weener

Hi

Just a quick quetion of what benifits are you entitled to when you arrive in Canada such as Child Benifit etc and how much is this. I have 1 child who is 10.

Also, are you entiltled to unemployment benifit?. I don't wish to claim this as have enough saving to keep me going for a while, but I don't think I will find work (like most people for) immediately and was thinking more "what if" for the future. I have never had to claim unemployment benifit for the 17 years I have been working and don't plan to in Canada, just a reassurance thing.....

MrsWillow

You don't mention what you will be there on.

I am sponsoring my DH as a spouse in Family Class and he will not be able to claim for anything for around 3 years. I am totally responsible for him which is scary. (For alot of reasons LOL)

weener

Im (hopefully) coming in under the skilled worker category.

PMM

Hi

1. You can apply for the child tax benefit see: http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/benefits/cctb/menu-e.html
2. You are not eligible for EI benefits until you have worked between 400 and 720 hours in the qualifying period. see: http://www.sdc.gc.ca/en/ei/types/regular.shtml
3. As to MrsWillow, your sponsored spouse you are responsible for repayment if s/he claims welfare, EI, child tax benefits don't fall into that category.

tallperson

We weren't entitled to child benefit until we became permanent residents and I would have thought reading this that you wouldn't be entitled straight away:

To get the CCTB, you must meet all the following conditions:

* you must live with the child, and the child must be under the age of 18;
* you must be the person who is primarily responsible for the care and upbringing of the child;
* you must be a resident of Canada; and
* you or your spouse or common-law partner must be a Canadian citizen, a permanent resident, a protected person, or a temporary resident who has lived in Canada for the previous 18 months.

Biiiiink

We get the universal child tax benefit, child tax credit, gst credit, some kind of prescription help that means if we spend >200CAD a year on prescriptions the rest are free... I think that's about it. This is for being a skint student PR and stay at home mum citizen with a 3yr old citizen and small rental income.

I'm not complaining, it's more than I ever expected, although they do have an annoying habit of asking for it all back every 3mths, and then realising their mistake, repaying it, and then asking for it all back, and then realising their mistake, repaying it, and then asking for it all back...

- you get my drift

Cowtown

For CTB it is based on your income in the year before. For new arrivals that means your UK income multiplied by the exchange rate. We got nothing in our first year as our UK income took us miles over the limit. So basically we got nothing the year we needed it the most. A couple of years later when we didnt need it anymore we still got it because it was based on the year before. Now we dont get it at all.

We never did get GST rebate - you need to be fairly broke to get it.

EI benefit. Didnt see any of that either despite qualifying for it a couple of years ago. The wait period to qualify after losing the job was so long that I was working again. Did you know that EI benefit needs to be repaid under certain circumstances? For example, once you earn more than the threshhold. Certainly in Alberta EI is not enough to live on. Klein is on record as saying it is not supposed to be enough to live on.