If you read the application it should say that you need to inform CICof any changes in your circumstances. If you are approved to restore your status you’d be restored to visitor status.
Trouble is, I have searched the entire web high and low, left and right and I can't find one single person who informed about the loss of their job to IRCC and posted what happened afterward. I guess I will talk to a Lawyer and seek their opinion on this. This is still more of an exercise in considering eventualities for me. But then, if something can go wrong, usually it does go wrong.
Immigration laws and regulations are really weird. Sometimes, they mean the condition "at the application", sometimes they mean "till we take the decision". The point in consideration: ECA / IELTS validity. In the express entry, you need to make sure that your scores are valid until they have given you ITA (AFAIK). In PNP, they often need you to maintain your employment. Which cases call for what interpretation is a rat's nest.
If you are approved to restore your status you’d be restored to visitor status.
Now coming to the restoration of status. There have been messed up changes recently.
Here is what IRCC says officially about it :
https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/application/application-forms-guides/guide-5553-applying-change-conditions-extend-your-stay-canada-worker.html
It is important to note that an applicant can only restore to an authorization that they held immediately prior to the restoration application. As an example, a student who lost their status cannot apply to restore status with authorization as a worker.
This means you CAN NOT apply to restore your status as a visitor. You MUST apply to restore your status a worker (in my spouse's case). Fun, right? It gets better.
Workers
A temporary resident who held a work permit and lost their status can apply in Canada for restoration of their temporary resident status and authorization to work within 90 days of having lost their status. In addition to applying for restoration and a new work permit, they may also apply for a study permit, and pay the fees, if they meet the requirements for study permit issuance.
Hallelujah! You can apply for restoration as a worker AND get a study permit while you are at it. Which begs the question, where will this make sense? I don't know. Now by the same token, what if I ask to restore the status as worker AND a Temporary resident as a visitor? What happens now? I guess I won't be allowed because the entire thing will become messed up: A person being first granted a work permit AND then a visitor record or something. Does not makes sense.
Previous IRPR was much liberal when it came to such restoration of status. Look at the language of the previous guidelines:
https://web.archive.org/web/20190925135847/https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/publications-manuals/operational-bulletins-manuals/temporary-residents/visitors/restoration-status.html
The phrase “initial requirements for their stay”
should not be read too literally when it is being applied in the context of a restoration application, and the requirements of
section R179 should not be applied rigidly in that regard.
Possible restoration scenarios
A foreign student who is still in status can apply in Canada for a work permit under certain conditions. By inference, the foreign student can apply for a work permit when restoring status.
- A temporary foreign worker who is still in status can apply in Canada for a study permit if they meet certain conditions. By inference, they can also apply for a study permit when restoring status.
- A temporary resident who is eligible to apply in Canada for a work or study permit would be allowed to do so when restoring their status.
See the language? It was to grant more flexibility. Now? No more! Become what you were before (and *may be* something more) or get out! Which begs the question, whom they are targetting? I guess those poor sods whose extension application failed and due to coronavirus they can not get that failure early enough to seek a remedy of getting a visitor record or something.
It is noteworthy that these changes came into being somewhere between Sept 2019 and 4th April 2020. Why they changed it such? Why now? I don't know. Not my country.
