TORONTO – Thousands of people are thinking to move to Canada to become Canadian citizens and some also prefer to marry a Canadian national to seek the citizenship despite the fact that it is not that easy.
Generally, countries relax the rules when one of the partners is a citizen of the state but Canada has a different policy in this regard to the surprise of many.
Marrying a Canadian citizen does not make one eligible for citizenship directly and the government of Canada has issued clear guidelines in this regard.
According to Canada’s immigration department, if one wants to become a Canadian citizen, they must follow the same steps as everyone else and there is no special treatment for spouses of Canadian citizens.
In order to be eligible for the citizenship, one must be physically present in Canada for at least 1,095 days during the 5 years right before the date of submission of application. This includes time as a
- Permanent resident
- Temporary resident (lawfully authorized to remain in Canada)
- Protected person
It must be kept in mind that your Canadian spouse can sponsor you to become a permanent resident if you don’t live in Canada, or aren’t a permanent resident.
Besides, you may apply for citizenship of the country if you are a permanent resident and have been physically present in Canada long enough and meet other conditions. These other conditions also involve tax payments if you were supposed to pay as well as proof of language proficiency. Canada has two official languages which are English and French. If the applicant is between 18 to 54 years of age on the day of signing the application, they must show that they can speak and listen at a specific level in one of these languages.
It is also to be mentioned that if you committed a crime in or outside Canada, you may not be eligible to be granted Canadian citizenship for a period of time depending on the nature of crime and the sentence. One should also be well aware that time spent serving a term of imprisonment, on parole, or on probation doesn’t count as time you’ve lived in Canada for the purpose of citizenship.
As far as the status of children of Canadians born outside Canada is concerned, there are different rules in this regard but it must be kept in mind that Canadian citizenship can’t be availed directly by marrying a Canadian partner and the most important aspect is to spend the time i.e 1095 days in the country.
