LaurenandDavid

Hello. Myself and my partner started an application with the Brazalot immigration group who are looking for upwards of 4k to progress our application - the advice given was for me to apply first (as I was the strongest candidate with a BA degree & to sponser my partner who is an electrician (domestic) I am 29, he is 27 living in Scotland (not married/ six year relationship)

We are both in the working holiday visa pool but don't hold out much hope for both or any of our applications being successful since it is so over subscribed.

I've noticed many comments around avoiding such agencies & applying ourselves via the Canadian Governments website but it does seem hard to pinpoint exactly which route we could go down. We are interested in any avenue which would allow us both to live & work in Canada - the more temporary the better! Any advice would be really appreciated - even if it's a recommendation for a good agency who could help?

Thank you

Siouxie

Hello and welcome to BE!
Please do a search for posts about that Immigration Consultant... and don't touch with a 10 foot barge pole!

If you are sure you only want to come to Canada as a temporary worker then there is no need to consult anyone other than our lovely members and the Official Govt. website!
Your choices for temporary work permits - are the IEC working holiday work permit and a job application resulting in a positive LMIA and a TWP or coming as a student!

As to sponsoring your partner - you could only do that if you either a) lived together as if married for a minimum of 12 months or b) got married - and you wouldn't be able to sponsor until you had Permanent Residence status yourself. If you were on a TWP they could accompany you as your spouse (if you lived together for a minimum of 12 months or were married) and could be given an Open Work Permit on the back of yours... similar to if one of you were to attend Uni here.. the other could get an Open Work Permit - but again only if you met the requirements - i.e. lived together for a minimum of 12 months consecutively or were married.

However, if you think you might want to come and live in Canada permanently... there's a few different routes you can take.


As an aside - you might find it's easier for him to find a job offer and if you both wanted to come to Canada permanently, apply under Express Entry Federal Sklled Worker (trades).
You might want to read over our lovely Wiki articles on Immigration / TWP's and etc., https://britishexpats.com/wiki/Quick...an_Immigration and https://britishexpats.com/wiki/Work_Permit_Steps-Canada

What is it you do for a living?

timballs

As Siouxie said, don't waste your money on an immigration consultant. There is nothing they can do for you that you can't do yourself and don't listen to them if they tell you otherwise.

As for the IEC visa, my suggestion for both of you is log into your account once a week to keep your last login date active. Whatever IT batch job runs to pick IEC applicants, I'm sure has something coded in it not to pick inactive accounts...I read that once on this forum a long time ago. That worked for my son.

There is an excellent Facebook group called 'O Canada! IEC Discussion & Support" you might find useful.

LaurenandDavid

Hello! Wow, Siouxie - I can’t thank you enough for taking the time you write all of that. Genuinely so very helpful and it really made us take time to step back & think about how we should progress. As you suggested the Brazalot reviews are very concerning indeed! We won’t be progressing with them.

Myself & David have lived together for over a year so that is really useful information!

We would both love the opportunity to look at permanent residency options, I didn’t realise the Express Entry would be an option for us. I thought that David might get in that way but I might be left behind (not ideal haha) I currently work as a ‘Corporate Affairs Officer’ for the Water Industry - my degree is in ‘Advertisement, Public Relations & Communication’ it’s a communication role I have at the moment/PR/Digital etc.

For the Express Entry, in a nut shell one of us would need to secure a job offer & then hope to sponsor the other person?

I’m going to have a good look at the two articles you have included in your post though because they look very useful & have a look at other avenues for permanent residency. I think David is nervous about trying to get a job offer - so will be good to see if there are other ways?

Again can’t thank you enough, honestly so helpful!

LaurenandDavid

Aw great thank you so much Tim! That's an excellent top tip re signing into our IEC Gov accounts, I mean it makes sense so will be certainly doing that! (glad it worked for your son! )

I'm really glad I came on here because I was really under the impression we needed a consultant, I thought the application would be way to difficult to do alone.

Brilliant I will check out the 'O Canada! IEC Discussion & Support' group. Thank you so much for your time, we really appreciate it.

christmasoompa

Nope. If you've lived together for a year or more then you're deemed 'common-law spouses', so you would go on his visa application (or vice versa), and both of you would get PR. No need for sponsorship at a later date.

And for EE, if you score enough then no job offer is needed. Start with the points calculator on the CIC website, check eligibility, and you may be able to apply for PR without needing a job offer from a sponsoring employer - but note that this would be a Permanent Residency application, so you may decide not worth it if you only wanted to go temporarily?

And no need for a consultant at all (particularly not the one you mentioned!), if you only want to do an IEC app it's the simplest application there is, and even a PR app is dead easy for you to do yourself.

Best of luck.

LaurenandDavid

Thank you for replying to my question so quickly!

I don’t know if it’s worth mentioning or not but do you know what proof they would look for re living together? Because we are not home owners/don’t pay rent so we couldn’t show any bills - really just proof of the relationship I guess? Even that would really just be old phone convos/social media. It’s been between both of our parents homes. Might be a little tricky now that I think about it.

Ok excellent, I will give the points calculator on the CIC website a go! I think we would prefer permanent residency we just thought temporary may be our only option but coming on here I guess we can aim for Permanent and hope for the best..

Really appreciate this, feeling way more confident about doing this ourselves now. Thank you!

christmasoompa

Ah. That may put a spanner in the works, going between parents homes isn't likely to count. They will need proof that you have lived as husband and wife, so you don't have to have things like rental agreement, but you would need other stuff in lieu - joint bank account, insurances in both names, wills naming each other as beneficiaries (ditto life insurance), etc, etc. You need to think of things that show you are in a marriage like relationship, rather than just being housemates.

If you can't prove that, then you'll either need to get married, or to each qualify for a visa on your own merits (or just wait until you have got a year's worth of proof).

LaurenandDavid

Ok I understand, it's better we know now so we don't go along thinking we can sponser one another without all of the documents/proof of living together (which are understandable) course, marriage is on the cards after 6 years so who knows we are isolating together so I wonder if we could start looking to create some sort of paper trail! I do have a contract via my work naming him as a beneficiarie which has been in place for about 3 years - this is really helpful though, we can start to get the ball rolling.

And if not apply separately I guess

christmasoompa

Don't forget - you would just go on the same visa app if you were common-law spouses, no sponsoring involved.

The work document is a good start, think what else you may have - are you named drivers on each others car insurance policies? Joint bank account? Any pets together with both names on the vet bills? Invites to both of you for formal occasions sent to the same address? Definitely start gathering as much as you possibly can.