Greyfox

Currently outside Canada visiting family in the UK and I am currently on my first IEC work visa (began on February 5, 2015) that's due to expire on February 4.

Do I need need to wait until February 4, 2016 (that's the date my visa states I should leave Canada by) before I can activate my new IEC work visa? Is it possible to activate this visa prior to this date as I am arriving back in Canada on January 7 and I would like to know if it's possible for me to go ahead and activate it at that point.

If it's not possible for me to do it until my current one expires is anyone aware of any alternate ways around activating the visa other than "Flagpoling"? As I've stated in the past I needed to get a letter stating I was no longer criminally inadmissible to enter Canada (which they confirmed, still got the letter), the only issue with this would be I'd need to apply in advance for a visa to visit the states (hence I'd no longer be eligible under the visa waiver scheme and therefore unable to flagpole).

EDIT
Okay I was looking under the official website to see if I could locate some information myself and I managed to find this:

THIS

The link does refer to the question about having an active IEC work visa AND a study visa but the body does mention that:

gaz_c2c

I had a similar experience last month, me and my OH both had 12 month permits that were due to expire on 11 January 2016, and wanted to activate our second one before we flew back to the UK for Christmas (purely for peace of mind sake).

On 12 December, we went down to Niagara Falls, walked over the Rainbow Bridge and had a coffee on the US side and came back over to Canada. Spent a few hours in the queue, but we had no hassle in exchanging our current permits with a new one. The CBSA agent simply took the old one out, gave us an optional photocopy of it and printed off our new one and stapled it into our passports....no questions or issues regarding the overlap (I'm guessing the old permit would be destroyed and our CIC records updated to reflect this).

Greyfox

This is what my thoughts would be too, one photocopy for your own records and the original to be logged in their system and then possibly destroyed.

When you approached the border, did you let them know you had an existing permit but wished to active your second LOI or did you just let them know you had a LOI to activate?

gaz_c2c

When we got to the border, we did both. The CBSA agent took our passports to do his checks, and in the process looked at the current work permit. Meanwhile we presented our LOI's and he gave us a ticket each and pointed us to the another office where we would be processed. When we got into the office (Saturday lunchtime) it was busy, with around a 3-4 hour wait time. We had to surrender our passports when we entered the office, then sat and played the waiting game. It was slower and felt a lot less slick than the Pearson airport immigration office, but then they must process hundreds (if not thousands) people everyday (EDIT, the airport I mean).