Here is my situation. I am a South African and my girl friend is Canadian. We have applied for a sponsership visa and that will take up to 10 months maybe more. I am planning on comming to Canada end of March but then i will get my 3 months visa then extend it for another 3 months. My question then is, Can i extend it again ? or do anything to stay in Canada for the last 4 months until the sponsership visa is confirmed or denied? or do i need to come back to South Africa?
You can apply to extend your visitor visa as many times as you want to. Whether CIC approves any of these extensions is a different matter. However you can certainly apply.
If you already have a single visa, don't push your luck by applying for a multiple. Most people in your situation aren't even approved for a single entry.
To be approved for a visitor visa, you must prove you have strong ties to your home country and have no plans to remain in Canada long term. If you have already submitted a spousal sponsorship application, then clearly you have plans to remain in Canada long term. CIC will still sometimes approve a visitor visa for a person in this situtation. It helps if you have traveled extensively before and can demonstrate that you still have ties to your home country (e.g. job, property owned, business, etc.). However based on what we've seen on this forum, many visitor visa applications for people who have submitted spousal sponsorship applications are refused. So this is something you should be prepared for.
