Last Updated On 2 December 2025, 11:10 AM EST (Toronto Time)
A recent Ontario court case has once again exposed how some Canadians are abusing Canada’s generous family reunification rules by entering into fake marriages in exchange for money or favours that confer immigration status.
In a judgment released in November, the Superior Court of Justice described how Ontario resident Amratpal Singh Sidhu openly admitted to taking part in multiple “sham” marriages in India so women could try to immigrate to Canada, in return for cash and care for his mother.
Sidhu was not in criminal court but in family court, asking a judge to declare that he was legally married to Amandeep Kaur, the mother of his three children.
She argued the opposite. The judge ultimately found there was no legally valid marriage between the two in the eyes of Ontario law, despite a traditional ceremony in India in 1997 and years of living together.
The case is the latest reminder that selling or faking relationships for immigration purposes is not a new trick in Canada.
It also raises a difficult question: as authorities tighten anti-fraud measures, are genuine couples paying the price through tougher scrutiny, longer delays and more invasive questioning?
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According to the court’s written reasons, Sidhu and Amandeep Kaur travelled from Ontario to India in 1997 for a traditional wedding ceremony.
But soon after that celebration, Sidhu went to another town and took part in what he himself called a “sham” marriage to a woman named Karamjit Kaur, saying he did it to help her immigrate and to secure care for his ill mother.
That second marriage was the one formally registered and later dissolved in Ontario, which meant it was the only marriage the court could clearly recognize.
Years later, in 2022, Sidhu went back to India and entered into yet another allegedly sham marriage, this time to Harjit Kaur, again with the stated goal of assisting her immigration to Canada.
He claimed that Amandeep Kaur’s family would receive $40,000 for helping with the process, an allegation she denied.
There is a marriage certificate for this 2022 wedding, although Canadian authorities ultimately did not accept it for immigration.
The judge noted that both Sidhu and Amandeep Kaur had repeatedly declared themselves single to tax authorities and on real estate transfers for many years, and that neither had ever registered their 1997 ceremony with civil authorities in India or Ontario.
Given that polygamy is not recognized, the court concluded Sidhu could not have been legally married to both Amandeep and Karamjit, and the only clearly recognized marriage was the one he later called a sham.
This tangled personal history might have stayed a private family dispute, but Sidhu’s own admissions of participating in sham marriages for immigration purposes have pushed the issue of “cash-for-marriage” schemes back into the national spotlight.
Canadian immigration law calls these arrangements “marriages of convenience” or marriage fraud: relationships entered primarily so the foreign partner can get permanent residence, rather than to build a genuine life together.
Typical patterns seen in past cases include:
- A Canadian citizen or permanent resident is paid money or promised expensive gifts to marry or declare a common-law relationship with someone who wants to get Canadian permanent residency.
- The couple may live together briefly, stage photos and provide fabricated documentation to convince immigration officers the relationship is real.
- Once the sponsored partner receives permanent residence, the relationship quickly ends, or the pair never truly lived together in a genuine way at all.
Sometimes both sides collude to cheat the system. In other situations, the Canadian sponsor is misled and left behind when their spouse disappears after getting status.
Federal legal resources describe marriage fraud as a form of misrepresentation that can lead to a loss of status, removal from Canada and even criminal charges for those involved.
IRCC also stresses that sponsors sign a binding undertaking to financially support their sponsored spouse or partner for three years, regardless of whether the relationship survives.
That obligation remains for 3 years after the marriage, even if the foreign spouse leaves the relationship shortly after arriving.
After 3 years, that Canadian citizen or permanent resident can sponsor another partner by citing that the old relationship and financial undertaking have ended.
Such cases often face increased scrutiny, but many still get approved or are challenged in immigration appeals if IRCC refuses sponsorship.
The Sidhu decision may feel shocking, but similar stories have surfaced in Canada for decades.
- In one case, a woman identified as Ms. Tan entered a fraudulent marriage in 2004 and later obtained citizenship.
- A CBSA investigation launched in 2011 alleged that her first husband had been paid to marry her.
- Years later, she faced proceedings to revoke her citizenship for misrepresentation.
- Another case, known as MCI v. Liu, involved a foreign student who allegedly paid tens of thousands of dollars to enter a fake marriage organized by a third party.
- The scheme was uncovered as part of a CBSA investigation nicknamed “Project Honeymoon,” leading to a removal order and a long legal battle.
Concerns about these scams grew so intense that, in 2012, Ottawa introduced a controversial “conditional permanent residence” rule.
Some sponsored spouses had to live with their sponsor in a genuine relationship for two years or risk losing their status, a measure explicitly aimed at deterring non-genuine marriages.
However, after several years and hundreds of requests for exemptions from abused spouses, the federal government scrapped the rule in 2017, acknowledging that it created power imbalances and made vulnerable newcomers afraid to leave abusive relationships, even though most couples are genuine.
The repeal did not mean that marriage fraud stopped being a concern.
Instead, IRCC said it would rely on officer training, case-by-case investigations and other anti-fraud tools while still prioritizing family reunification.
Spousal sponsorship is one of the most flexible routes to Canadian permanent residence.
Under federal rules, an eligible sponsor can apply for their:
- spouse (legally married),
- common-law partner (lived together in a marriage-like relationship for at least 12 consecutive months proven by joint rental agreement, bank accounts, and other documents), or
- conjugal partner (in a committed, marriage-like relationship but unable to live together or marry due to serious legal or immigration barriers).
Unlike many economic immigration programs, there is generally no language-test requirement for spouses sponsored under the family class, and most sponsors do not have to meet strict income thresholds unless there are dependent children with children of their own or Quebec-specific rules apply.
Qualification instead depends heavily on the genuineness of the relationship and the sponsor’s ability to support their partner under the three-year undertaking.
Those same features that make the program compassionate and accessible also create openings for abuse:
- No language minimums mean couples do not have to show they can communicate in English or French.
- The absence of a complex points system or high income bar makes the route much simpler than Express Entry or many work-based streams.
- The emotional nature of relationships makes it harder for officers to distinguish genuine couples from carefully staged fraud.
That is why IRCC’s operational guidance and legal commentary describe marriage fraud and marriages of convenience as a persistent integrity challenge.
Government documents repeatedly emphasize that the majority of relationships are real and that most spousal sponsorship applications are made in good faith.
But as more “cash-for-marriage” scandals come to light, many genuine couples report facing:
- longer processing times and more document requests,
- detailed questionnaires probing the history of their relationship,
- requests for chat logs, photos, shared financial records and proof of cohabitation, and
- in some cases, in-person interviews are conducted to test whether their relationship appears genuine.
Past media reporting has highlighted sobering examples where couples with real relationships saw their spousal sponsorships refused or dragged through appeals, partly because they fit “risk profiles” used to catch fraud.
This is the difficult balancing act at the heart of the system: every sham marriage or paid sponsorship pushes officials to tighten screening, but that same tightening can make life harder for real families who simply want to live together in Canada.
IRCC and the Canada Border Services Agency both treat marriage fraud as a form of immigration misrepresentation.
Officers are trained to flag cases where a relationship appears to exist primarily for immigration purposes, and they can:
- refuse permanent residence applications,
- issue removal orders against sponsored spouses found to have misrepresented their situation, and
- pursue criminal charges in serious cases.
Federal guidance and public warnings encourage Canadians not to accept money or other rewards to marry or enter a relationship solely so someone can immigrate.
They underscore that sponsors remain financially responsible for three years, even if the relationship fails shortly after landing.
At the same time, policymakers insist that family reunification remains a core pillar of the immigration system and that enforcement efforts are meant to protect both the integrity of the program and genuinely vulnerable sponsors who might otherwise be exploited.
The Sidhu case is a stark reminder that selling or staging relationships to “game” Canada’s immigration rules is not a victimless shortcut.
Canadians who agree to take cash in exchange for sponsorship risk:
- long-term financial obligations when things go wrong,
- potential criminal investigation and immigration consequences, and
- messy legal disputes over property, marital status and family law rights, as Sidhu’s equalization battle illustrates.
For genuine couples, the story underlines why officers may now scrutinize files more closely, especially if there is a complex relationship history, long periods apart, or previous sponsorships.
That added scrutiny can feel intrusive and unfair, but it has grown out of years of documented fraud cases.
Finally, it is important to remember that Canadian law does not require a wedding ceremony to recognize a committed relationship.
A citizen or permanent resident can sponsor a spouse, a common-law partner they have lived with for at least a year, or a conjugal partner they cannot safely live with or marry due to serious legal or immigration barriers, as long as the relationship itself is real.
As more “cash-for-marriage” schemes come to light, the challenge for Ottawa will be to crack down on those who treat spousal sponsorship as a business without trapping genuine couples in a system that assumes love is a lie until proven otherwise.
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