 Welcome everybody to our YouTube channel. Today I'm making a video on the 10 tips for spousal sponsorship interviews. So if you have submitted an application to sponsor your partner to Canada, sometimes the embassy or the high commission will send a letter saying that the applicant, the person being sponsored, has to come in for an interview at the embassy or the high commission. What we do with our clients is we give them some tips and we also prepare them for the interview because the interview is quite important. Even if you've submitted a very strong application, officers receive a lot of different applications and they often make a decision at the interview. If they have some concerns, they want to make sure that the relationship is genuine, they want to make sure that all the facts are, that they have matches the application and also matches what the applicant is going to say. Usually the interview is for the applicant, the person being sponsored. If the sponsor is able to be with the applicant, sometimes the officer will let the sponsor come into the room and participate or ask questions to the sponsor. But essentially it's an interview for the applicant. Often the officer might ask the sponsor to wait outside in the waiting room and might not even question the sponsor. Sometimes, but this is more rare, sometimes the officer can also give a call to the sponsor if the sponsor is not with the applicant to ask some questions to compare answers to see if both the applicant and the sponsor are going to give same answers to the questions. So I've prepared 10 general tips for the sponsorship interviews. So the first tip is review documents and forms. So you filed your application either by yourself or by the lawyer or representative. Now you're going to the interview. It's important for you to review your documentation because the officer is going to ask you a question based on the documents. So sometimes people complete the forms, they write a lot of different information and the interview is one year later. And now the officer is asking questions about that. So your answers have to match the forms. But sometimes people can make some honest mistakes. For example, in your form they asked where was your honeymoon and you said one Greek island and then you come to the interview and you kind of forgot and you say another Greek island. And it could be kind of like an honest mistake. Let's say you went to different islands, but the officer, if already they have some concerns about your file and now you're not really saying which island you went to. And you know, a honeymoon is kind of something important to remember. That's an important fact. And these little things can create some issues in the decision making process. So my recommendation is always to review the forms that you filed and the documentation that you submitted the pictures, reference letters, communication just to kind of refresh your memory. When you do go in, you're not allowed to have a copy of your file. You're not allowed to look at any documentation. And so you might not remember every single detail, but there are some important dates that you should remember and try to make an effort to learn before your interview. For example, honeymoon dates or proposal date or marriage date. It's normal that some people might not remember that. I don't remember what I ate yesterday. So you might not remember specific dates of a year or two years ago, but for the purposes of the interview, I always recommend to review all the documentation before you go to your interview. Tip number two was remember important dates. So we talked about that. Tip number three, no notes for the interview. So I mentioned that as well. So you're not allowed to write down answers. This is your relationship. This is your life. This is your love life. This is your couple. You don't need to write down information. Everything should be in your head, but mostly in your heart. Tip number four, be yourself and talk from your heart. I'm going ahead of every single point. So, you know, officers, they'll ask you questions like sometimes they'll ask you questions like what do you like about your partner? What do you love about your partner? This is, I would say, the most important question if you're asked that question. I have a lot of clients. They don't want to share that information with the officer for different reasons, cultural reasons. They're not used to answering that question to kind of like a stranger. They don't understand why the officer is asking that question, but this is a really important question. Now I always tell my clients whatever you say in the room stays with the officer. It's confidential. And it's your kind of your one chance to join your spouse to Canada. So it's important that you share your feelings and you share what's in your heart. So if you love your husband or wife because she's generous, because she's wonderful, because she's honest, because she takes care of you, because you have the same values, because you have the same projects, because she makes you laugh. And he's responsible and he takes care of you. You need to say those things and you need to show it the way you talk about it. And it's not about acting and it's not about pretending. I always tell my clients talk from your heart. It may be cheesy, but it's really, really important to show the officer that you're in a real committed, loving, permanent relationship, because ultimately that is the most important thing during an interview. Tip number five, stay calm and speak the truth. So sometimes these, often these interviews can be pretty nerve wracking because you've never been in a setting like this. And there's a lot of officers that can ask very difficult questions and they can also be very firm and kind of very strict and they're demeanor. This is their job. They've been trained to ask those questions. They've been trained to see if you're hiding something. Because there's a lot of people that commit fraud and try to come to Canada for the wrong reasons. So officers will try to intimidate you or just intimidate you by the way they are. And a lot of clients, even if the officer is not that intimidating, clients can feel very pressured because you're nervous. This is your application. It's about your life. So I always tell my clients a day or two before the interview, don't be reviewing a documentation a day or two before. Do that maybe kind of like a week before or something or three or four days before. A day or two before, stay calm, prepare yourself mentally. When you're in the room, stay calm and answer the questions calmly. If you don't understand the question, ask again. Usually everything is being reported because it's going to be in the file. So if there is a refusal, we can get the notes and we see everything that we said. So make sure you ask if you're nervous and you didn't hear the question or you didn't understand. This is your time. It's your interview. It's not about the officer. It's really about your life and your couple. So stay calm, ask the question if you don't understand. If you feel very, very nervous, you have to say, I'm sorry, I need a break because I'm quite nervous. I'm not able to convey what I'm trying to say. So being calm, taking deep breaths and always speaking the truth. So if there's a question that you don't understand or you don't remember or you don't know the answer, don't try to guess, don't try to lie, just say I'm sorry that was a long time ago. It was four years ago. I don't remember that date. I think it was winter. I think it was summer, but I don't remember unfortunately. It's better you say it that way than you try to guess or invent something that's just going to make matters worse. So and officers know that they know that people might not remember things. So it's okay to do that. Tip number six, remember that officers are doing a job. So I mentioned this. So they've been trained to do that. They're doing a job. It's, you know, a lot of my clients, they come to me after they say the officer was so mean and it could happen that there are some officers that could be quite mean and you just really feel that they just don't like you. They didn't like you from the second you walked into the room. I think most of them do a pretty good job when they have complete documentation, complete information. But I always tell my clients just remember that they're being, they're assigned a job and they're trying to see if there's something missing in the file or something that they didn't see in the application. So by remembering that, you don't get upset with the client and with the officer and get into an argument. You let them do their job and you answer the questions as best as you can. Tip number seven, bring updated documents about your relationships. So sometimes when you file an application, the interview is let's say six months later, eight months later, a year later. And a lot of things might have happened during that time. You might have visited each other. You could have had a baby. You could have, I don't know, maybe the sponsor came and lived there for three months and you went traveling and you did all these things. You gave gifts to each other. So it's good at the interview to bring updated documentation about what happened during that time since you filed your last application or your last update so that the officer sees that the relationship goes on. The relationship is continuing past the time that you got married or you're a common law partner and you filed the application. It really strengthens the file to bring those documents. Some officers will take them. Some officers won't. Some officers will take a look at them and then give them to you. You should make a copy of everything before you bring a copy for the officer. But I highly recommend you do bring those updated documentation at the interview. Tip number eight, listen to the question, ask to repeat if it's not clear. We talked about that. Tip number nine, if there's an interpreter, ensure that you understand the interpreter. This is important. People that will have an interpreter in the room because they're not speaking English or French. So in the beginning, before you start your interview, you need to speak with the interpreter. So let's say you're speaking Farsi, there's a Farsi interpreter. You speak with the interpreter and you see if you understand because sometimes it could be different dialects, it could be different tones. The interpreter might be a junior interpreter. The interpreter might just not be a good interpreter. So if you're not understanding the interpreter, the interview is not going to go well. So it's important to make sure you understand each other before the interview starts. And during the interview, if you understand a little bit of English and you see that, you said some English or French and you see you said something in Farsi, let's say, and then the interpreter said something else. There's one or two words that weren't the right words. Then you have to bring it up. You have to tell the officer as you can. I'm sorry, but this is not what I said because everything's being recorded usually. So you should bring that up. And if need be, either the officer will say, okay, we'll postpone the interview and we'll get another interpreter or something like that. It's your right to have, I mean, usually you have to bring the interpreter. Some embassies or high commissions will have interpreter theirs for you. But usually you have to bring an interpreter. Hopefully you have done your due diligence and you bring somebody that is going to do a good job. But sometimes on the spot, interpreters might be nervous or for whatever reason, they're not doing a good job. So you have to explain this to the officer the best as you can. And final tip number 10, get into details about why you love your partner and want to spend the rest of your life with him or her. So this is kind of what I talked about before to speak from your heart. It's important to listen to the question and answer. You don't want to start talking and talking and giving long answers. You want to be concise and keep your answer short. But when it comes about details about why you love each other, why you want to be together, if the officer asked that question, I think it's okay to go into a little bit of more details because this is the most important part, is to show that why you're a good couple, why you got married or why you're a common law partner, why you want to spend the rest of your life together, why are you compatible. Officers, I mean, they might see the file and they get some information, but this is now the human interaction between you and the officer and it's good to get into details about the most important things. Why do you appreciate, why do you value your partner? So those are my tips for spells and sponsorships interview. Interviews, if you have any other questions about this, feel free to comment, post your question at the bottom of the video. Thank you. Have a great day.