August 8, 2017
Does Lucky in Love Mean Lucky in Immigration? I Fell in Love but have no Job Can I Still Sponsor My Husband for Immigration?
I am continuing my “readers series” of blogs. I am drawing from a number of questions we receive here at the firm. I want to thank our thousands of immigration followers that reach out to Bellissimo Law Group PC through our Canadian Immigration Blog, Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Youtube and LinkedIn with their questions and comments. We select questions that we receive multiple times to help our immigration followers better understand different aspects of citizenship, immigration and refugee law and policy. This time I am featuring a question we often receive regarding family class spousal sponsorship.
Q. I have fallen in love and would like to sponsor my husband. The company I worked for closed at the end of 2015, and in 2016 I had no income except Employment Insurance. Now, I am considering obtaining Second Career Ontario funding from Ontario government, and go to college. I am not sure if Second Career is welfare or not and whether I can still sponsor him? I have found love but not a job right now, please help!
A. We receive many questions regarding different provincial benefits a sponsor may be receiving and the uncertainty of whether they are eligible to sponsor because of those benefits. Generally speaking, Employment Insurance (EI) is not considered a social benefit in the sense of welfare /social benefit income. It is deducted from your total gross income on your Notice of Assessment / Option C printout and is not considered income for immigration purposes. The same applies to any training /education course sponsored by the province as it is a grant – it is not included in your income. Other exceptions include:
- Any financial assistance received by the sponsor from the Government of Canada under a resettlement assistance program;
- Any monthly guaranteed income supplement paid to the sponsor under the Old Age Security Act, and
- Any Canada child tax benefit paid to the sponsor under the Income Tax Act
To sponsor a husband there is no legal requirement to meet a certain income level just the ability to support the person you are planning to sponsor and his or her family members. You must be at least eighteen years of age, residing in Canada (exception for a period of time for Canadian Citizens) and amongst other requirements/criteria sign a three year undertaking where you agree to reimburse the provincial or federal government for any social assistance benefit your husband receives. So in this case lucky in love may also mean lucky in immigration, good luck!
For more information on Spousal Sponsorship, please click here.