Proposed changes to Canada spousal sponsorship rules have been welcomed. Women rights activists have welcomed the proposed rules by Canada immigration minister John McCallum. They feel that current Canada spousal sponsorship rules unfairly punish women and racial minorities.
Canada women rights activists feel earlier rules unnecessarily punished women and racial minorities.
Prior to the proposed Canada spousal sponsorship changes, sponsored spouses of Canadians received only conditional Canada permanent residency status after arrival in Canada and had to wait for nearly two years for getting Canada permanent residency status.
<blockquote> Canada women rights activists have welcomed recent proposed changes to Canada spousal sponsorship rules. </blockquote>
Immigration specialists have maintained that the two-year delay in Canada permanent residency to sponsored spouses of Canadians put new immigrants, especially women immigrants, in vulnerable condition.
Two-year waiting period caused more problems—The two year waiting period for Canada sponsored spouses of Canadians caused much more problems than it was meant to solve. It seemed to offer incentives to sponsored spouses for staying in abusive relationships just to keep their Canada permanent residency status.
So, rather than the two-year waiting period for sponsored spouses of Canadians, other tools should be used by Canada immigration department and Canada government to discourage fraud in marriages. This could be excluding proxy marriages conducted through fax, the internet or telephone, said Vancouver immigration lawyer Richard Kurland.
Kurland said CBSA documents reveal that nearly one third of sponsored spouses immigration applications from India and China involved marriage fraud.
What are the proposed changes?—Well, as per the proposed Canada spousal sponsorship rules, the two year waiting period for some spouses will be ended. This will lead to grant of Canada permanent residency status to all foreign spouses on their arrival in Canada. This was affirmed by an official spokesperson for Canada immigration department CIC(Citizenship and Immigration Canada).
Immigration minister McCallum plans to end the two-year probation period for overseas spouses soon. The ruling was introduced by the former Canada conservative government way back in 2012 to help curb growing cases of marriage frauds in Canada.
It may be worth mentioned that marriages of convenience involving foreigners from India and China were being considered as a threat to Canada’s immigration process’ integrity.