Hi All,

Have found that I can get the points for a move to Canada but need sponsorship to get there.

Are Migrant Agencies any good in helping to get it?

Would appreciate any and all comments on the matter.


Steve

In a word, No.

Immigration consultants, in 99% of circumstances, just check you've filled the forms out properly. For the privelage, they'll relieve you of anything up to a few thousand pounds.

If you need to get employment, unless you have super human skills, you'll need to get your ass over here and pound the streets and hope to get interviews and then a job offer.

Immigration consultants cannot do this for you and I understand it's actually illegal in Canada to charge people for finding them work.

Hello Jerico
Reading what you have previously put and the fact you have been involved for a good bit from what i see. and you seem the man in the know.
what are my hopes of escaping this loony bin we were once proud of
and obtaining employment as a long haul driver in canada at 56 years old.
got to do something between now and dying.


Many thanks john

I fully agree with this, from our own experiences some years ago. Many immigration 'specialists' will claim they know things that they can put on the forms that you cannot, which is BS. They fill out exactly the same paperwork as you and don't have any special privileges.
It's also unlikely (unless you have some special arrangement beforehand with somebody) that you will get a job offer - or even an interview - without having landed first.
If you have the points enough to get here, what is the obstacle for you? I'm unsure why you would need further sponsorship.

You question might best be asked in the trucking forum on this site.

http://britishexpats.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=118

Hi,

I would say, do the immigration process yourself, my wife and I are currently about to do the forms for Federal Skilled Worker.. and to us we find it amazing why any1 would pay an agency thousands af pounds to do this for them???

Whats the worst that can happen, the forms get sent back to correct a few mistakes...

al

Yes if you qualify with the points why bother with an immigration specialist. I contacted one in Manchester and they also had an office in Toronto, which is where we headed last year for a fact finding holiday, but didn't like it.

He wanted £30.00 for meeting with me in Bradford at a hotel, and told me that he could get me into Canada to where I wanted to go, and he could set me up with a job. When we were in Toronto, I enquired about work. I'm an electrician, well electromechanical engineer actually. There were no jobs advertised in any newspapers what so ever and sites were laying off. So how he was going to do this was beyond me. He probably would've just checked the forms like the other posts say, then set up some interviews when it got busy again. It would've probably taken at least 12 months to process the visas, after which the work would've probably picked up, making it look like he had some special privelages.

I was talking to a Geordie lad in Calgary airport about two weeks ago, and he'd used one, and he was charged £7000.00 for arranging 7 interviews, and arranging visas for him. He ended up with a really sh!t job, which he almost jacked in and came back to the UK. But if he did he would've had to start the process again, as he had to stick the job out for 11 months. After which he could apply for citizenship.

Whilst I was in Alberta, quite few people informed me that if you have a trade, you have to allow for up to 3 months with no work. I don't know if this is just Alberta or all over Canada. Something to do with the Provinces economy which is controlled by oil and gas, and is affected by the rest of the worlds demand and supply for oil. But I'm still hoping to get there any way as I liked the Province overall better than Toronto. So I'm just going through the process myself filling the forms in, and getting advice from this forum.

Good luck with your application any way.

No Stay away from them

Further to my post, the Geordie guy also said that one of the guys he'd worked with went through another agent previously before getting settled in Canada who charged him X amount of £s. And when he got a job offer and accepted it, by the time he got to the firm they had changed hands or been taken over for some reason during in the meantime. And they had no record of him ever having a job offer at that firm, despite showing all his paper work. He didn't say what the upshot was.

This Geordie lad sounds like he really knows his stuff. I may contact him. That way, I may be able to get my citizenship processed after being in the country for only 1 year, rather than the 3 years it seems to take everyone else.

Its taking my mate at least 5 years and he's still having problems getting it. I was suprised to hear that he could apply after 11 months as I thought it was 3 years aswell, I also heard 1 year and two years.

The guy also said he's been living in Edmonton 3 years now and got his citizenship. Why he mentioned about 11 months is anyones guess, unless this was the minimum time being in the country as a temp leading towards an extension. But he also said that he got another job after the 11 months was up. If I remember rightly the one I was going to use mentioned somewhere it takes a year aswell. But like you say its actually 3 years.