Hannah jackson

Hello,
I am looking to immigrate to Canada Vancouver however I am currently paying of a loan can anyone tell me would I still be able to get a working visa and carry on paying my loan off whilst in Canada or should I pay it off first

Thanks
Hannah

rivingtonpike

Your loan won't affect your ability to acquire a visa. Lots of other things will though. Do you know what sort of visa you're eligible for?

christmasoompa

Hi, welcome to BE.

As rivington has said, your loan will have no bearing on your visa eligibility. Not sure which visa you're referring to, some will require you to have a certain amount of funds in your bank account, but having a loan won't impact it at all.

HTH, good luck.

Hannah jackson

Thanks for replying to me ... so I will be honest my best friend and her family moved to Vancouver bc 9 years ago this month and they love it I have visited several times and have grown to love the place and every time I go they always say come and live here but my loan has always stopped me! I'm about 18 months from paying it off. I have to be honest I'm not sure which visa to take I don't really know where to start I'm thinking a working visa is best but I've put off applying due to my loan but thought I'd find out if I could apply with it. I have worked in the administrative accounts department for a timber industry for the past 10 years I have built up a number of skills whilst being there but I don't have any qualifications only my basic GCSE's I have seen that I would need to do a English test IELTS or CELPIP I've just been reading about them to decide which would be better. In the past 4 years within the company I work with I have been working with the administrative shipping department we purchase products from China, Belgium and Vancouver itself and so I am in charge of the safe arrival of the containers in the UK getting them customs cleared paying the shipping fees requesting PIN numbers and so on I also have some sales experience within the transport side of things where I have to arrange transportation of a number of products to and from our customers.
so I am just looking for information on where I need to go from here if possible please if you have any feed back I'd really appreciate it and again thank you so much for taking the time to reply

Hannah jackson

Hi thanks so much for replying! I thought I'd replied to both of you but seems I replied to rivington only I'm new to this! So I've put some details in there of what I'm looking at if you have any feed back I'd really appreciate it and thank you again for replying!

christmasoompa

Can you clarify which visa route you're looking at? You mention a working visa, but then also mention IELTS, which isn't required for work permits (it's only required for Permanent Residency applications) so it's not clear which you're referring to.

If you can let us know if you're looking at a work permit, or a PR app, then we can try and help you work out the first step.

Good luck.

rivingtonpike

Hannah Jackson, take a look at the IEC Visa. Are you 30 or under? If you are this is a 2 year working holiday visa which may lead to a permanent residency status in Canada. If nothing else, it would give you the opportunity to experience the country and culture. If you're over 30 though, I would suggest that without a job offer, you're unlikely to be given a permanent work visa going from that you've said about your qualifications and professional duties.

Let's hope you're young!

Hannah jackson

Hello sorry I haven't explained myself very well ....

Ok long term in the future I would love to see myself living in Canada on permanent residency! However I don't know if I should apply straight away for permanent residency or just apply for a work visa first? I've read that I could apply for a work visa for a year and then extend it whilst I'm there and then apply for permanent residency?
I know I'm not explaining myself very well in my future I'd love to see me living permanently in Canada just not sure which option is best to talk to get me to that stage

Thank you

Hannah jackson

Hello, I turned 30 on the 5th June. Would this be too late? I have read that if I can get accepted for a open work visa before I'm 31 I can apply to extend it whilst I'm in Canada and therefore apply for PR after that? Again tho what has stopped me is my debt in the UK but if I can take that with me I'd still have it paid off within my first 2 years of being in Canada and hopefully be able to the apply for pr.
Hope this makes sense and again thanks for your help

Vulcanoid

You have one year left of eligibility for IEC. Places are oversubscribed, and allocated by random draw, so you might not get to do it, but it's worth a try (eg, last time I looked there were over 6,000 people going after the last 9 spots this year). You will be removed from the pool that people are drawn from on your 31st birthday, assuming the same rules and application procedure apply next year as did this year (sometimes there are major changes - eg until two years ago, they were first-come-first-served, and for several years in a row, all the IEC spaces for a year went in about half an hour on a single day).

IEC permits cannot be extended, but you may qualify for a route to residency while you're out there - or you may decide you don't like living there after all.

Hannah jackson

Hello, thanks for replying! If the IEC did not work would there be any other options left available for me do you know?

Thanks
Hannah

christmasoompa

No probs, it's all a bit of a minefield when you start looking at visas!

In all honesty, I don't think you'd qualify for PR from what you've said, but you can check using the online eligibility test on the CIC website - Do you want to come to Canada, or extend your stay?

Let us know what it says, if you do qualify then that's great as you would be much better off applying for PR if you can. You'd have much more security, and it would be easier than trying to find an employer to sponsor you - for a normal work permit, you need both a job offer and a LMIA. The LMIA is something the employer has to apply for (costs them $1000), to prove that they have advertised the job across Canada and been unable to find a Canadian willing, or able, to do the job. As you can imagine, without specialist skills that's pretty tough, so you may well struggle to find a job offer and get a normal work permit.

Not, not too late, and definitely the way to go if you can. No job offer is needed for an IEC, and no sponsorship/LMIA either so it'll be MUCH easier than a normal work permit. You have missed the boat for this year's visas unfortunately (you could try, but I suspect the last 9 visas will all be gone when they update the page later today), but you still stand a chance of getting one under next year's program. Assuming that CIC don't change the format of the IEC program, then it will open around the beginning of the year, and they'll start sending out invites to apply a couple of months later. You'll then have to cross your fingers and hope that you get selected (essentially it's like a lottery, they select people from all of the applicants they've got) before you turn 31. The minute you turn 31 your application is invalid and you can no longer get an invitation to apply, so fingers crossed you get one between March-ish, and June when you have your birthday (once you've got the invitation, it doesn't matter if you have a birthday). If you apply as soon as the program opens, you'll give yourself the best chance possible.

No, that's not correct, an IEC cannot be extended at all, only a normal work permit can. An IEC is for a fixed two years, and you can only have one in your lifetime. I do think you'd need to consider if you could stay past that two years though, as above I think you'll struggle to get PR without any kind of post-secondary education or specialist skills. So you'd either need to go with the mindset of it only being a temporary 2 year stay, or have a plan to get PR to give yourself the best possible chance (make sure you're eligible for a PR route before you go, and then hope you can impress the hell out of your employer so they want you to stay.........or marry a nice Canadian ).

As above, your debt isn't an issue at all, you can just carry on paying it back from Canada. You'll need to show proof of funds for an IEC, but it's a fairly low amount (around $2500 iirc), and your debt doesn't come in to it at all.

HTH, best of luck.

Vulcanoid

1) Get a Labour Market Impact Assessment (proof, costing $1,000 that a Canadian business has advertised for at least three months, and cannot find a Canadian willing and able to do a job that you can do). This could then sponsor either a work permit, or residency.

2) Marry a Canadian/live with one in a romantic relationship for a year.

3) If you tried going for Express Entry through Federal Skilled Worker programme, you'd likely score max about 56 points, which is nowhere near enough to get in the pool I'm afraid (12 for age, 24 for English, if your job is deemed skilled 15 for 6 years+work experience, 5 for GCSEs if they're deemed equivalent to high school which they might not be as it's an earlier finish). If your accounts work is deemed skilled then you might be able to get enough by getting a degree or equivalent in that area). Try the tests on the cic.gc.ca website to see if you qualify for any other route as well.

Otherwise, you might just have to settle for vacations there - which isn't that bad, it's a great place to holiday Good luck

Hannah jackson

Hey,
Just been thinking would it help if I done a college cause and got some qualifications would this better my chance for a permanent residency in Canada ? I'm just trying to think outside the box and keep my options open I seem to really have my heart set on a fresh start

Thanks

Aviator

Not a course in English I am guessing?