 Hi everyone from Florida. Welcome to our channel, Kiyoka Immigration Law. I wanted to make this video today about what happens when a dependent child that's accompanying or not accompanying in a spousal sponsorship application does not undergo a medical examination. So if you are doing a spousal sponsorship, let's say you're the sponsor and your wife or your common law partner has a minor child. Let's take the example that the child will not be coming to Canada. You have spoken to the mother or not or you know that it's not a possibility. Let's say you have spoken and it's an understanding that you're not going to bring that child to Canada. In a lot of cases, let's say the mother has custody in another country or you may even have joined custody but most of the time there's custody or there's no actual there's no there's no agreements at all. So you're filing your application. It is mandatory to include the information of the child in the application in terms of name, date of birth, identity document. The immigration Canada has to know the existence of this child and has to have all the information provided in the forms. Now when the child is non accompanying that has to be indicated and something that a lot of people don't know or realize later on is that it is mandatory for that child to undergo a medical examination. Now it's a little bit odd because the common sense would be like well why does this child have to do medical examination? This child is not even coming. I've separated from this person. I'm not bringing this child to Canada. It's actually a little bit when you think about it kind of invasive you know like kind of forcing this child in another country to undergo a medical examination but the law in Canada with respect to that is actually really really strict. So if you don't do the medical examination then what's going to happen is that immigration is going to ask you for it over and over again and if you indicate that well this child is not coming whether you indicated this in the beginning or later on they will constantly ask you until they're satisfied that you understand the consequences of this. What's the consequences of not having a dependent child, a minor child medically examined is that you will never ever be able to sponsor that child ever again because that child will be excluded under the immigration rules in Canada. So what we see a lot in our office is clients who come to us and they say we filed this application for spousal sponsorship. We've done everything correctly. We indicated in a letter that the child is not coming and immigration keeps sending us these letters saying that the child has to get examined. Now in most cases immigration doesn't take a decision. They won't say that they're going to refuse. They just keep asking for it. So when we take over those files we say well the explanation you provided is okay but we need to go a bit further than that. So we try to do the best which is we might not be able to do everything but we have a checklist. So we try to get a declaration, a statutory declaration or you can call it an affidavit from the parent that's staying with the child, staying that I do not consent to my child being medically examined or I will never consent to my child going to Canada therefore I don't want to do the medical examination or I had a discussion with the father of my child and I refuse to have my child undergo medical examination. Then we have the applicant the person that's being sponsored signed a declaration saying I understand the consequences of not having my child examined. I understand that if I don't have him or her medically examined then I will never ever be able to sponsor this child. I make this declaration statement decision with my full capacity. So we include documents like that. We prepare a legal submission letter which is a cover letter that kind of outlines the history of the family why the child is staying behind, what's the understanding and sometimes we might not have for example a statutory declaration from the other parent who the child is staying with because they might not communicate. We've had cases where clients come to us and they say I don't have any communication with that child. I am the father or the mother. The mother or the father of the child is not communicating with me will refuse to answer my calls or emails even if I wanted to have my child examined I wouldn't be able to. So if that circumstance happens then if those are the facts then we have to explain it in a different way and add other supporting documents such as affidavits or reference letters from friends and family or colleagues or neighbors that know of the situation because from it the way I see it is that immigration is trying to protect the rights of this minor child. A child has parents and immigration can't take that lightly because there's been many cases where later on something changes. Maybe the parents will take care of the child to get sick. Maybe the child is 17-18 years old and currently you're a dependent child until you're 21 so maybe that child is 17-18 and says well I want to go join my mother or father in Canada and I want to get sponsored and that's a great opportunity for me where I'll be close to my parent or actually I don't have a good relationship with the parent that I'm with. This parent is abusive so immigration is trying to protect the right of that child so that by kind of forcing and asking over and over again they kind of squeeze out everything they can and try to get as many people to get those children medically examined as possible but there are certain situations and many where it's completely impossible and when that's the case if you don't submit it properly if you don't explain your point of view properly then it could take a very long time for the application to be finalized. I've seen situations where clients have come to me and they've said Mary it's been three years we've given them everything we've explained everything we just can't do that medical examination and they don't want to take a decision and we take over and I would say almost every time we've been successful in getting those applications finalized but we had to put in a lot of work to prepare strong supporting documents and we push our our clients a lot in terms of explaining the whole background the whole family situation so that immigration can understand okay this is the situation this parent will never agree or this child does not want sometimes when the child is older they can even write a letter and say I understand but I'm not going to Canada I'm very happy in Mexico I'm very happy in Chile I'm very happy in France so it's a very delicate situation it could be very confusing it's not sometimes very clear even though on the forms it does say you know you have to mention all your children all your children must be medically examined it's it's it's written in small and because it's not a logical thing then a lot of people that don't haven't filed hundreds and hundreds of immigration application will not know this nuance and then when the time will come that immigration wants that it'll kind of be like a slap in the face and be like well how am I supposed to do this and sometimes it's as also as complicated as the child is in a small town where there is it would be so expensive or complicated to get that child to a sent a city center where they could do the medical examination because he's because it has to be done by a panel physician approved by by immigration um there's also the scenario of a child that's outside with a biological parent who's now married or in a relationship with somebody else and maybe the biological parent outside Canada with the child would agree but the the stepfather stepmother refuses and says what does this mean does this mean my child is going to go away uh my my stepdaughter step uh uh son or it could be adoptive children as well so there's so many people involved there's so many different relationship interactions that that that come into play and our job as a law firm is when you come to us with that story and the complexity of the case we kind of have to unpack everything understand and then make immigration understand because immigration will not call you or talk to you there they won't call the parent outside Canada they won't go see the child so it's just paperwork and how do we demonstrate all of this and the the details of the story is through the legal cover letter through the documentation through the reference letters um so if if you know somebody or you're in a situation where um there's a child that has to get medically examined but it's not possible uh contact us and uh will help you and in many situations sometimes we've also taken on cases where clients come to us and say it's impossible to get uh the child to be medically examined but we sometimes provide a letter to the client to give to the biological uh the parent the responsible parent outside Canada and say look it's not that we want to bring the child behind you know to Canada behind your back this is what it is it's if sometimes the the the parents are able to be on a friendly in a friendly zone then they can understand each other and they can get the child examined because at the end of the day I mean a medical examination can cost a couple of hundred dollars but there's nothing to lose from that so sometimes we also try to kind of mediate um the situation if we can um if you have any questions don't hesitate to contact our office