(Note from Steven: I met John at the Canadian Bar Association British Columbia branch annual conference in San Francisco. He is currently involved in some fascinating litigation representing an individual who sponsored a spouse only to watch her immediately divorce him after she immigrated. She also left him on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars in social assistance payments. I invited John to some write articles for this blog, and here is the second of what will hopefully be many into this issue.) — Sponsoring a spouse or fiancé into Canada requires signing an undertaking with Immigration and Citizenship Canada. The undertaking explicitly states that the sponsoring relative must provide the necessities of life, even if there is a change of circumstance including divorce. The law concerning the undertaking was recently set out by the Supreme Court of Canada in a case called Canada (Attorney General) v. Mavi.[1] In Mavi, there were eight petitioners who were found to owe the government for social assistance paid to each of they’re sponsored relatives because of the terms of the undertaking. However, none of the sponsored relatives were divorced spouses. An argument can be made that a divorce order that addresses … Read More