Family Class Sponsorship

In case a family member of yours is residing in Canada, you can become eligible to get sponsored to get permanent resident status in Canada. Applications for family sponsorship are still accepted and processed in Canada. Travel restrictions do not pose any problem for family class immigration.

Immediate family members of permanent residents and citizens of Canada still get permitted to enter the country. Application processing for the spousal and common-law partnership remains like before, with IRCC bringing certain flexibility in submitting an uncompleted application.

In case of travel by air, you will be needing to fulfil all requirements of the airline and pass the health check procedures of airlines before boarding your flight. For COVID-19 symptomatic patients, entering Canada by air is not allowed.

After arriving in Canada and before leaving the port of entry, Canadian officials will be assessing your health. Further, having a plan for quarantining for 14 days is essential as you land in Canada. Quarantining is a mandatory requirement, even without having any symptoms, and in the event of having no plan, you should avoid travelling to Canada. Only those people providing essential services, like the truck drivers, who need to cross the border regularly, for maintaining a supply of goods, do not need to get quarantined.

Once permanent resident status in Canada is received, it becomes possible for your relatives to live, work and study in Canada. The bare minimum requirement for a person sponsoring certain relatives for coming to Canada is a minimum of 18 years of age and Canadian citizenship or permanent resident status. Further, a person registered as an Indian in Canada, under the Canadian Indian Act, is also able for family class sponsorship.

Further to meeting the requirements for sponsoring certain relatives to become permanent residents of Canada, you also need to support your family towards meeting the financial needs once your family arrives in Canada.

To become a sponsor, you need to be at least 18 years or older in addition to remaining a permanent resident or citizen of Canada. and the sponsored relative and you require signing a sponsorship agreement mandatorily. The sponsorship agreement mandates you to provide financial assistance, if necessary, to your relatives. The agreement also specifies that the person who is earning the permanent resident status will be making all efforts towards supporting him or herself. Further, a sponsor should not be charged or incarcerated with a serious offence, and in the case of a permanent resident, should not be bankrupt or faces a removal order.

You also need to provide financial assistance mandatorily to your spouse, conjugal or common-law partner. Such financial support should be extended for three years starting from the date of becoming a permanent resident. Moreover, you need to provide mandatory financial assistance for ten years to a dependent child, or until the child attains 25 years of age, whichever is earlier.

Family sponsorship in Canada remains a way of reuniting families. The Canadian government attaches weight to maintaining families staying together and gives priority to sponsorship application processing.

You can sponsor a same-sex, inland or outside spouse, common-law partner for which restrictions apply. You can also sponsor conjugal partners abiding by the applied restrictions and dependent children. Sponsoring grandparents and parents are also possible for which additional conditions apply.

You can promote sponsorship for orphaned sisters or brothers, nieces or nephews, grandsons or granddaughters falling below 18 years and are not in a common-law relationship or married. You can even sponsor another relative of any relation or age with certain specific conditions and accompanying relatives of partner, spouse, and dependent children.

The Spousal Sponsorship program comes under the Family Class Immigration category. In such a program, a permanent resident or citizen of Canada can sponsor a common-in-law partner or spouse for permanent residentship of Canada. Both the permanent resident or the Canadian citizen, also termed sponsor and the foreign national, termed sponsored person, need mandatory approval by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), to receive a visa for the sponsored person.

To obtain a visa through such an immigration program, the sponsored person and the sponsor must prove that the relationship is within the three approved categories: Spouse, Conjugal Partner, and Common-Law Partner. Canada recognizes same-sex couples’ eligibility for a spousal sponsorship.

In Canada, inland sponsorship means a couple living together, while the foreign common-law partner or spouse comes with temporary status, either as a student, or worker, or visitor. In case a sponsored partner lives outside of Canada, an outland application is usually needed.

Dependent children, both adopted, and natural can get sponsorship for living with parents as Canada’s permanent residents. The child sponsorship program remains a part of the Family Class of immigration, and receiving a visa through such immigration program, the sponsored and the sponsor persons will require proving the relationship between each other.

Such individuals who have adoption proceeding in the final processing phase can start sponsoring their child before finalizing the adoption. The statistics for the number of immigrants receiving PR in Canada through Family Sponsorship are 195800, 203050, 212050 in 2020, 2021, and 2022 respectively.