Applying for Canada Spousal Visa Online from the Philippines (Part 1: Preparations)

Important things to know about our application:

• My husband is a Canadian permanent resident residing in Canada, but a Filipino citizen (holding a Philippine passport). I am a Filipino citizen.
• This is both our first (last and only) marriages.
• We dated for 2+ years before getting married. 
• We have been married for around a month by the time we lodged the application.
• Both my husband and I have no record of visa overstay or violations in Canada and in any other country. 
• I (sponsored applicant) have not resided in any country other than the Philippines.
• We don't have any dependent on this application.
• This blog series is published months after we completed the entire process. The month and year the post was written is at the end of each post.
• This is not a comprehensive guide or a hack to get approved, but merely a record of our experience. For the latest information, visit https://www.cic.gc.ca/english/information/applications/spouse.asp .
• You may view all parts of the series here

In this part of the series, we will go through the preparations that we made prior to lodging our application. This is not exactly a part of the application process so take this like an overview but I figured this is also worth recording in case you'll need the information.

Outline of Part 1: Preparations

• Research
• Review of the Complete Guide (IMM 5289)
• Gathering of documents
• Looking for a translator

Research

Our main source of information was this section of the CIC website . This is the exact same link as I have noted in the Important Things to Know section. You will only have to input your type of sponsorship and country of residence of the spouse - in this case, the options I chose were My spouse and Philippines.

We also read on other people's timelines at this megathread on the r/immigrationcanada subreddit as well as other blog posts. However, we only looked into these forums to have a very rough estimation on what the process would be like and how long it usually takes because we are aware that each immigration case is different.

Review of the Complete Guide (IMM 5289)

Before we started filling out forms, we had a good look at the Complete Guide available here to check if we understood all sections and also to see what documents we needed.

If you find any part of it confusing, it is always best to consult an immigration lawyer for a better explanation. 

Gathering of documents

This would be the labourious part of the preparation because it involves going back into years of communication. We're lucky that we're able to easily trace ours back easily via Facebook and iMessage (thank God for technology). I also had to grab outing, family and wedding photos from my hard drive. I will go through the key documents in a separate post. We also had to gather bank statements, employment letters, etc.

Looking for a translator

For our proof of communication, we needed the documents translated from Tagalog to English. The options were either to hire a certified translator or have an affiant for the translations. You may check this link on the CIC website for the complete information on documents that need translations.

I could not find any certified translator nearby so we opted for the second option which is to have the document translated by someone who is proficient in both languages and have an affidavit signed by a notary public. The translator was a contact of one of our friends' sister. We had no contact with him prior to reaching out to him for the translator.

Part 1: Preparations written on June 2023