Couple’s reunion foiled amid real-estate saga

Sponsorship application rejected after husband chose to stay in Canada rather than visit wife

Alex Oren insisted he wouldn’t bring his wife and stepson to Canada from Belarus until he had a house ready for them here.

Now, after a tangled journey that involved buying a home in a pre-construction project that fell through, a new fourbedroom house is finally ready, but it’s sitting empty because his spousal spon- sorship for Volha and Yaheni Oren was rejected by the Canadian visa post in Poland in March.

While the March 20 decision simply said the application was denied because the officer wasn’t satisfied the relationship was genuine, the Toronto man says the officer questioned Volha repeatedly during an interview about why the sponsorship application was filed almost two years after their wedding in May 2015, when the husband and wife last saw each other.

“I was waiting for the house to be almost done before I filed the application to sponsor Volha and her son,” said Oren, 49, an IT consultant.

“I don’t want to bring somebody to Canada without a place to put them.”

In an interview with the Star, Oren said he paid a $75,000 deposit for a pre-built Urbancorp home near Lawrence Ave. and Black Creek Dr. in 2014, a year after he was introduced to his wife by a mutual friend.

However, the occupancy of his home was delayed and Urbancorp later sold the project to another builder after filing for restructuring under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act in 2016.

Oren said his family reunification plan was put off while he battled in court to get his refund and tried to find another home to welcome his family from Belarus. In 2017, as he and other Urbancorp customers were closing in on getting the full refund from the builder, Oren filed the sponsorship application and a few months later, used the refund for the down payment of his current home, another pre-construction house near Keele St. and Wilson Ave.

“I am a contractor and I don’t get paid if I don’t work. I haven’t been to Belarus to see my wife because I am a responsible person. I would rather spend my money on a nice house for my family than on a vacation trip,” Oren said. The Immigration Department declined to explain what led the officer to believe the marriage was bogus, saying the case is currently under appeal and it would be “inappropriate” to comment further when it will be before a tribunal.

A native of Belarus, Oren said he immigrated to Canada in 2004 under the skilled worker class. He married a Russian woman in 2006 and sponsored her to Canada, but the two divorced in 2010.

Oren met his current wife, 41, in 2013 through a friend and he said the two fell in love. In total, they spent more than six weeks together over four visits, includ- ing the last time in the summer of 2015 at their wedding in Belarus, Oren said.

“We talk and see each other almost daily on Viber and Skype and we provided the full transcripts to immigration in a thick file,” Oren said, claiming to have suffered depression and financial stress after Urbancorp’s cancelled develop- ment and the prolonged separation from his wife.

Oren said he is appealing the decision on his spousal sponsorship, but for now, he can only return to an empty house to be with his 77-year-old mother, who sold her own condo to help him buy the bigger home they now share.