Filipiniana News – January 2008 RHYME & REASON Family reunification is among the pillars of Canadian immigration. This is the principle upon which the provisions for sponsoring family members is based. As a result, CIC allows the sponsorship of spouses, common law partners, children, parents, grandparents and other relatives (in certain exceptional circumstances), as a means of obtaining permanent resident status in Canada. Applications to sponsor spouses, common law or conjugal partners and dependent children are given top priority such that these could take only a few months to process as contrasted to the several years that it takes for other types of sponsorships and permanent resident applications to be finalized. (For instance, a family class application to sponsor parents from the Philippines is currently taking three to fours years to process.) If the submission package is complete and is able to address all the ...