Hi all
My wife and I are thinking about beginning the process to emigrate to Canada, I work as an electrician in the UK and I'm a little dubious about using the company's that sort your visa for you. I've heard stories about people being scammed out of a lot of money when using these type of company. If anybody could give me any advice of the best way to proceed or there experiences in emigrating I would really appreciate it!!!
Thanks dan

Just do it yourself..

Unless you have unusual circumstances ?

First thing to do is to establish your eligibility for a visa in the first place. Once you've done that, as Mike says, there's no reason why you can't manage the process yourself. Most people seem to do it themselves without too many difficulties.

I don't believe I have any unusual circumstances, I think I am eligible for a visa from a phone conversation this afternoon with a company as I mentioned above went through a point scoring system with me, but I'm unsure if he was just telling me what I wanted to hear to get my £1000 deposit for there services..... Possibly contacting the embassy in London is the right way to go??

Yep, read the wiki articles to understand the various work streams, and understand what extra exams etc you will need to sit ot be able to work as an electrician in Canada (Red Seal comes to mind).

Unless you have particularly complicated circumstances like previous entry refusals, a criminal record, etc, it's highly unlikely you need an immigration lawyer. Between working through the forms yourself and asking questions on here, you SHOULD be able to sort it all out yourself - and if the people here answering you feel it's above the pay grade, then they will not hesitate to tell you that you'll need to speak to a lawyer to help you out.

Good luck!

ETA: Don't bother contacting the high commission in London (we don't have an Embassy in the UK - semantics!), they won't tell you anything. CIC's website and the wiki on this site should give you the info you need to at least get a start, then if you come back with specific questions you'll find tons of people who can answer questions.

Great thanks, I'll let you know if I have anymore questions I'm sure I will!! :-)

Of course he was. Wake up.

Would you need a job offer to acquire the necessary number of points to apply for a visa?

HI

1. Unless you have work experience in Canada or schooling in Canada the chances of getting an ITA without a LMIA are pretty slim.

Hi, welcome to the forum.

The big advantage to doing the process yourself is, you won't feel like you've put your future in someone else's hands. You will need to source all your paper work yourself anyway, like educations docs, birth certs, employment history etc etc.

First thing I would do is get a dedicated partitioned file box, and keep everything together. The paperwork will grow fast, lol.

It's a pretty overwhelming process, so just do one thing at a time (where possible) and be prepared for a long slog.

You also need to be mentaly prepared to burn lots of money, or at least thats how it feels sometimes.

For us, it was an easy choice and have not regretted a single day here. For others it didn't work out, so you really need to do some soul searching, and think about all the things you will be leaving behind.

Do you have a destination in mind? We have expats all over Canada, so you will get a great selection of opinions on here, good and bad.

Dave.

After a recy trip to Canada i was in London waiting for the evening 125 home to the north, i decided to visit the Canadian Consulate while i waited and i'm glad i did too, after lining up the woman i spoke to impressed on me the process is easy and what ever i do i should NOT use an agency as they a a bunch of thieves, The worst case i have come across was a family who expended $40,000 with a so called agency and ended up having to go back to the UK.
Since i arrived in 2005 obviously it's all changed but all i did was fill in about 6 pages of the Manitoba PNP application, send a certified cheque with it and get a medical and hey presto i was Permanant Resident ! I don't think it's quite that easy now even in MB where i did mine lol
What this all means is try and do it yourself its not rocket science, It just the idea of doing it can be intimidating for some, There are people on here can give you lots of advice about doing it now with the new rules and guide you through it.

It's easy to be drawn in, especially when you are completely inexperienced in immigration....which we all were at one point!

Thanks for all the info, it is a little bit intimidating as in I don't really have a clue where to start hence why I got Intouch with an agency!! I know I need to do a red seal exam before I can think about applying for a job so I guess researching how to go about sitting the exam then start looking for a work place which is willing to employ a British electrician, I've read I would need to provide proof of 9000 hours work post apprenticeship which is easily done..... It's just small steps at the moment hopefully within the next 6-12 months I'll feel like I'm getting somewhere with it!!!

Do you have a destination in mind? We have expats all over Canada, so you will get a great selection of opinions on here, good and bad.

Dave.[/QUOTE]

We're thinking Calgary but would we're still researching for best schools and such things

At least Dan had the nouse to ask on here before getting sucked in.

If you can get the red seal as an electrician and after that a job offer you'll be well on the way. The good folk on here will guide you for free.

PS you can't decide on a destination based on schools. Very low priority at this stage.