Family you leave behind can still sink your application. The Act makes an inadmissible relative who is not coming with you a problem for you too, and this is the regulation that says which relatives count. If you are a temporary resident, or you have applied for temporary resident status, a permanent resident visa, or to stay in Canada, the list is your spouse, your common-law partner, and dependent children or grandchildren that you or someone coming with you has custody of or can legally act for. A spouse you have separated from is the carve-out, whether the split is legal or just real, and it is the one people forget to raise.
23 For the purposes of paragraph 42(1)(a) of the Act, the prescribed circumstances in which the foreign national is inadmissible on grounds of an inadmissible non-accompanying family member are that (a)the foreign national is a temporary resident or has made an application for temporary resident status, an application for a permanent resident visa or an application to remain in Canada as a temporary or permanent resident; and (b)the non-accompanying family member is(i)the spouse of the foreign national, except where the relationship between the spouse and foreign national has broken down in law or in fact,(ii)the common-law partner of the foreign national,(iii)a dependent child of the foreign national and either the foreign national or an accompanying family member of the foreign national has custody of that child or is empowered to act on behalf of that child by virtue of a court order or written agreement or by operation of law, or(iv)a dependent child of a dependent child of the foreign national and the foreign national, a dependent child of the foreign national or any other accompanying family member of the foreign national has custody of that child or is empowered to act on behalf of that child by virtue of a court order or written agreement or by operation of law.