Advice needed - work permit expiring end of August

[little_bunny]

Hi everyone

Hoping someone can point me in the right direction here. Just to give you some background on my situation:

My partner and I moved to Vancouver in January 2013 and I currently have an open spousal work permit attached to his (he was sponsored by the company we moved to Vancouver for). Our work permits expire at the end of August 2014 and his contract ended so he needs to find a new job in order to extend our permits. However, things aren't looking good so far so I wondered if there is an alternative way we can extend our stay at such short notice? I currently work full-time and have been since moving here so if I don't find a way around this I will lose my job (which I love and would be extremely upset about!).

We have filled in our permanent residency application under the Canadian Experience Class route and are ready to submit it, however since it takes a very long time to get approved this doesn't help short-term. I spoke to an immigration lawyer who told me we can apply for an 'open work permit' to bridge the gap between submitting the application and getting approved....however I looked into this and can't find much useful information on it. The lawyer himself didn't know much about it. Not sure whether it's relevant but my partner has an LMO valid until next year some time.

If you have any ideas or advice please reply and also let me know if you need more info.

Thanks so much in advance!
Amy

 

[dizon09]

Hi everyone

Hoping someone can point me in the right direction here. Just to give you some background on my situation:

My partner and I moved to Vancouver in January 2013 and I currently have an open spousal work permit attached to his (he was sponsored by the company we moved to Vancouver for). Our work permits expire at the end of August 2014 and his contract ended so he needs to find a new job in order to extend our permits. However, things aren't looking good so far so I wondered if there is an alternative way we can extend our stay at such short notice? I currently work full-time and have been since moving here so if I don't find a way around this I will lose my job (which I love and would be extremely upset about!).

We have filled in our permanent residency application under the Canadian Experience Class route and are ready to submit it, however since it takes a very long time to get approved this doesn't help short-term. I spoke to an immigration lawyer who told me we can apply for an 'open work permit' to bridge the gap between submitting the application and getting approved....however I looked into this and can't find much useful information on it. The lawyer himself didn't know much about it. Not sure whether it's relevant but my partner has an LMO valid until next year some time.

If you have any ideas or advice please reply and also let me know if you need more info.

Thanks so much in advance!
Amy

HI LB,
Hope this helps:

According to CIC’s Operational Bulletin issued in September 2013: Bridging Open Work Permit for Certain Federal Economic Class Applicants – the eligibility parameters are as follow:

• The foreign national is currently in Canada;
• They have valid status on a work permit that is due to expire within four (4) months;
• They have received a positive eligibility decision* on their PR application under of the Economic Class programs (i.e.: PNP, CEC, FSWP); and
• They have made application for an open work permit.

*Determine if a Positive Eligibility Decision has been made:

• CEC: The “Eligibility CEC” decision has been set to “Passed” or the Acknowledgement of receipt letter/email has been sent from CIO.

Note that for spouses of CEC applicants: there are no set preconditions to be met by the principal CEC applicant.

Please note that the bridging open work permit is usually valid for one (1) year and has no restrictions to the employment location or city.

 

[little_bunny]

Thanks for the quick response Dizon. I did look into that and we meet the criteria but the difficult part is this:

"- They have made application for an open work permit."

I had a look into what that involves and it was unclear to me whether we are eligible. Also I read that there is a cap on the number of applicants and it has been reached but I don't know if I was looking at the right info. Do you know any more about what this would involve?

Thank you
Amy

 

[jes_ON]

I spoke to an immigration lawyer who told me we can apply for an 'open work permit' to bridge the gap between submitting the application and getting approved....however I looked into this and can't find much useful information on it. The lawyer himself didn't know much about it. Not sure whether it's relevant but my partner has an LMO valid until next year some time.

It's called a Bridging Open Work Permit (BOWP) and is discussed quite a lot on this board, so you can search it and you'll know more than your lawyer : )

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/department/media/notices/2012-12-17.asp

 

[salmon1978]

The only requirement for applying for an open work permit is to prove you have submitted your CEC application. This means you need to get an email from the intake office to acknowledge that you are eligible to apply for PR under CEC. This may take some time (maybe >1 month). Once you get that email, can go ahead and send the work permit application. So I think you'd better do it asap.

 

[jes_ON]

Thanks for the quick response Dizon. I did look into that and we meet the criteria but the difficult part is this:

"- They have made application for an open work permit."

I had a look into what that involves and it was unclear to me whether we are eligible. Also I read that there is a cap on the number of applicants and it has been reached but I don't know if I was looking at the right info. Do you know any more about what this would involve?

I agree that the instructions could be a lot better. All that means is that when you're ready to apply for the BOWP, you apply to extend or change conditions as a worker,
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/information/applications/extend-worker.asp

... and you apply for an "Open Work Permit" on page 3 question 1. The form has not been adapted for BOWPs, meaning, you can't select BOWP as a category, and there are no questions on the form pertaining to BOWP eligibility.

If you do the online application (recommended), there is a questionnaire you complete before hand that DOES ask these questions, and so it's clear to the VO. But if you apply on paper, it's probably a good idea to add a letter of explanation stating you're applying for a BOWP, and include a copy of the AOR.

So, you can't apply for the BOWP until you apply for CEC and receive your AOR (1-2 months) and your current work permits must be within 4 months of expiring. If you get close to the expiry of your current permits, apply anyway! You lose eligibility for the BOWP if your permits expire.

BTW - there are no caps on BOWPs.

 

[MenicMonday]

Thanks for the quick response Dizon. I did look into that and we meet the criteria but the difficult part is this:

"- They have made application for an open work permit."

I had a look into what that involves and it was unclear to me whether we are eligible. Also I read that there is a cap on the number of applicants and it has been reached but I don't know if I was looking at the right info. Do you know any more about what this would involve?

Thank you
Amy

We've discussed this part extensively in the BoWP thread...you may want to back-read.

What this statement means is that you should submit an application for an open WP so they are able to process this under OP25A. In other words, a BowP is not automatically granted by virtue of an expiring WP while a PR application is in process. The BOWP process is a special case for a regular WP application (i.e., same generic form but with lesser documentation requirements).