Hey everyone, looking for anyone who has been in a similar situation.
My plan is to enter Canada as a tourist and immediately start cohabiting with my Canadian citizen gf. After \~3 weeks I’ll do a short trip to activate my 1-year IEC WH visa, giving me roughly a 2-3 week buffer at the end where we’ll have 365 days of cohabitation while my IEC is still valid.
The idea is to use the tourist period to extend the cohabitation window just enough to submit the inland common-law PR application before my IEC expires, so I get maintained status and can apply for an OWP right away.
My question: has anyone done this or something similar? I am confident that IRCC will count the time on the tourist visa as cohabitation if documented well. At least that’s what I read in previous posts.
Documentation for the tourist period will obviously be difficult (no lease, staying at her parents’ for the beginning), so I’m also curious what evidence people used for early cohabitation without a work/study permit. Also I am unsure if we can open a joint bank account during that period due to visitor status.
We have been dating for over 3 years and even lived together in Germany for a while, so I’m not too worried about providing proof of a real relationship.
Thanks in advance! Happy for any kind of answers!