krissi

hi im currently gathering information about moving to canada....my fiannce and i are getting married next year currently not living together. we have been told maybe bunac might be the right way to go?
can you apply for full residency or maybe temp work permit when there? thanks

snowman365

Hi Krissi!

Hope you are well!

I am no expert on this, but I will tell you what I think is correct - I am sure someone else more 'in the know' will come along shorlty also!


Firstly, is your fiance a Canadian citizen? I am presuming so. Have you lived together before? Are you in the UK now and them in Canada? If you have already lived together for a year or more and have 'evidence' of this e.g. bank accounts, photgraphs etc. then you would be able to apply for Permanent Residency through being Sponsored by your Partner / Fiance. This process can take a few months - up to 1 year.

BUNAC is a good option to get yourself out there and be able to work, but BUNAC is only for 1 year, and there is a short 'window of opportunity' to apply to, which opens in December for about a month and then closes again for another year. As a Non-Student too, you must be either 30 or younger when you apply, and must enter Canada before you are 31.

Once out there, you could apply for PR but I believe it is processed quicker from outside Canada. If you were to get a job offer out there and they were willing to Sponsor you then PR would process it pretty quickly too. From what I understand, a Temporary Work Permit can take a long time to be processed. I am sure that if you are planning on getting married then it may get processed even quicker still.

Have a look at the Wiki on this site and ask lots of questions on here - this site is great. Also check out the 'Citizenship and Immigration Canada' website.

Good luck!

Judy in Calgary

Krissi implied in another thread that neither she nor her fiance was a Canadian citizen. She indicated that they both would have to apply for admission to Canada.

That is not so.

Only a Canadian citizen or PR can sponsor his/her spouse or common law partner's application for PR via the spousal sponsorship route.

In all other cases, when a couple apply together for admission to Canada, one partner is the principal applicant, and the other partner is listed on the principal applicant's application as an accompanying dependent.

In most cases, married people do not have to prove their relationship, other than by providing a marriage certificate.

In the vast majority of cases, common law partners do have to provide evidence that they have been living together in a shared household for at least 12 months.

There are other inaccuracies in your post, but I will address them in another post.

I've already typed one long response to you and lost it in cyberspace, so I'll post this message and then post another one.
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snowman365

[QUOTE=Judy in Calgary;6963770]Krissi implied in another thread that neither she nor her fiance was a Canadian citizen. She indicated that they both would have to apply for admission to Canada.

Sorry - I had not read her other thread - the way it sounded to me was that her fiancee was Canadian!

That is what I was implying, or trying to imply in my original reply - maybe it did not read very well.

In these cases, would the Principal Applicant not need to already have a job offer or something to get them the PR?

I have read other threads on here where people have said that simply being married is not enough, if the mariage is recent - there is the whole thing of 'Convenience Marriages' and all that - anyone could go out to Canada and get married to someone if 'the price was right'.

Yes I am sure there are, like I said at the beginning of my post - I am not an Expert and was just trying to provide some information - apologies for the inaccuracies.

Ok cheers!

Judy in Calgary

I essentially agree with what you've said here.

This is true.

Just for krissi's sake, I'll clarify that a foreigner who is living and working in Canada (on a temporary work permit) can send his/her PR application that is being submitted via the skilled worker route to a Canadian visa office in a foreign country. If he/she is a British citizen, he/she has the option of sending it to the Canadian High Commission in London, for example.

Foreigners who are living in working in Canada on a visa that authorizes them to be in Canada for at least a year also have the option of sending their PR / skilled worker applications to the Canadian visa office in Buffalo, New York.

However, the Buffalo office does not expedite PR applications that are backed up by pre-arrranged employment, as CHC London often does. So in that sense it is indeed beneficial to lodge the application with London.

This is a bit different from the outland and inland PR applications that are lodged via the spousal / common law sponsorship route. In the case of outland applications, they first go to the Case Processing Centre (CPC) in Mississauga, which then sends them on to the relevant foreign visa office (e.g., London). In the case of inland applications, they go to the CPC in Vegreville, Alberta.

Again, in the vast majority of cases witnessed on this forum, outland applications are much quicker than inland applications. (I'm talking about spousal / common law sponsorships here.)

That usually is true.

I don't know where you get that impression. Yes, it takes a long time in the eyes of the impatient applicant waiting to get in. But, in most cases, it's the quickest way of getting into Canada.

A permanent residence application in any case needs to be preceded by a temporary work permit (TWP) application. As it stands now, you cannot apply for PR via the skilled worker route unless you first have a TWP and a permanent job offer from your employer.

Until the much awaited list of occupations in extreme demand is published, visa officers are not processing the PR / skilled worker applications that they've received since February 2008 and that are not backed up by pre-arranged employment. Once THE LIST has been published, they will go through the giant in basket, and process the applications that have not been backed up by pre-arranged employment. The applicatons from people with occupations in extreme demand will be processed relatively quickly, say within a year or so (subject to the annual quotas that will be set for the various occupations on THE LIST). The applications from peoople whose occupations are not on THE LIST will be rejected out of hand.

Yes, there's always the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) route too. Let me not forget to mention that. But it too involves getting a job offer first.

This has little relevance in krissi's case, as her fiance is neither a PR nor a citizen of Canada (if I have understood her previous posts correctly), and he is not in a position to sponsor her PR application. If she and her fiance get married before one of them submits a PR application via the skilled worker route, it will be a bit easier for them to prove their relationship (for the purposes of one of them being listed as the accompanying dependent). Their marriage certificate probably will suffice, and they won't have to provide shared household bills, etc., to prove their common law status.

I'll agree with you on that, although a reading of both of those resources still has left you with gaps in your understanding of the immigration process. I'm not blaming you. There is a lot of information to absorb.

In previewing this message, I see that you've responded to me in the interim. I'll post this message, read your most recent message properly, and then take it from there.
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Judy in Calgary

Yes, exactly, that was my point.

The issue of a marriage of convenience does not arise so often if the couple apply for PR via the skilled worker route, with one of them being the principal applicant and the other being the accompanying dependent. It raises even fewer red flags if both spouses are from first world countries.

Immigration authorities go to greater lengths to check the credibility of a marriage if one spouse is a Canadian citizen or PR and the other is a citizen of a third world country.

I know a middle aged woman who herself is an immigrant. She married a much younger guy, close to her son's age, from a third world country. Immigration authorities asked them to attend all kinds of interviews, but eventually granted the guy PR. I personally suspected he just flattered her and used her to get into Canada. I didn't blame immigration authorities for being suspicious (which seemed to be implied from the number of interviews the couple were asked to attend, both separately and together). I was actually a bit surprised when the husband was granted PR status.

No probs. You did qualify at the outset that you weren't an expert.

I'm not an expert either. I sometimes make mistakes around here too. I made one just this afternoon, and another poster provided clarification to me.
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Judy in Calgary

Sorry, krissi, you got lost in all this.

Yes, it's certainly something to think about.

Married people can't apply for BUNAC. Since you aren't married, you'd both be able to apply for BUNAC.

I'm not sure what happens if you get married part way through your BUNAC year. I'm not sure if that's allowed. But what can they do to stop you?

I suspect it's your marital status at the time that you apply for BUNAC (and perhaps even when you initially land in Canada) that counts.

But I would want someone more qualified than I to confirm that for you.

Yes, some members of this forum have succeeded in staying on in Canada past their BUNAC years.

I think you mentioned somewhere that your fiance would be a new graduate when he got to Canada. An issue you need to research is how much experience he needs in his field before he can apply for a PR visa via the skilled worker route. At least one year of experience, if I remember correctly.

Also, keep in mind that, in order to get a temporary work permit (other than an open work permit such as BUNAC secures for you), the employer needs to apply for a labour market opinion (LMO). In order to get this, the employer has to advertise the job across Canada for a specified period. Only if no qualified Canadian resident applies for the job does the employer get an LMO. And it's only once the employer has an LMO that he/she can offer the job to a foreign worker.

In most cases it would be fairly difficult for an employer to prove that no Canadian resident could do a job that a recent foreign graduate could do.

Some members of this forum have gone from BUNAC to PR status via British Columbia's Provincial Nominee Program (PNP). I don't know what was involved in that. That is, I don't know how much experience they had under their belts.

Anyway, I hope this has helped, even if it has just clarified what questions you need to ask and what further research you need to do.
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snowman365

Ok, thanks for clearing all that up!

And, yes I agree I have not absorbed a huge amount of info.! I freely admit that I know very little about the whole SW / TWP route as I am just looking at the BUNAC / PR Partnership / Sponsorship route through being in a relationship with my girlfriend who is Canadian.

Sometimes it's hard on these Forums to put everything down accurately and it's easy to be misunderstood and make 'presumptions'!

The joys of modern technology.

Right, off to bed now - it's late UK time...

Goodnight!

krissi

i should probably have made my situation a little clearer on this! whoops! ok from the beginning!
both of us live in northern ireland
we are getting married next october (2009) not living together
chris is an electrical engineer
i am a beauty/spa therapist
chris has an uncle living in windsor ontario


so im gathering bunac will probably not work for us then as we will not be going until after our wedding.

christmasoompa

No, sorry. You can't apply for Bunac if you're married (and it used to be that you couldn't if you had a 'partner' either but Judy didn't mention that so I'm not sure if it's changed?).

Your only hope is to get job hunting!!

Good luck.

ireland2canada

Hey krissi, in your position the best thing to do would be to call Bunac and ask them directly. I have always found them really helpful any time I've called or emailed them.

Here are the ammendments to the WHV programme which were announced early this year if I remember right.

The Canadian High Commission has informed us about a change in their policy which may affect some people who are currently on Work Canada. Anyone with dependents are no longer eligible for the open work authorisation which is the work permit you obtain through Work Canada. You are considered to have dependents if:

I. You have a Canadian fiancé(e)/husband/wife/common law partner OR
II. You have a British fiancé(e)/husband/wife/common law partner who IS NOT also applying for this programme.

If you have a British partner* who is also participating on Work Canada then you ARE both still eligible to go on the programme. If you feel this change will affect you please contact us immediately.
* Partner means engaged, married, or have lived together for more than twelve months.

So based on all that, you should be eligible to apply as you are not living together or married now. The question is if CIC care that you get married after you are accepted onto the programme, and that is a question for Bunac.

Best of luck!

theycallmeuma

Maybe I'm completely wrong, but I heard that so long as you apply for a visa before you turn 31, you can enter into Canada on the Bunac scheme (latest end of January 2010) even if you are 31, but applied when you were 30...is that not right?

christmasoompa

No, that is correct. You have to apply when you are 30 or younger but you can be 31 when you go, that's fine.

Bunac website says: "You must obtain the work authorisation whilst you are 30 but can enter Canada when you turn 31."

theycallmeuma

Whew...thank god for that...I nearly had a bit of a panic there, as that would have only given me a few months to sort myself out!

theycallmeuma

Did this change then? I read on the website that you have to enter when you're 30. Could someone clarify where the 31 entry was posted? Or has it changed for the new programme visa?