UK citizen married to Canadian citizen - spousal visa queries

Thefairway

New Member
Good afternoon to you all,

I am a UK citizen currently resident in the UK. I married my Canadian wife in February 2003. We did live together in Canada for 18 months, 'under the net' as it were. Money issues took me back to the Uk and we have seen each other fairly regularly since then (I went back to Canada for six months, she came to England for a couple of months). Both of us are doing university degrees in our respective countries. Mine will be complete in May 2007. Agewise she is 24 and I am 28.

Once that is done, I would like to move back to Canada in order to be with her. As such, we have started looking at the 'spousal application from outside Canada' with her as my sponsor. She is living in Toronto and that is my intended destination.

I have many, many questions on this front, mostly to do with money.

-How much income is necessary for her to act as my sponsor? With us both at university, our income isn't huge but we have around about $22,000 Canadian dollars in savings. I admit to being somewhat confused by this LICO and the guide that mentions the Quebec income scale. Other posts on this forum have suggested that she doesn't need to be working in order to sponsor me, only that we can prove our financial resources and that she and I won't claim social benefits, unemployment cash etc. That's no problem to us as student loans aren't considered to be public money as far as I know and we have savings in the bank as mentioned above.

-How much income should I list that I earned for the last tax year?

-I don't have a Canadian tax record for the last year as I wasn't in Canada. How essential is this on the application? Would it make more sense to list my UK tax record for the last year?

I'm sure I'll have more queries as I go through the paperwork. I figured I should start about a year before my degree ends, leave as much space as possible in case of problems.

Thanks,

Andy.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Hello Thefairway,

I am not sure where things would stand for you in respect to income and proving resources but I would have thought that as you are married it is up to your Canadian partner to sign the undertaking that neither of you will claim benefits for the first three years in Canada (I believe it is 3 years).

In terms of when to start - start ASAP - the London office moves very very slowly and I believe you should allow at least 12 to 14 months. The processing times are about 50 days in Mississauga and then they come back here for the amount of time as listed in the "processing times" on the London High Commission CIC website.

Hope that is helpful - maybe someone else can provide further advice on the financial side of things so that you can get your app in as soon as possible.

FMSCB
 
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