Common law marrage between and canadian man and american woman and work?

I am Canadian born, and my finance is finishing up school in florida. I proposed during our just before I had to move home to canada. We are planning to move to Toronto together to get ourselves started in July it is Feb right now. What goes into the application for common law marrage and when would my finance be able to work?

From Canada's immigration site, on sponsoring a common-law partner:

"You are a common-law partnerâ€"either of the opposite sex or same sexâ€"if:

you have been living together in a conjugal relationship for at least one year in a continuous 12-month period that was not interrupted. (You are allowed short absences for business travel or family reasons, however.)

You will need proof that you and your common-law partner have combined your affairs and set up a household together. This can be in the form of:

joint bank accounts or credit cards

joint ownership of a home

joint residential leases

joint rental receipts

joint utilities (electricity, gas, telephone)

joint management of household expenses

proof of joint purchases, especially for household items or

mail addressed to either person or both people at the same address. "

In Canada, if you have NOT lived together for 12 months and cannot prove it then you are NOT common law.

I suggest you get married ASAP, and apply as spousal. Those applications generally are processed a lot more easily.

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/sponsor/spouse-apply-who.asp

i dont know about canada but here in florida we dont recognise common law marriage anymore.and when we did you had to have been together for like 7 years living together continously.i would think canada would have a time limit too.

Once you are married you can both be dual citizens I think. You have to have a marriage contract first though, but you can establish work before immigration status. It should be fine.