Perpetual

Hi everyone,

It's been quite a few years since I've been on this forum. I am hoping for some advice from those who've been through it or have knowledge of the Ontario provincial nominee program, specifically the OINP Employer Job Offer: Foreign Worker stream. Hubby will be the primary applicant but he is terrible with forms and bureaucracy so I am doing all the leg work, as I always do. :-) I have been going through what's on the IRCC site and it looks complex but doable. There are some things I'm not sure about. Hubby's employer has offered to pay a substantial sum to have a lawyer do the application for us but it's conditional upon his remaining with the company for three years and I am not totally comfortable with that. Plus I think I can do the application myself and don't think lawyers are as helpful as they appear!

Here's some background: 2015 we came to Canada (Toronto area, GTA). I was doing my MA here so hubby got an OWP on the back of my study permit. We were here for a year while I did my study, then we went home (to Australia at that time - I'm an Aussie, hubby is English, but we are both dual Brit-Aus citizens). We realised pretty quickly that we'd like to come back to Canada again and I applied for a PhD program. We came back in 2017, same visa status. We have been here since, still in the GTA, and I'm still not finished my PhD (supposed to finish this year but not looking too good, probably take another year). I'm in a fully funded program which is a sweet deal in that I don't pay any tuition and I have guaranteed employment as a course instructor at the uni (although it's not enough money to live on). Hubby has a fantastic job with a British-based company - he works for their Canadian arm though, so he's employed in Ontario and has been since we got here. He's been with this particular company in this role for just gone two years now. We have two kids who are now 10 and 7. They feel more Canadian than anything, having been here more than Aus or the UK. My study permit expires in Nov this year but it'll likely just be renewed another year while I finish up the doctoral studies.

So. We may have had opportunities earlier on to apply through the PNP to try and get PR but we haven't yet. The main reason is that we thought we weren't eligible because our EE points absolutely suck. The problem is that hubby has no degree, and I have no Canadian work experience as my work here doesn't count because I'm on a study permit with working rights. And we're both old(ish) so no points for age! :-) Anyway, recently we put the feelers out for some legal advice and were told that actually hubby is a pretty good candidate for success in the OINP. He is a service delivery manager, and just looking at the NOC list I would guess his NOC would be 0213. His wage is over the median for that NOC too, so all good there. I guess I just felt a bit confused by what exactly is required for putting in our expression of interest for this stream of the OINP as it looks like once invited to apply we only have two weeks to submit, so we'd have to have everything ready to go immediately.

There will probably be tons of questions I have along the way, but here are the first two: 1. How to we prove that hubby's role is 'urgently necessary' to the employer's business? Does a letter from the employer explicitly stating this suffice? 2. Does his employer need to prove they tried to recruit a Canadian for this role or does the fact that hubby already had his work permit when he was recruited negate this requirement? If so, does the employer need to do an LMIA for the role? Seems a bit weird given he's been working in this job for two years...

Anyway, that's our story. Thanks in advance to anyone who can provide any insight or answers to the questions. Even a show of solidarity and sympathy is most welcome! :-)

Cheers
Kat

christmasoompa

When you say they suck, how low are we talking? Any reason you haven't looked at CEC, sounds like your husband would be eligible and draws went down to as low as 75 points last year, is he really scoring lower than that?

Which stream of the OINP? If you can clarify which you're considering that would be helpful. It is 2 weeks to submit, but that's only applying for the nomination, it's not a full PR application (that comes later, if you are given a nomination).

Will depend on the stream, if you can give more info we can try and help.

Perpetual

Hello, thanks for the reply!

In answer to the questions, no, not as bad as that, but my understanding is that it is extremely unlikely we'd be invited for PR through the CEC with anything lower than about 400 or so. I haven't done the calculation this year but if memory serves my hubby end up with about 360-370 points. I did think about putting ourselves in for EE but I felt like there was never any point as the likelihood of being invited is so low given our score.

Oh, I put the stream at the top - Foreign Worker stream with an employer job offer, which would be the job he's been working in for the past two years.

Thank you, any advice is most welcome! I am off to do the calculation of the points for EE again now I think.

Perpetual

Update: I just did the CRS calculation and it's 306 unless hubby gets his LMIA which makes it 356. And that's assuming we both get top marks in the language test. Plus I'm now reading the EE program is on hold or something so that doesn't bode well...

christmasoompa

As above, there was a CEC draw last year for anybody with 75 points or higher - https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration...tions-176.html. So personally I'd apply asap just in case that happens again, best to not risk missing out again.

Yes, I saw that but then you said the employer would want him to stay with them for 3 years which you weren't happy with, so I assumed you were looking at another stream that didn't require the employer to do it? Or will they only require the 3 years if they use a lawyer, are they happy to do it themselves without one?

FSW is, but not CEC. There hasn't been a FSW draw since 2020, but there were lots of CEC draws last year. None so far in 2022, they do seem to be focusing on PNP now, but I'm sure it won't be long until they have another CEC draw.

Perpetual

I guess the other reason I have hesitated to put our names in the hat for EE is that the language test is $350 a pop! I didn't want to shell out all that money when there's little chance of us getting a look in. But I guess it might be worth it... I just did my calculation and for some reason it's 410... I think because I have a Master's degree from Canada and I said I could potentially score okay on a French test but really I'm not sure, my French is not good. I had to take a reading comprehension test as part of my doctoral program and I passed that but I couldn't have a full blown conversation. Maybe it would be worth me doing the test for that too though, just in case it gets me some more points.

Thanks, I didn't realise there were different draws for the different streams of EE. I guess this is the kind of thing a lawyer would know!

Yeah essentially the employer said they would be happy to pay towards the cost of a lawyer to do the paperwork for PNP but on the condition that hubby would remain with the company for 3 years. If he left, for example, at two years, we'd have to pay back 60% of what they'd paid. And even worse, if for any reason they decided to terminate him, we'd still have to pay it back. That's not a good deal. I'd rather go through the hassle of doing the paperwork myself and not being tied in. I frankly don't think a lawyer would add much, because we still have to come up with the paperwork ourselves. The only difference is that they would know what is needed more readily than we would. I would see more benefit in the employer paying for the cost of the PR, for example, but even then, I am not comfortable.

Right, thanks for clarifying on the freeze on FSW. Perhaps this was the reason the lawyers we've spoken to (and there have been a few different ones) have suggested PNP is the way to go for us. More likely than any other option.

christmasoompa

But if you'd been in the pool last year, you'd have PR by now……….

Plus PNP will cost a lot more anyway with the extra fees, so EE would be cheaper even with the language test requirement.

You really don't need a lawyer unless you have complicated circumstances. All info on draws is here - https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration...ry-rounds.html

Asking him to pay back the lawyers fees even if they let him go doesn't sound legal to me! Most odd.

Double check your scores really carefully and let us know what they are, for both of you. There may be other routes to PR depending on that.

Perpetual

That is a really good point, EE would be cheaper. Hmm. And yes, you are correct, we'd have it if we'd been in the pool before! Doh!

I agree completely, I know I'd have no problem completing the paperwork myself, I have done so many things like this before. I am not comfortable at all with the employer's offer! Super strange. It was hubby that asked in the first place if they'd be amenable to some sort of arrangement but he isn't cool with what they're come back with either. He has queried the part about the termination and they are yet to respond. But I think it's pretty certain we won't be taking them up on this offer anyway.

I can't be 100% sure on what we'd score on the language tests so I guess we should do them and regardless of the score just put our names in the pool and go from there. That's really the only variable in terms of the CRS scores but I will do the calculations again and go from there.

Thank you for helping clarify my ramblings! I will update when I have recalculates the CRS.

Perpetual

Hello again, I'm here with an update on our situation. After calculating hubby's CRS score again just to be sure, it came out as 356. This sounds fine if there were another draw where people with 75 were getting in, but I looked at the list and that has literally never happened before. All the scores for CEC (and there hasn't been one since Nov last year) were above hubby's score. Mine I have just calculated and it is 396, although I don't really understand why given I have no work experience (I've been a student the entire time we have been in Canada). Anyway, the majority of lowest scores accepted are in the 400s so we decided to go down the OINP pathway.

I submitted our EOI for that a few weeks ago and we haven't heard a peep. I think I expected them to come back and invite us to apply, because I'd hesitated in putting in the EOI in order to be sure I had all the right docs ready to go. So now I guess we play the waiting game. It feels all wrong, the way we're going about this, but we also don't really have another option. Yes, we could submit a profile for EE, we could just suck up the cost of the language tests now I guess. Ugh. Can we have an EE profile going at the same time as waiting to be invited to apply for the PNP? I sound like broken record here, not much of an update! But at least we've done something. It's all very frustrating too as we are waiting for our temp visas to be renewed, which I applied for in June. I don't know what they're doing over there at IRCC but this is incredibly stressful! I know we are on implied status if the visas expire, but it's still really worrying. My FIL is ill in the UK and if hubby had to quickly go to attend his funeral or whatever, we'd have a big problem. Ugh. Thanks for reading, if you made it this far!

christmasoompa

You won't have had a invite from OINP yet, because they haven't done any general draws since March, so unless you come under one of their target occupations then you won't have been selected. What's your OINP score?

You can apply for both, personally I would do. I know that the cost of the IELTS isn't great, but it's a lot cheaper than the PNP fee, so if you got an ITA via EE then it would save you money in the long run (although I know that there is chance you'd pay for IELTS needlessly if you do get an ITA via PNP, only you know if it's worth the risk or not).

Also, re implied status, what visas are you both on now? Still study permit and open work permit, and you've applied to renew both? If you can clarify then we can help with that, as implied status isn't applicable to all situations, so best to double check that just in case!

Perpetual

I'm so confused about OINP. We've put in the EOI, but now we just have to wait until they invite us to apply. Is that what the draw is? I can see the last one for job offer foreign worker was March, yeah. OINP score is 46 so no worries there.

Sound advice, we should apply for EE just in case I guess.

Yes, I am on a study permit with working rights and hubby is on an OWP. We have two kids who are on visitor records. My son's has already expired actually because his passport expired (since renewed) and it's been than long since we applied for the visa renewals! We applied to renew them all on 3 June and haven't heard a thing. Very frustrating because it's just a standard process, I've done it before when I renewed for my 5th year in the PhD program I'm completing and the process was much faster, within the given processing time anyway.