One of the key objectives of the Canadian immigration policy is to help families reunite in Canada. As such, the Canadian immigration law has a very generous policy concerning family sponsorships.

Eligibility criteria

The eligibility criteria are provided for a sponsor as well as for a sponsored person(s).

Generally speaking, in order for someone to qualify as a sponsor that person must:

• be a Canadian citizen or permanent resident
• be at least 18 years of age
• reside in Canada (some exceptions apply in spousal sponsorships)
• have sufficient income to support their relatives once they arrive in Canada and undertake to provide support to a sponsored person during the required period of time.

As to the categories of eligible members, they are the following:

1. Spouses/Common-law partners/Conjugal partners. To be considered the sponsor’s spouse, the sponsor and the applicant must be legally married. If the marriage did not occur in Canada, provided that the marriage is legal in the country where it occurred, then it will be accepted by the Canadian immigration authorities. A common-law partner is a person who the sponsor has lived together with for at least one year in a conjugal relationship whereas a conjugal partner is a person who has been in a marriage-like relationship with the sponsor for at least one year although they have not lived together because of circumstances beyond their control.
2. Children (including adopted ones). Sponsor’s dependent children that may be sponsored include children who are under the age of 22 and unmarried. Children over the age of 22 and children who are married can be sponsored if since reaching the age of 22 or the date they were married they have remained full-time students and have been financially dependent on their parents.
3. Parents. Those include biological or adopted mother and father. The sponsored parents may also bring their dependent children with them to Canada which will be the sponsor’s brothers and sisters. In this way a sponsor can bring their siblings who are under the age of 22, or who are over 22 and are full-time students, to Canada as permanent residents.
4. Grandparents.
5. Orphans. A sponsor's orphaned brother, sister, nephew/niece and grandchild may be sponsored if they are under the age of 18 and unmarried.
6. Other relatives in certain circumstances. Where a sponsor does not have any spouse, common-law partner, conjugal partner, child, parent, grandparent, sibling, uncle, aunt, nephew, or niece living in Canada, and no relative living abroad who may be sponsored under the regular categories, then they may sponsor any other relative regardless of their age.

It is noteworthy that brothers and sisters cannot be directly sponsored under the Family Class. Brothers and sisters can only be sponsored as accompanying dependents of sponsored parents. However, under the conditions of certain provincial nominee programs (i.e. Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan) it is possible to apply for a nomination certificate for a sponsor’s siblings who fall out of the definition of a family member in accordance with the Family class definition of the same.

Expenses

The government processing fees associated with this kind of permanent residence applications are as follows (in Canadian dollars): 

• $75 to be paid at the time of the application submission
• $475 to be paid for a principal applicant
• $75 to be paid for a principal applicant, if less than 22 years of age and not a spouse or common-law partner (including a dependent child of the sponsor, a child to be adopted and an orphaned brother, sister, niece, nephew, or grandchild)
• $550 to be paid for a family member of the principal applicant who is 22 years of age or older, or is less than 22 years of age and is a spouse or common-law partner principal applicant
• $150 to be paid for a family member of the principal applicant who is less than 22 years of age and is not a spouse or common-law partner 

Processing times

The processing times vary depending on the kind of sponsorship applications – whereas spousal sponsorships are taking 4 to 12 months from the initial submission of the application, parental sponsorships are taking far longer to be processed (31 months only in CPC Mississauga (as of the middle of 2009) followed by the finalization of the file processing at the visa office responsible for a country of an applicant’s residence which may take another 9 to 44 months depending on a visa office).