Family Class Sponsorship - Marriage of Convenience

You and your children were awarded permanent residence in Canada and that means you are free to live and work here.  Once the permanent status is awarded, that's it.  You have the right to live in Canada regardless of your marital status with your sponsor, BUT you DO have to meet the residency requirement in order to maintain your permanent status.  That is that you have to be resident in Canada for 730 days (2 years) of every five year period following your landing.  You are now very close to jeapordizing your PR status by having been outside of Canada for what looks to be 3 years this month.  If you can still meet your residency requirement (only you know the exact dates of your landing and when you left Canada), you need to get back to Canada immediately - and your children with you.  Your eldest will soon (age 22) be too old to be sponsored again if s/he loses PR now, so it's imperative to get back to Canada fast. 

You are under absolutely no obligation to even tell your ex that you intend to come back, or that you are back in the country.  You are under no obligation to live anywhere near her.  She cannot have you deported for MOC - there is no proof, and she is not allowed to blackmail you in that manner.  It would not be a battle worth her starting. 

I think that she is threatening you out of fear that she will have to support you in some manner . . . because of the undertaking she signed when she sponsored you.  I don't know if her undertaking for you was 3 years or 10 (I'm not sure when it changed to the 3 years it is now), but her undertaking for your children is for 10 years, or until they turn 22.  I think if you can just get back here, get established and get your divorce, she will have no need of worry. 

Hopefully you are not wanting to come back to get some sort of revenge for her abusive treatment of you or your children.  If you want to settle in Canada, be thankful to her that you were given that opportunity through her, and then get on with your life without her.


Edited by RobsLuv - 24 Jan 2012 at 1:53pm

here's my story......met my spouse on line in May of 07 saw her for 2 weeks in her country in Aug/07 after the 1st week i proposed marriage she accepted , she came to Canada for 1 week in Oct 07. met family, looked for a place to live, planned the wedding, she went back to her country and prepared to come to Canada. all the while from when we first met until her arriving back in Canada in Jan/08 staying in contact by e-mail, msn messenger and web cam. 30 days later married! through our online/e-mail/msn/webcam meetings we discussed many things even DEBT(of which i had) i told her how much , she now claims i didn't and claimed i didn't even tell her before she came to Canada. NOT TRUE! so she took over making a plan to pay the debt. 06/07/08/09 had a real good job making killer $$ It started getting good in late 07 then was killer in 08/09( bought a house in Aug /09 got a nice credit card to for 15 grand) in Feb /10 lose this great job to Government cutbacks. so for 10 months i had to scramble and work 1-2 jobs to keep paying new mortgage and the debt, we still lived all this time making our payments and living comfortably not extravagantly but we always had enough she is good with numbers me ...not so much. 1st year /08 to /09 she couldn't work immigration rule. she started a job in summer of 09 worked until Jan/11 so approx 1 1/2 yrs in late Nov/10 i finally landed a decent paying full time job. all the while she is complaining of debt, marriage was going down hill since week 3. So in Jan /11 we're talking divorce and she is planning to move back to her country, and i to assume all the debt left here..mortgage, loans etc. etc and try and help her reestablish herself in her country. So in Jan/11 she flies back to her country to set her plan in motion comes back 2 weeks later and say's let's work on the marriage and by the way i quit my job, she never told me this before she went back to her country to check it out, and while she was gone in Jan /11 i took a contracted second job to help cover the shortfall (never paid the taxes and GST on this job for all of '11 we spent it and were going to pay it with credit cards at tax time)and she is out of work for the next year,  and gets a little EI for 6 months during this time and until the end of the year is picky about where she wants to work and only gets gets 4 job interviews, gets hired at one then tells them oh! i first want to see if this other place(4th interview) is going to hire me....of course they don't,  so then she goes back to the hired job and say's okay i'm ready to work for you and they tell her to bad we hired someone else, in fact someone who worked for them before. so a whole year and no job! late Oct she decides she wants to go to school i told her i don't know how were going to pay for it but go ahead and try. Nov /11 she gets denied student loans( marriage is still not working) she files for divorce end of Nov gets the papers early Dec sends them to student loans and gets accepted because now she's getting divorced...... early Dec /11 to now late Jan /12 lawyers and negotiating. so i make a very generous offer to see where it will go( it included spousal support/child support, property, 1/2 her legal fees etc. etc.....remember i was just wanting to see where it would go) she accepts that and then counter offers and wants more she wants everything, the spousal support, child support, me to pay 1/2 her student loans after her first 2 yrs of school, $$$ to sign the divorce agreement, pay all her legal costs, my Canada pension for while we were married, my work pension, all or most all the matrimonial property and so on... plus assume all the remaining matrimonial debt, about $40 grand worth, sell the house and give her half the profits. this is when i said NO! i then proposed we sell the house pay off the debt split the difference whether it be +or-, pay for our own legal fees, only spousal support, no child support (the girl's not my child! the father is already paying child support if she wants more why doesn't she go after him???...i never had a father daughter relationship with this girl any ways...her mother made sure of that!) and split the matrimonial property me taking what i came in with and then dividing some of the other accumulated stuff. she walked out of the meeting told her lawyer to tell me and my lawyer i want what i want. I said NO! my lawyer and her lawyer hammered out a deal the her lawyer was okay with, took it back to her and she said NO, and is now moving out of the house so she can get welfare to get legal aid to take this to court to get what she wants( yesss we are still living in the same house...me down and her up very nerve racking and uncomfortable to say the least). so sponsorship of her and her child while not being allowed to garner a father daughter relationship with this girl she is trying to have me pay child support,  i have offered spousal support for a limited time 2 yrs, she wants 6 months more than i offered i said No only 2 yrs. i Said No to child support ( my Lawyer calls it "not standing in loco parentis" meaning i wasn't allowed to or build a father daughter relationship with her child(which is true) i will assume all the matrimonial debt, we sell the house and at the very least pay the taxes and GST that was already spent in 2011. after taxes, lawyer fees, realtor fees and early payout on the mortgage there will be barely enough to pay the tax and gst bill and then split whats left over, pay our own legal fees etc. etc.................but NO,, she still wants it all and then some and we were only married for less than  4 yrs of which we have probably been separated for more than a year living in the same house and me paying for everything for the last year and am still paying because she's still not working.......... a lot to absorb anyone want to guess as to how this might end for me any insight or suggestions would be welcome relief....and by the way i accept my part in this marriage not working...but can't help but feel taken from the beginning by this woman. i truly believe she had a plan the whole time and is now finally putting it to the test.    HHHHEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLPPPP!!!

pies

While the heart of this topic is indeed a family sponsorship case, the preserving PR status side looms very, very large.

As RobsLuv alerted: you are very, very close to being in breach of the Residency Obligation for Permanent Residents.

If you have been outside Canada for two years and eleven months, you are for sure within 30 days of being in breach of the residency obligation. If you do not get back to Canada soon, your PR status could be lost (you will be inadmissible, and if and when you attempt to return to Canada that inadmissibility should be adjudicated pursuant to which you will lose status). That does not affect the status of your children's PR, except I assume they too have been outside Canada for the same time, so, like you they are on the cusp of being, with no question, in breach of the residency obligation.

Let me emphasize the "no question" aspect of this: being outside Canada for > 3 years is, per se, a breach of the residency obligation. (There are circumstances for which in-Canada credits apply while one is outside Canada, but those are irrelevant here.)

Do I need to get any other documents other than PR card and Passport for entering CANADA after remaining in my native country for nearly 2 yrs 11 months.

I suspect a language barrier here. A question about what you might need "to get" suggests documentation you might not currently have. I assume, in contrast, you have your passport. Thus, I assume, despite the form of your question, you probably also have your PR card.

I go into this detail, however, because it is critically important whether or not you currently do have your PR card.

If you do not, if you need to "get" a PR card, that translates into problems. That means you will need to obtain a Travel Document in order to travel to Canada. The risk of a negative residency obligation decision is much, much higher for TD applications than it is for residency examinations conducted at a POE for a PR carrying a valid PR card.

If you are in possession of a valid PR card and, of course, a valid passport, you should be able to board commercial transportation destined for Canada. So long as your PR card is valid you will be allowed to enter Canada. If you return soon, there is a fair chance that you will be allowed to enter Canada without being subjected to a PR residency examination. If you return to Canada after being gone three years, you should be subjected to a residency examination and should be issued a removal order, but still allowed to enter Canada (which is subject to your appeal of the removal order and the outcome of that).

My children, who were dependent on me and got PR card on account of my marriage to a Canadian citizen, would in anyway loose their PR card if I surrender or if I loose my PR card for any reason. I hope they are treated as independent permanent residents and are not affected by my retaining or not retaining or losing my permanent residence.

If you are accused of fraud relative to the original grant of PR, and you lost, it is my understanding that that would affect the PR status of your accompanying dependents; as I understand this, the fraud is attributable to all those who are a party to the application regardless of whether or not they even knew of the fraud.

That said, at this stage it seems unlikely that you will even face such proceedings. Even if you did, so long as you were back in Canada, from the facts you claim it should be relatively easy to prevail on that . . . probably want a qualified solicitor nonetheless.

Beyond that, though, yes, yes indeed they will be treated independently, not entirely but for the most part: and that means they too must be in compliance with the residency obligation or face losing PR status. In other words, if you jump on a plane and come to Canada in order to avoid being in breach of the PR residency obligation, but you leave your children behind overseas (expecting to bring them to you later), be aware that depending on their age and other circumstances, they could face the loss of their PR status independent of the fact that you have retained yours. Yes, of course, H&C grounds weigh significantly in this, but . . . well, there are many factors and variables and bottom-line is that they too need to comply with the residency obligation in order to retain their PR status.

What precautions I need to take so that I am not put to inconvenience by my spouse. We don’t have any children nor any joint property etc. as my stay in Canada was brief.

Not sure what you are alluding to here, be that the prospect of a fraud in applying for PR status application or some domestic relations obligations.

Regarding the prospect of a fraud accusation: that is mostly beyond your control. Whether she makes such a complaint or not is up to her. It would be unwise to attempt to influence her regarding this. If she makes a complaint, at this stage it is not likely that it will be prosecuted, but if it is you should obtain legal assistance; the facts you claim seem sufficient to answer any such allegation, but, again, the assistance of a professional is advisable.

Regarding domestic relations matters: Sooner or later you should obtain a formal decree that the relationship is terminated. No need to push for that. Best to get settled in Canada and go from there. If that is truly your plan.

No need to contact her about plans to return to Canada. And it sounds as if it is best if you do not. When things do not work, they tend to indeed not work. No point in trying to work what does not work. Stay your distance to the extent possible.