American & Canadian looking to live together

[broadwaybaby]

Hello! I am new to this forum and I am looking for some advice. I am a American citizen [please, no jokes! =)] who is currently dating a Canadian citizen. We have known eachother for 14 months [we met online]. We met in person in July of 2007 and we lived together in Banff, Alberta from September 2007 to November 2007. I went to live with him without a visa and I had to legally leave the country on November 18th, which I did. I supported myself while I was there with funds I acquired from selling my car. I am now back in my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. My boyfriend has plane tickets to come to Chicago in February, then we plan on living in a house his parents are letting us use after he spends a week here. We are looking into the whole Common-Law thing...but I have a few questions. I know you have to live together for a year [including a 90 day separation...which is what I am currently in]. I was thinking about just supporting myself with saved money until September 2008...because then we will have lived together for a year. BUT, how am I supposed to prove that we lived together if I'll be living there without a visa? Would they just not count that if I had no visa while I lived there? I have no idea. Sooo hopefully someone has some advice for me...even if it doesn't involve Common-Law.

I really love him and I just want to be with him. I love Canada and I don't see a reason why it should be so hard for me to live there! And, if this has any pertinance, my Grandfather was born and raised in Canada. Could that help me at all?

 

[TaaDow]

In order to prove you've been residing common-law you should provide where available:

-A residence lease indicating both names,
-Proof that one of you resided legally in the country of the other during the period of question,
-Proof of employment in area of residence.

Have you considered looking into being sponsored as a "Conjugal Partner"?

Conjugal partnership can be proven through similar docs as proving a bonafide marriage and does not require that you have resided together at any time.

Oh, and the Canadian born and raised Grandfather does not provide any benefit.

 

[broadwaybaby]

Ok so I would definitely have to get a work visa that would last a year in order to recieve the benefits of Common-Law. Damn! It's so hard for me to get a visa for Canada. I had an employer ready to sponsor me until they realized that there was this agreement between America and Canada that the Canadian employer would be liable for my flight there and my health insurance..so they couldn't hire me because of the cost.

What is a Conjugal Partner? I've never even heard of it!

 

[TaaDow]

Cut and Paste from the sponsorship guide:

You can sponsor a person as a conjugal partner(1) if
• that person is of the opposite or same sex,
• that person is residing outside Canada (that is, has, for legal purposes, a fixed, permanent and principal home outside Canada), and
• you have maintained a conjugal relationship with that person for at least one year, that is: you have been in a committed and mutually interdependent relationship of some permanence where you have combined your affairs to the extent possible.

(1) This last category is intended for partners of Canadian sponsors who would ordinarily apply as
• common-law partners but cannot meet the definition, that is were not able to live together continuously for one year with their sponsor, or
• spouses, but marriage to their sponsor is usually not an available option to them, usually because of marital status or sexual orientation, combined with an immigration barrier (for example, rules preventing partner and sponsor of long stays in one another’s countries).

If your sponsorship is successful, your conjugal partner becomes a permanent resident of Canada but cannot exercise any rights or privileges associated with common-law status until you have cohabited for at least one year.


Hope that helps...