HELP!!

[joshphill94]

Hey guys, thanks for looking. im completely new to this forum so forgive me if this topic has been addressed elsewhere.

basically me and my partner are looking to move to Canada in the near future. im just looking for a bit of advice from people who have already done this.

so firstly to do you have to have a job offer to apply for a work permit? can I apply for one and then find work afterwards? I understand a company would have to complete a labour market assessment. are companies quite willing to do this or are they quite hesitant?

so I have a couple of plans depending on the out come of various things, one plan was to hopefully get the ETA as im from the uk and then go out to Canada with around £15000 (about 28000 Canadian dollars) I've done all the math and this should be enough to keep me my partner and our childe going for quite a few months. then when we are out there ill apply for a work permit and try to get a job or apply before I go and get a job out there.

can anyone suggest any other ways, I wont qualify for the skilled workers arrangement though.

I also need help on how you would go around renting, setting up a bank account as we'd have no Canadian credit history.

I would greatly appreciate any help, thanks!

 

[Bs65]

If you are under 30 apply for the Canada IEC program which is an open work permit for 2 years and although spouse/ dependants cannot accompany on back of that they can probably get extended visitor status for same period at the border.

If you want some UK input / bias might be worth posting here http://britishexpats.com/forum/canada-56/ as in my view not many UK participants on this forum but comments below apply whichever country come from.

Not sure rest of your proposal would fly given generally you need to accumulate enough points to get a work permit based on a skilled occupation and education plus believe or not English language skills

An LMIA is very difficult to get any employer to support as an individual would need have some unique skill not easily provided by someone already in Canada. Even getting a job offer remotely is a challenge as many employers first question is are you in Canada followed by are you already authorised to work in Canada, then usually followed by silence if neither condition is met.

Getting an ETA is just providing authority to board a plane to Canada not authority to enter Canada that is determined by CBSA on landing. Once you land you will generally only be able to stay as a visitor for upto 6 months, could be less if CBSA are suspicious of your agenda not being true tourism. For sure a no would be to arrive as a tourist with a handful of CVs, emails etc setting up job interviews given if assigned a secondary CBSA interview those things may get looked at as well as possibly phone.

Planning to set up an apartment rental and a bank account as a visitor not a good idea as that implies to the authorities you are planning from the outset to not leave. Having said that some Canadian banks with offices in London do have facilities where you can set up a bank account whether a tourist or an immigrant.

Assume you dont intend to arrive with 28k in cash as over 10 k has to be declared. If in a bank account no problems but obviously would not declare that amount to support a visit unless of course you plan stay in 5 star hotels.

Personally i think all you can do is make a visit as a tourist as a look see but remember Canada also has its own issues with employment etc same as UK but Canada just different. Also without a skill to qualify for a skilled work permit may well be an uphill struggle