Hi, i have just returned from NS and did not want to leave. I was wondering if we would be accepted as a citizen if we had a lower wage Mc Job. After selling our house and assets we would have enough to buy a home and car and still have some savings. Without the pressure of a mortgage and other debts i think we could start our stay with a smaller income than we are used to until something better comes along. To be accepted on a work visa do you have to be in IT, Petroleum or Banking?
J.

Nope, not necessarily - I got a 3yr work permit to shovel horse shit Well, to be more accurate, start up an equestrian business, but shit control looms large on the list of chores each day.

Hi, thanks for the reply, i have followed your threads for a while now, you must have had some large financial influence as well as you have built a home on a large acreage and run your own business. That takes a little more than horse shit!
Did you get a job there before leaving or did you start up your own business first?

Hi Jason. I'm not aware that financial influence had much bearing on the issuing of our WP's. We came over with equity from the sale of our house in the UK (cGBP200k) and purchased the acreage in order to start up the business. We were here 18mths before we started to build the home, and it's needed a doubling of our mortgage to be able to afford to do it - essentially we waited until the business was established enough to be able to support the additional payments.

Horse shit generation supported us entirely for the first 18mths, then I applied for a 2yr contract job that I work around the equestrian centre, so this income supplements things somewhat and allows for faster re-investment in the property.

My debt here is double anything I ever owed in the UK, but then again I never owned a business there and I know that the value of our assets here have seen good growth, so the risk has been worthwhile so far. I guess at some point (probably when we have PR) we'll re-assess and perhaps liquidise our assets and be able to live without the bank looking over our shoulders.

Is this a case of where there's shit there's brass. Sounds like a lot of hard work, but better quality of life. How long before you get PR?

Sharon

Mmm, perhaps ultimately, but for now we've a whole lot tied up in property and land. Definitely hard work trying to keep 2 jobs going - the equestrian centre's open 7-9 seven days a week, so we don't get much time off.

We got AOR for PR in June '05, heard nothing since but I'm hoping for some progress by the spring of '08. We knew it would be hard for a few years, but hopefully it'll pay off long term.

Does being self sufficient go along way with immigration and for some reason i thought you had your PR already.
We have just come back from NS and wanted to claim asylum!
If we sold up, lock stock, we could afford a house and a car with a small amount of savings. So do you think two minimum wage type jobs would be enough to survive? although i have heard Tim pays good wages, is this true?

Nope, but its does have to be a job there is no local talent queuing up to fill, so Timmys or McJobs are not going to qualify for a Work permit I'm afraid.

Tims pays minimum wage or there about.

Well travelling around NS and talking to people there seems to be an exodus to Alberta for work and every Tim Hortons we went to were recruiting and i couldn't see the locals queuing up to work there.

No it wouldn't, but you could look for something better once you're here. Best option realistically is to look for jobs that match your existing experience most closely (as these are the ones you are most likely to be able to get) and once you have a jo offer put in for Work Permit or (better still) PNP which would get you permanent residency.

Good luck with getting an LMO then. See you in 6 months. NOT!


Perhaps they recruit a lot because they pay minimum wage and live with a very high staff turnover....You wont get a work permit for unskilled work. Period.

Sharon, thats funny as when I was reading the same post I was thinking to myself - "Where there's muck there's money".

Two great minds and all that......

Self-sufficiency in itself isn't a criteria to gain a WP - to become a self-employed business owner I had to submit a business plan that illustrated how I'd be providing 'substantial benefit' to the local community (job creation etc). There's no definition of what 'substantial benefit' means, it's up to the immigration officer's own interpretation.

I was initially told that a WP wouldn't be issued until I'd gone some way to prove that the business I intended to operate was meeting the business plans' proposals (ie I had to buy and operate the business for several months, without earning a living from it, and then re-submit the business plan that showed the progress made over that initial period).

In effect immigration won't issue a WP based on just a proposal to buy/operate a business - they won't take the risk that you might get the WP, then decide not to carry through and make the financial commitment.

Could 2 of you survive on min. wage if you've no other debts and a small amount of savings? - I guess so, it wouldn't be a whole lot of fun, but it'd be do-able. Like iank points out though, that type of job won't get you here in the first place.

Hi, thanks for your reply, we don't want to spend the rest of our lives serving coffee and would always look for opportunity but i have been self employed for 15 years now selling and servicing domestic appliances and i am looking for a total life change although i have thought about getting all my certificates as an electrician. I am looking at all ways to move to NS, i read so many other peoples situations and feel we are lucky to have some financial backing.

So I guess there's the self-employed option here as a route in but from what RICH says it sounds like there are a few hurdles to go through.

Isn't there also an Entrepreneurial stream to the NS PNP program still? Have you looked into that?

Otherwise waht about working for someone here selling and servicing domestic appliances? I wouldn't have thought many people would have the skills needed to do the servicing so there must be jobs? I know that Sears must have hundreds of service engineers for domestic appliances as they provide a very good on-site warrantee for these as well as (at an upgrade price) regular healthchecks for appliances.