snaily001

Hi everyone, I am a truck driver in the UK, my darling O/H is at the moment a Community nurse (Degree). We are interested in moving out to Canada but was not sure of which procees to go through so that we can both start work immediately. I have seen on other threads that spouses have to wait a certain amount of time before registering for work.

Any info would be grrrreeeatt!!!!

Snaily
Slower than a slow thing going slow.

Judy in Calgary

Hi, Snaily, and welcome to the BE forum.

There are spouses and then there are spouses. Or rather, there are work permits and there are work permits, and which work permit you're on determines how soon your spouse can work. Or rather, your occupation's skill level on the National Occupational Classification (NOC) determines whether or not your spouse, as the spouse of a work permit holder, can get an open work permit (one that allows him/her to accept any job from any employer in any part of Canada) or a regular work permit (what you might jokingly refer to as a closed work permit), which requires the spouse's prospective employer to apply to Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSCD) for a Labour Market Opinion (LMO). An LMO will only be forthcoming if HRSDC has satisfied itself that the employer has recruited across Canada and has been unsuccessful in attracting a qualified Canadian resident to the position.

Okay, that Monty Pythonesque nonsense was the attempt of a non-Brit to employ BH (British Humour), something that I appreciate is a lifelong task that never can be accomplished. If you didn't take it in with your mother's milk, you're out of luck.

But seriously, and all jokes aside, both you and your OH are in occupations that are in demand in Canada (well certainly in some parts of Canada). Either one of these occupations could fast-track your application to live and work in Canada. Now when I say "fast-track," please understand that that is a relative term. Either one of these occupations could get you into Canada within months (or at least probably in under a year), compared with the five years that permanent residence applications via the skilled worker route are taking.

A long distance truck driver can get into Canada through some of the Provincial Nominee Programs (PNPs). The PNP process eventually leads to a permanent residence (PR) visa. What happens is that you find an employer who has received a quota from the provincial government to employ X number of foreign truck drivers. Essentially you're applying to the provincial government, and if the provincial government agrees to sponsor your application, it puts your name forward to the federal government, which processes PR applications. Now the good thing is that, once your PNP application reaches a certain point, the provincial government writes a nice letter to the feds, and the feds issue you with a temporary work permit. This allows you to enter Canada and start working while you wait for the rest of the PR application to wind its way through the pipeline.

The one bad thing about a truck driver's NOC code is that it is not one of the skill levels that would enable the primary applicant's spouse to get a spousal open work permit. The spouse would have to apply for a work permit the normal way. That is, the spouse's prospective employer would have to satisfy HRSDC that the employer had recruited across Canada and had been unsuccessful in attracting a qualified Canadian resident to the position.

But here's the beauty of the thing. You don't have to worry about that. There are some provinces that are so short of registered nurses that it is possible for British nurses to get temporary work permits. The British nurse then is allowed to enter Canada and start working on a provisional basis. The rules differ slightly from province to province, but basically the nurse has six months within which to write a provincial nursing exam (which is understandable because brand names of drugs are different in Canada, and so on).

A further advantage is that a nurse belongs to a skill level that allows his/her spouse or common-law partner to get a spousal open work permit (SOWP). So, if you didn't belong to an occupation that in its own right could get you in via a work permit or a PNP, you could get a SOWP through your OH.

Now don't get overexcited. Even at that, there is lots of paperwork and the logistics of moving from one country to another are not to be sneezed at. Still, compared with some members of this forum, for whom it is taking years to get into Canada, your situation is enviable.

Where to go from here?

There are two professional forums on this website, one for Nursing and one for Trucking. They are not country-specific, mind, but there certainly are discussion threads about Canada on those forums. Oh, I see you're one step ahead of me, and have posted on the Trucking forum already. Well, never mind, I'm this far into typing this message, I may as well finish.

The Canada part of the Wiki section of the BE website has numerous articles that will help you get up to speed. The one I recommend the most is Newcomers to the forum.

There also is a Wiki article on Truck Driving in Canada.

Hope that helps.

destinationnovascotia

Hi. I am a nurse and I will be moving out to Nova Scotia next year with my family. If I can help in any way just let me know

terese677

Hi Snaily
I'm also a nurse and have TWP and SOWP so any questions feel free, I'm Vancouver bound
Terese