Both myself and my girlfriend are about 14 months into our Skilled Workers application to emigrate to Canada. We are so desperate to go and at the moment our lives feel like they are on hold eg. not buying a house, staying in jobs we don't like and just saving saving saving. The thought of another year, maybe more in this country, fills us with dread so one option we are considering is applying for a years working visa under the BUNAC scheme (when it reopens towards the end of this year). Not only would this get us over there but we might be able to make contacts, gain additional experience etc when/if the time comes to go

However I am concerned that it could actually affect our chances or elongate the time egg. We would almost certainly no longer be employed in the type of jobs we had when the application was submitted, no longer be living in the UK etc. Basically if there's any way that going under the BUNAC scheme for a year could stop us living there permanently I would not want to take the risk

Does anyone have any experience of this or any suggestions? My only other thought is to contact UK immigration directly (difficult though that is) to get some advice, but is that realistic?

Any thoughts most gratefully received

You are unlikely to get a BUNAC visa on two counts.

A: There arent many and they go quickly, so the odds are against you anyway.

B: By applying for PR you show an intention to want to stay in Canada permanently, which is going to flag you as an overstay risk on a decidedly temporary class visa.

I guess its worth trying, but dont get your hopes up.

Is the BUNAC visa (non-student type) that difficult to get hold of? How many do they give out per year? As far as i know, they don't have any restriction on whether you are already in the PR queue.

I dont know numbers or anything, its just an observation that the non student ones are gone VERY quickly.

There is no formal restriction, but one of the things they will look at is the likely hood of overstying at the end of the visa period. Perhaps a more expert opinion would be found in the immigration forum.

I spoke to Bunac recently, they do not seem to be hard to get hold of, this years were gone by March, just apply in the first couple of months and you are almost certain to get them!

Also how do you know they look at other factors about you having already applied for PR? The site mentions nothing about that at all.

I just phoned Bunac this minute, they said applying for PR will have no effect on you getting a permit via Bunac atall, aslong as you satisfy what they want (ticket to leave in the year etc) then it's all good.

That's extremely kind of you - much appreciated

I am sort of planning to do the same thing, but applying for PR now, then going out there sometime next year, I just have no hope of it being completed when I am there so will be coming back, so wanted to know the answer too!

We were in the same position as you a couple of years ago. In the end my wife got a BUNAC visa (I was too old!!! (over 35)) and we took the chance and came over.

Fiona (the wife!) is an Occupational Therapist, took the OT exam and got a job no problems. The problem came 9 months into the year when we had still heard nothing about the PR, luckily her work went through the process of applying for a new work visa to see us through (The employer has to go through the whole HRSDC process). At this point we could both work (BBBooooo)

We are now PRs and BUNAC had no negative effect on that. We have no regrets, it was an easy way to get here. But it could have been very different had we not been able to get a new work visa, esp as we had brought a new house and were enjoying the life here.

Hope this helps you in some way, if you need any more info give us a shout.

Mike

Thanks for all your advice everybody - it's much appreciated. I have also emailed the UK Visa office directly - I don't know if I'll hear anything but thought it was worth a shout.

The way I look at it we would try and get the BUNAC visa by the end of this year and go to Canada by Feb 07 which would be roughly 22 months into our PR application. Therefore - fingers crossed - we would hopefully hear something within the 12 months of the BUNAC visa, but if we did have to come back to this country at least we would be that much further down the line and we'd have had a year in a country we want to be in. We live failry cheaply at the moment - we rent and have avoided buying much mainly because of our desire to leave - so again a year in Canada doing the same would not be a problem if we couldn't settle officially

Both myself and my girlfriend work in IT-related fields (her as a buyer for an IBM partner and myself in sales for HP) although I have skills in other areas, Mac Operator, Sub-Editor etc. However we are realistic that - especially under the BUNAC scheme - it's unlikely we'd be able to get these sort of jobs. From our point of view we can live with this but my main worry is that, becasue we probably would not be employed in the fields we submitted under our PR application - this might count against us.

The other concern is that, should we go on BUNAC, get a good job offer at some point and go onto a temp working visa as a result in order to stay that this would elongate the process or move our application from the UK to Buffalo - does anyone know if this is the case.

Once again any comments really very appreciated

Wouldnt make any difference. If you wanted to, on a work permit you could move your file to Buffallo, but its no quicker. The only advantage of that is it might be easier to get to Buffallo (from Ontario for example) for an interview if necessary (which mostly its not), rather than fly back to the UK. Moving the file would not be compulsory though, and would not slow down PR.

Getting the work permit job would get you extra points under "adaptability" though, which might be a good thing if the points threshold goes up.