Immigration lawyer Andy Semotiuk: Canada recently announced a new twist to its spousal sponsorship program. The change relates to couples that have been married for less than two years and do not have children.

Under the change, the sponsored spouse will be issued a two-year conditional permanent resident status, instead of a permanent one. The condition is that the spouses must stay together for two years before the condition can be removed and a permanent resident card issued.

The purpose of this change is to prevent visa fraud, where foreign spouses come to Canada and then dump their spouses shortly after landing. For a particularly egregious example, read this one here.

Unlike almost all other Canadian immigration lawyers and consultants, we are very familiar with conditional spousal sponsorships, since we have worked with it in the U.S., where they have a history of two-year conditional green cards. We would be pleased to help anyone who seeks entry into Canada under this new regime.