Posidrive

17 months ago I arrived in Canada on an HRSDC approved WP. Immigration took about 10 minutes and was finished with a smile and a "Welcome to Canada" from the officer. They even gave me 3 years instead of the 2 requested.

When the company that I was working for decided to close their Calgray office and centralise all R&D in Boston I had to find another job in Calgary, which I did. A Lawyer was engaged to put together a case with a package of documents for me to use the IT worker waiver for LMO and for me to just leave Canada and return and apply for the work permit at the port of entry instead of waiting 50 or so days for the postal application.

Perhaps I was unlucky that the plane was delayed and I landed at 11h30 pm, but what a difference from the first time

I was unlucky enough to get the less experienced immigration officer on duty. He knew nothing about the IT worker waiver program. Then despite a letter from CIC that stated that because of my qualifications and experience I was exempt from needed LMO he was unhappy that I had an engineering degree instead of computer science degree, despite the requirements of only requiring a degree with significant computing content. CIC were happy, so why shouldn't he have been. I had documentary evidence of a solid year of software development as part of the course, including the creation of software that was of such high quality that it was sold commercially by the University.

Next he didn't like the fact that my original work permit was done through the usual LMO with postal application route, "So why didn't I do it this way again?". Basically my original company didn't know about the IT waiver program plus there was no urgency to the application. This time it was urgent, both for me and my new company.

He also thought that the waiver program was only applicable to US citizens. If it wasn't for a more experienced officer overhearing all this I would not have been given the work permit.

And after all this they only gave me 1 year instead of the requested 2 years, although he did state that renewal was straight forward.

On the positive side, at least the officer was very pleasant throughout the process which is more than could be said about the US immigration officer at Calgary airport who had the charm of a pile of dog waste. He really didn't seem to like the idea of someone flying to Seattle with the sole purpose of flying straight back to Canada to re-land.

Woodstock62

Bureaucracy really sucks doesn't it??!!

Sorry you had such a time of it but at least you have finally got it sorted.

Hope you are able to enjoy your time in Calgary now.

How is the house build coming along?

Almost Canadian

Haven't heard from you lately. Have you landed yet ?

Posidrive - sorry for the hijack

JAJ

Please use the private message facility rather than hijacking unrelated threads.