A Guide to Sponsoring Your Child to Come to Canada: Everything You Need to Know

The Family Class Sponsorship Program in Canada is designed to help reunite families and bring them closer together. Canadian citizens and permanent residents can sponsor certain family members, biological or adopted, who are living outside of Canada to come and live with them in the country. This program not only helps bring families closer together but also contributes to the growth of the population in Canada.

Canadian citizens and permanent residents who wish to sponsor their child to come to Canada must meet certain conditions. They must be 18 years old or above, be a Canadian citizen, a permanent resident living in Canada, or be registered under the Indian Act of Canada. They must have no criminal record, not be in prison or charged with a serious offense, should not have defaulted on any previous sponsorship undertaking and should not be receiving income assistance besides for disability reasons. They must also be able to provide for the basic needs of their child when they arrive in Canada.

To be eligible for sponsorship, a child must meet the requirements of a dependant. They must be the biological or adopted child of a Canadian citizen or permanent resident, not be in a married or common-law relationship, and be under the age of 22. A child over the age of 22, who experiences either mental or physical disabilities which prevent independent living, or one who has relied on their parents for financial aid before turning 22 years old is eligible to be listed as a dependent.

It is important to note that to remain eligible after application, a dependent must remain single and not in a common-law relationship during application processing. However, those who are divorced, windowed, or whose marriage has been annulled or who are no longer in a common-law relationship when their application is received will still satisfy the definition of being a dependant child.

When it comes to a parent making an application, a dependent child is either a biological or an adopted child of a parent. A “biological” child can refer to any one of three distinct varieties: children born to said parent, those not related genetically but who were born to their legally recognized partner at the time, and those born with the help of assisted human reproduction technologies.

Establishing a parent-child relationship can be established with certain documents, such as birth or baptismal certificate. Additionally, the evidence must be provided to demonstrate that the individual claiming to be the parent is, indeed, the biological mother or legally recognized partner of the mother at the time of childbirth in the case where assisted technology was used during reproductive processes.

In the event of a foreign surrogacy agreement, the child may be deemed a “biological child” provided they have a genetic relationship with the sponsoring parent or their partner. This must also be legally acknowledged in the foreign country.