the sponsorship application duly filled, and the permanent residence application for your family member.

The duration of the family sponsorship program is mostly dependent upon your relationship with the family member whom you wish to sponsor, the timely submission of all necessary paperwork from your end and also from your family member’s end, and many such reasons. For example, the spouse or partner sponsorship program usually takes around a year to get the final approval.

Yes, he can as long as he fulfills specific essential criteria to successfully sponsor you to enter Canada and become a permanent resident.

  1. He should be above the age of 18 years
  2. He should be a permanent citizen of Canada
  3. He should file the sponsorship application as per the guidelines
  4. He should not owe any money to the Canadian government or any other provinces or any dues from any previous sponsorship programs
  5. Fulfil the minimum income needs

There are several documents needed to successfully sponsor your family member to come to Canada and become a permanent resident. These include:

  • All the necessary application forms
  • Financial evaluation form
    Additional
  • dependents/declaration form
  • Schedule A – Background/declaration form
  • Proof of you being a permanent resident of Canada
  • Proof of marriage if you wish to sponsor your spouse
  • Proof of your spouse or common-law partner to be a permanent resident in their country of origin
  • Proof of your birth certificate if you wish to sponsor either or both your parents

You need to have sufficient funds in your bank account to help you support your sponsored family member – financially and emotionally since the Canadian government will not support them in any way.

The Super Visa is the document that you will need to sponsor your parents or grandparents to enter Canada and become a permanent citizen of the country. It is better to find out about the documents that you will need before you go ahead with the sponsorship program.