MONTREAL—The federal government has launched a new campaign warning Canadians about "marriages of convenience." Immigration Minister Jason Kenney says there are countless cases of marriage fraud, calling them an abuse of the immigration system.

Sometimes people plot the sham weddings together, while too often one person is tricked.

There are cases where it's simply a commercial transaction, a person living in Canada is essentially bought off, paid a substantial amount of money to agree to marry a foreigner, and then sponsor that person so they can come to Canada.

In other cases, someone here actually falls in love with a foreigner and believes the relationship is genuine, only to find out that their spouse has other plans once they get here.

That’s exactly what happened to Montrealer Patricia Fiorino. She still has her wedding photos, but instead of bringing back fond memories, they remind her of everything that went wrong.

“It's hard, even after all these months. It's cruel,” said Fiorino.

In July 2012, the relationship she'd spent six years building fell apart. She met him while on vacation in Cuba in 2006.

“A year later I had gone back to his little town, Santa Clara, and met some friends, met the family and when he told me he had a stronger interest and feelings and that he would like to take this to a different level, I said OK, we'll see how this goes,” Fiorino remembered.

After a three-year long distance relationship, they got married in Cuba. She was sponsoring him to come to Canada. It took two years for him to get all the paperwork together on his end, all the while, she was sending over everything from money to basic necessities.

Three weeks after landing on Canadian soil, he took off to the United States, seeking political asylum and starting a new life with another woman.

“I never ever could have imagined that his plan was to skip over to the States and use me, after six years,” said Fiorino.

With its new campaign, Ottawa has also introduced a new regulation requiring certain sponsored spouses to live with their sponsor for two years or risk losing their permanent resident status.

“Smart. It's a good idea that perhaps might discourage people who were going to do the revolving door thing—land and leave,” said immigration lawyer Sabrina Tozzi. “Now you're forcing them to show proof of being with this person for two years.”

However, Stephane Handfield feels the ad campaign is too heavy-handed.

“It's a pretty aggressive campaign,” said Handfield, an immigration lawyer. “Once again, the government is portraying the nasty, fraudulent immigrant who wants to profit from the system. They're always sending the same message.”

Meanwhile, Fiorino feels the need to speak out, even though it's painful, and she knows some may be judging her.