Hey. I was on an IEC open work permit which expired November. Before it expired, I applied for another work permit and was under implied status. I heard back in mid January that this was refused. I have had a lot of upsetting things happen in the last month so have not yet applied for restoration. I am now looking into it. I have a question. The 90 days grace period - if I apply now, what's the processing time for a restoration of visitor status? Does the restoration have to be processed within the 90 days or just the application received? Thanks.
Restoration of status processing time - please help
- Thread starter Gdobssor
- Start date
The application has to be received within 90 days of you going out of status in Canada. You need to read your refusal letter carefully to find out if they are counting those 90 days from the time you were refused or from the time your IEC expired.
Restoration processing can take anywhere from a few weeks to four months.
Gosh, you nearly gave me a heart attack! My IEC visa expired in November and I thought for a minute that I was going to be out of time to apply for restoration and that my only option would be to leave right away! My car and everything I own is here!
Thankfully, I went back and read the refusal letter which I received in mid January this year - as I said in the original post, I was under implied status up until I got the letter, and it said as follows:
"Your temporary resident status expired on [date redacted but was mid January this year]. You now have 90 days from the time of the expiry of your temporary resident status in Canada to apply for a restoration of your temporary resident status. You need to submit... blah blah blah.
Phew!
So I have until mid April. My main concern now is that since I still only have about five weeks, if I send the application in in the next few days but they take more than say a month to process it, would it be refused on the grounds that it wasn't processed within the 90 days? Or, would it be fine as long as it was received within the 90 days?
You're honestly extraordinarily lucky. CIC became fed up a while ago with people abusing the implied rule and applying for work permit extensions when they don't qualify for them. As a result, people are now typically getting their applications returned as incomplete rather than refused (which puts them out of status effective the day their original work permit expired). Again, you're very lucky.
I would not wait longer to submit the restoration application. You've already waited too long. By submitting this late, you've left yourself extremely little room for it to be returned as incomplete (in the event you make an error) with enough time to refile before the 90 days is up.
As mentioned earlier, it has to be received within 90 days (not processed within 90). But again, don't wait any longer to submit. Make sure the application is 100% accurate and complete. You can't risk it being returned.
I assume you stopped working back in January and that you'll be restoring to a visitor visa.
I don't feel lucky. I had a permanent job offer and a good lawyer. I didn't apply for an extension, I applied for a new visa. The officer from CIC who processed my application cost me a good job, 2500 dollars and a world of hurt. I am not currently working and at this stage just want to apply for a visitor restoration.
What are the documents you have to submit? I'm assuming the restoration as visitor form, payment receipt, passport photo copy, passport style photo, proof of funds, copy of old IEC visa and refusal letter, anything else?
Why was the work permit refused? I assume you had an approved LMIA in addition to the permanent job offer. If you had everything required for the work permit to be approved - then you can apply to restore back to a work permit rather than switching to a visitor visa.
My job was lmia exempt. But there were mistakes in the refusal. Eg - they said that the maximum time allowed for an IEC visa for my country is 12 months and I'd exhausted that. Um, first off, for my country, it is 24 months, not 12. Second of all, I wasn't applying to extend it, so why even factor that in? It was also refused due to no lmia... For a job that was supposed to be lmia exempt... My lawyer said that since my employer decided not to help further, to apply for restoration of visitor status and worry about another work permit after. I am also thinking about going back to university in a few months so would need a study permit for that. I already have the letter of offer. I am just wondering what documents I need to restore to visitor status asap so I can decide what to do next.
hey man
i face same situation man ....but i am out of it
now
i applied same day online workpermit . then i got it after that .
I have the same situation and already reapply for the work permit. My employer would like to terminate me with re-hire possibility. I don’t think it is right. What is right way to handle the restoration status without loosing the job?
Thank you
Canuck, thank you for your answer. I m afraid termination will not help with PR process.could I ask for temporary leave? I can’t find any info online
Sure, you can ask your employer. I'm not sure what info you are looking for. There is no way for you to make your employer keep you on the books when you can't actually legally work for them. It really is entirely up to them.
Your employer can't legally let you work for them without a valid work visa. It's a shitty situation for you, but you need to understand how much legal trouble they could be in if they got caught letting someone work for them who wasn't legally allowed to work in Canada. I was really upset with my employer when they decided to terminate me, but in the end, I had to see it from their point of view: A, they had to consider the safety of the children in their care and that was at risk if they had someone working for them without a valid work visa, possibly even if that person had implied status, and B, if they'd been found out, they could have been fined or worse. Not fair on them.
However, there is hope for you: What I would do is go to your employer, apologize to them for the situation and tell them that you do understand how things could be difficult for them. Then, ask for a leave of absence pending restoration of your work visa. If your employer agrees to this, get it in writing, and get the terms and conditions and how long they're prepared to grant it for in writing as well. Cannot stress this enough. This means that they will not be breaking the law by allowing you to work for them illegally and they can go ahead and hire a temporary person to cover for you until the date your leave of absence ends, and tell the new person that while it is only a temporary position, there is the potential to make it a permanent position if you don't get a renewal of your work visa. If you get restoration, they can legally rehire you. If you don't, then unfortunately for you, you would be terminated with the potential for rehire if you could somehow get another work visa another way.
Do you know why you were refused? Did you have a positive LMIA or were you LMIA exempt?
Gdobssor: thank you very much for your answer. I applied for bopw, instead of using my PNP nomination for close work permit. Luckily, managed to reapply before nomination expired. My employer is awesome and supported me all way long. Even now when I lost my status they are willing to rehire me once restoration status received. At this point they were not sure if they could give temporary leave and I couldn’t fine any doc saying that it’s ok to give leave for one on restoration status. I hope that termination will not effect PR process and wait for work permit,
Thank you again for your help!