Canada - Visa Options

joeschmoe88

Hi Folks,

Looking for some advice.

I have just arrived in Canada on a visitor visa and currently staying with my canadian girlfriend's family. My girlfriend and I have been together for 8 years or so.

I hope to obtain a work visa in one of the following ways:

- defacto/common-law with my girlfriend as sponsor
- temporary work permit through sponsorship from a canadian employer
- IEC 2013

I have a few questions that I was hoping people here might be able to clear up.

1 - Can I apply for all three concurrently or do I need to select one visa application process only.
2 - Is it possible to apply for any of these visas while on a visitor visa? i.e. I was planning to contact canadian employers while I'm here and line up some meetings & interviews.

Thanks,

jjbrien

joeschmoe88 wrote: »

Hi Folks,
I hope to obtain a work visa in one of the following ways:

- defacto/common-law with my girlfriend as sponsor
- temporary work permit through sponsorship from a canadian employer
- IEC 2013

- temporary work permit through sponsorship from a Canadian employer
This one will be a hard one for you to get its difficult for an employer to get an LMO even when they get one it takes 6 weeks for immigration to process the application. Most times they will prefer someone who is on the IEC already or someone Canadian or permanent resident

- defacto/common-law with my girlfriend as sponsor

this can take up to 14 months for them to process so you would need the IEC to cover you until then

For the IEC make sure you meet the residency requirements in Ireland before you even decide to do this.

Best of luck

bstar

For the IEC the residency requirements have been removed for the new visa.

If you can prove you are common law you can stay in canada while the application is being processed but you can't work. This is actually the quickest way to permanent residency as it is taking about 6 months to process fully at the moment.

LMO depending on what you work as can be quick. If the employer qualifies they can get a LMO in under 10 days, otherwise it can take up to 16 weeks to get one and then you would need to flagpole to get the visa.

joeschmoe88

Thanks for the replies folks.

In terms of residency requirements for IEC, I understand that I need to have been living permanently in Ireland for at least 18 months over the past 3 years. I have only been away from Ireland since January 2012, so there shouldn't be a problem.

When you say the common law is taking 6 months to process fully at the moment, this seems much shorter than we had heard elsewhere and we had expected for it to take closer to 14 months as indicated by jjbrien. Any advice on the route to take or general tips when applying for common law in order to give us the best chance to expedite the process and get it completed in 6 months? e.g. from within Canada to Canadian immigration within the country or apply externally to the London embassy, get an immigration lawyer, etc?

In terms of LMO, I plan to work as a business analyst or project manager in IT, hopefully in the Financial Services sector. Can you tell me if this would qualify me for a fast or more straightforward LMO or does it depend entirely on the employer?

Again, sincerely appreciate your help with this.

bstar

On common law I'm basing it on timelines mentioned recently on the britishexpats immigration forum. The general consensus is that applying through London is quicker than an inland application.

For most places IT is actually oversaturated and you will struggle to get an LMO for it unless you are in a remote place like Saskatchewan or Manitoba. The same for a business analyst. My canadian friend is a business analyst here and is actually going back to college to retrain as there is so little work and progress chances, and he already works for the federal government doing it.