I am thinking of going down the entrpreneur route, does anyone know whether you are allowed to work initially to provide an income prior to getting established?

No, I am sure you can't unfortunately. This is the route we are going down. I hope you have lots of patience - it is a slow route to say the least..

Thanks for the reply strawberry,
does that apply to my other half as well, do you know?

Have you had a good read of the CIC website under "Entrepreneur Visa" section - it does give quite a lot of useful info - unfortunately I am not sure how to post the link here, but maybe someone with better IT skills will be along soon to help!. If you do a search on this forum, the links and other info have been provided here too.

Good luck.

Mel.

Hi, I am going down the Entrepreneur route, I received my AOR in July 09.
I stand to be corrected but I have not read anything on the CIC site about you or your parnener not working.
You have to meet the conditions for a period of at least one year within a period of three years after becoming a permanent resident.
I my self work in retail, if I was successfull with my application I was planning on working in a retail outlet just to get a feel of the way they work there and understand the retail market.
See: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigra...eurs/index.asp and http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resourc...p/op08-eng.pdf