Can you visit Canada on ETA without activating your Working Holiday visa?

[juliakristof]

My boyfriend (Belgian citizenship) wants to get a working holiday visa for Canada starting in December 2018. However he wants to visit Canada in July 2018 for a few months BEFORE starting his working holiday visa.

Is there any way to prevent it from starting the 12 months that he would get to work when he comes to visit in July?

Thank you!

 

[Bs65]

Yes people often come for a visit before activating IEC, they just tell CBSA they are visiting and if even asked about the IEC that is good enough to not do anything with the IEC.

How many months he gets as a visitor would be at the discretion of the CBSA officer at the time so no guarantee a visit for 6 months if that is the plan.

Plus of course if planning to transition from visitor to activating IEC whilst still in the country he will need to flagpole at the nearest canada/US land border and will still need at that time to show travel insurance for the full IEC term plus proof of access to 2500 cdn.

Just to clarify an ETA is just permission to board a direct flight to Canada it is not a visa and has nothing really to do with what may or may not happen when someone reaches the CBSA desk. Being a Belgian citizen he has a visa exempt passport anyway.

 

[juliakristof]

Yes people often come for a visit before activating IEC, they just tell CBSA they are visiting and if even asked about the IEC that is good enough to not do anything with the IEC.

How many months he gets as a visitor would be at the discretion of the CBSA officer at the time so no guarantee a visit for 6 months if that is the plan.

Plus of course if planning to transition from visitor to activating IEC whilst still in the country he will need to flagpole at the nearest canada/US land border and will still need at that time to show travel insurance for the full IEC term plus proof of access to 2500 cdn.

Just to clarify an ETA is just permission to board a direct flight to Canada it is not a visa and has nothing really to do with what may or may not happen when someone reaches the CBSA desk. Being a Belgian citizen he has a visa exempt passport anyway.

Thanks for clearing that up. He will only be visiting for 3 months. After the 3 months we'll fly out for another 3 months and then come back so we'll have to pass immigration again for activating the IEC.