H&C
Supporting Documents
Some information on
documents to support my H&C application.
Okay, I said I won't go into
detail about how to put together an H&C application, but
there were times when I wished I had more information or
just some reassurance on what and how to do something. The
key elements of an H&C application are the applicant's
cover letter, the partner's support letter, and other
supporting documents that testify that the applicant is in a
bona fide committed same-sex relationship. LEGIT
explains in fine detail what kind of documents one could use
to support an H&C application and offers suggestions on
what to include in the letters. By all means contact them
and follow their advice. My immigration process took place
between 11/97 and 11/98 so follow their recommendations
rather than mimic what I did for my application.
Here's an brief overview of
what they cover:
- Applicant's Cover
Letter
- Partner's Support
Letter
- Support Documents
- Proof that the
relationship is genuine
- Proof that the
applicant can find a job in Canada
- Job Offer
- Proof that the
applicant can make a life in Canada
- Letters that support
the application
Despite all the helpful
information and suggestion in the booklet, the letters were
the most difficult and worrisome part of my entire
application. I felt more anxiety about how to do the letters
than while waiting for responses from the consulate! Once I
got started and put the first words onto the paper--or word
processing document--it wasn't that bad. Here's how I
handled the letters plus some ideas I picked up
afterward:
- My
Cover Letter
(Click to see example)
LEGIT had some wonderful
suggestions on what to include in my (the applicant's)
cover letter, but I didn't know how to put them into
words. I searched for examples of job application cover
letters in the library and on the web. Although the
purposes are different, I knew they had some basic
similarities in purpose. Regardless of what I was
writing, I wanted to get across that I was trustworthy
and sincere. However, I wasn't trying to convince a
personnel manager how important I'd be for the company, I
needed to convince a Visa Officer how important
immigrating to Canada was to me. My entire letter came
out to a standard single page typed letter. That was on
purpose because I did not want to bother the Visa Officer
with a long and rambling melodrama. That might have
worked as well, but I was not comfortable doing
that.
Just getting some words
down helped a lot, and it was more productive than
staring at a blank computer screen or paper. It was a
starting point. It was simple enough to start. Since I
was immigrating through the Buffalo consulate, I started
by typing my name and address for the letterhead, the
date, their address, then "Dear Program Manager." You'd
be surprised how much just getting that much on paper eased my mind because it takes up about a third of
the page and made me feel like I made some progress.
Then I filled in the bottom part--my sign off. "Sincerely
yours..." whatever. It makes it a lot easier and is much
like tackling a jigsaw puzzle by doing the edges first.
As for the body of the letter, I figured the easiest thing to do
was to just start listing information by following the
suggestions given in the LEGIT booklet. Once the
information was written down, then it was a simple matter
of fine tuning it into the letter I wanted to send. In
the fine tuning I added information, took out
information, made sure I was being concise, reworded
some, rearrange a bit, and so on.
- My Partner's Support
Letter
My partner's support
letter was very similar to mine and was also addressed to
the Program Manager. He was already a Permanent Resident
and working, so he stated in his letter that he would
agree to sponsor me. I didn't read anything that said it was necessary, but for
us it was just a statement of a fact. He mentioned it because it was true and because he had already been supporting
me in Canada anyway. Immigration & Citizenship Canada
has an official sponsorship form that we debated sending
in, but in the end we didn't include with my application.
He also wrote about our relationship, our commitment to
each other, how important of my immigrating was to both
of us, and the difficulties and expenses we encountered
and would encounter if I were not allowed to immigrate.
From what we understood about paragraph
6 of the
Government Telex on Same-Sex Immigration, we figured that
a major factor in allowing same-sex immigration is to
prevent undue hardship on the Canadian partner, so we
thought it wise to include why it was important for
him that I be allowed to immigrate and the problems
he would encounter if I were not allowed to
immigrate.
- Other Support
Letters
I submitted my
application with absolutely no support letters other than
my partner's. That doesn't seem to have had an adverse
affect on my application. However, I do believe as many
good support letters as can be obtained is the best way
to go. It caused me a tremendous amount of worry that I didn't have
any letters from people to support our relationship since no one knew (or aknowledged) that we were a couple.
As for content of the
support letters... LEGIT gave some helpful and
proven advice which I won't repeat here. My take
on it is that basically the letters were to help convince
the immigration officer that our relationship was like a
"marriage." Therefore, I think it's good to try to get
that point across. That the relationship is not just a
typical semi-commited live-in boyfriend/boyfriend or
girlfriend/girlfriend relationship or a relationship
entered in just for immigration purposes ("marriage" of
convenience) -- it's PERMANENT and COMMITTED. It's more than dating, and more than "going steady." From what I
read in the same-sex/common-law telex, the allowing of
same-sex partners to immigrate to Canada under H&C
grounds is primarily for the benefit of the
Canadian. It is to prevent the Canadian partner from
experiencing undue hardship in maintaining a cross-border
relationship. The hardship already experienced could be
mentioned as well as the hardship that will be
experienced if the partner were not allowed to immigrate.
I wanted the immigration official to realize that our relationship was permanent and committed. Our
letters also mentioned how we thought I would adapt in Canada. That is, how important Canada is as
a place for me to live and make a life here,
and how well the we think I will adapt
to Canada -- that the "Canada and Applicant" relationship
is a right choice.
I didn't and still don't know how long the
letters should
be. I assume it's the quality of the letters that's more important than
the quantity of words. Both my letter and my partner's letter were just
one standard typed page with 1 inch margins. Even though we didn't have
anyone who could write support letters, I still prepared for that just
in case we thought of someone. Essentially, it was an simple flexible
instruction form for the letter. I had an open list of possible topics
with as many ideas as possible, and the writers would also be supplied
a copy of my cover letter and my partner's support letter. These people
would doing a huge favor for us, so I wanted to make it as easy for
them as possible. I also didn't want it to look like one person wrote
one letter and everyone copied it.
Support letters are
basically personal reference letters that add strength to
the H&C application. These letters help convince the
visa officer that the applicant and partner are in a bona
fide committed relationship. Anyone who knows the
applicant and especially those who know the applicant and
partner as a couple can write a support letter.
Here's how I was planning to do it:
- Tell the potential
letter writers that I was applying for immigration to
Canada under H&C grounds based on my same-sex
relationship, and ask if they would write a letter of
support to help my application.
- For those who said
yes, I'd outline my suggestions on what they might
include. (See above.)
- Inform them to
address the letter (not the envelope) to the Program
Manager.
- Instruct them to give
the letters to me so I could include it with my
application and/or supply a self-addressed stamped
envelope (with a stamp they could use in their
country) or just a self-addressed unstamped envelope
to use to send the letter to me. It is imperative that
they know that I must include it with my
application, so I must receive the
letters.
- VERY IMPORTANT: I
would set a date for when I needed the letters and
explain that I would be finalizing and sending my
application and support materials on that day. I asked
one person in the summer of 1997 if he could write a
support letter for me. He cheerfully agreed. I waited
for months and finally sent my application in without
it. I landed in late November 1998 and have yet to see
that promised letter.
- I would review the
letters to make sure they were okay and, if there were
any I didn't feel comfortable with using, I would not
include them. You are not obligated to use all
the letters you get.
- Send a thank you
note, card, and/or small gift as a token of my and my
partner's appreciation to everyone who wrote me a
support letter whether I used their letter or not. The
fact that they wrote a letter -- not an easy task -- on my
behalf is something to be appreciated.
- Other Supporting
Documents
Unlike the support
letters, these documents actually demonstrated rather
than explained to the visa officer that my partner and I were a committed and dedicated couple. Everyone's
situation is unique, so do NOT use this as an all
inclusive checklist for your own application. These are
the documents we already had on hand and used with
my application:
- Joint apartment lease
agreements
- Joint utility
service
- Joint bank account
statements
- Joint credit card
statements
- Insurance policies
naming partner as beneficiary (him as mine, and me as
his)
- Airline tickets we
both used to visit each other when
separated
- Long distance
telephone bills.
- Copies of a few older
envelopes used to correspond with each other when
separated (I used these to show that we were still
"together" even when apart, and also for postmark
dates to show we've been together at least throughout
those dates.
These are what
I used for my application.
This is not a list of what you have to use nor is it even
a suggestion of what you should use! These are things we
already had, and we did not go out and create new "proof"
of our relationship. I would consider that deceitful. Since I tend to be a pack-rat all of
my documents were easily obtained, I just had to find
where I put them. We never had problems with
discrimination or unacceptance when getting joint leases
or utilities nor with joint bank accounts. Other people
have a lot of difficulty and even discrimination, but we
did not. My partner and I even had joint bank accounts
and apartment leases in Canada for two years before I
became a landed immigrant and for year before either of
us ever thought about immigration. Credit cards were easy
to get in both our names. When we first met, both of us had credit cards in
our own name, then after we became a couple, we called
our respective credit card companies and asked if we
could get an additional card for a family member. They
all said yes. Some of the credit card companies included
the extra name on the statement, some didn't. Our credit
cards aren't really "joint" credit cards since one of us
is the primary account/card holder to whom the credit is
issued (and thus legally responsible for all charges) and
the other is the secondary card holder who has access to
charge on the account. Some of our credit cards, banks,
and credit unions offer free insurance, so we already
named each other as the each our beneficiary. Our
relationship was never an issue, nor did anyone even ask
about our relationship.
Again, I will repeat that
these are what I used for my
application. This is not a list of what you have to use
nor is it a suggestion of what you should use. These are
things we already had, and we did not go out and create
new "proof" of our relationship. I don't want to give the
impression that everything must be in both names for an
H&C application. We did this long before I ever
thought about emigrating anywhere, so it just worked
out for us when we decided it would be better if I sought
permanent residency in Canada.
Disclaimer: Not intended as legal advice. Please see
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