I'm posting this thread in case there's anyone else in my situation and they're not sure what to do. In my case, I'm an Australian national who entered Canada on an IEC 2-year open Working Holiday permit around two years ago. I've just successfully obtained my second work permit, which is identical in all ways to the first. The process to obtain this wasn't the clearest, though, hence I'm making this thread.
First, a few erroneous assumptions I made:
I can extend or otherwise renew my current IEC work permit. --FALSE.
Apparently the IEC work permits are fixed, regardless of what you see on CIC websites telling you that work permits can be extended. I thought this was the case until about a month before my first permit expired. Since a condition of the permits is that you leave Canada on/before the date they expire, I had to find a way to stay (being happily employed and not ready to leave yet). So, I thought I'd just apply for a new IEC work permit and the implied status would see me through the period after my first permit expired.
IEC work permit applications give you implied status in Canada. --FALSE.
I very nearly didn't check this; I only asked a CIC agent on the phone to make absolutely sure, and to my shock they told me that since IEC permits are technically processed *outside* of Canada, if you're in Canada you don't get any implied status from this application. At this point I had two options; apply for a visitor permit extension, or try to get a work permit through the LMO/LMIA route (which, since it'd be processed in Canada, would give implied status). The visitor permit extension application would mean that after my first work permit expired, I'd no longer be able to work, but could remain in the country until the visitor permit expired. I decided to apply for that, since an LMO/LMIA is another time-consuming thing.
As luck would have it, my second IEC WP application only took 9 days from sending it to CIC to getting a positive reply; I had over a week to plan a way to get my new WP. This meant that my visitor permit application ended up being useless, but better safe than sorry (and it only cost 100 CAD). Now came the final trick in the process; I'd have to leave and re-enter Canada to get the new WP. This was done by driving to the Canada-US border and performing a process apparently called 'flagpoling'. The broad steps are:
> Get to the border. You don't need to talk to any Canadian border agents before crossing into the US, apparently.
> Once crossed, tell the US side you're there to do Canadian documentation stuff. The guy at the window will keep your passport, ask you to park and come into the building. They'll give you an 'administrative refusal' piece of paper to show the Canadians after a few minutes.
> Drive back into Canada. The border agent in the window will just ask for your passport, not any of the papers, and ask standard immigration questions. Then you'll be asked to enter their building to finalise the work permit stuff.
> Inside, present your passport with the letter of introduction and proof of health insurance (they're very particular about that). I waited about 10-15 minutes before getting a brand shiny new work permit, valid for another 2 years.
A few notes about the process;
+ From now on if any form asks 'have you been refused entry to a country', I have to answer 'yes' apparently. I'm guessing I can always explain it was for administrative purposes though.
+ Private health insurance is apparently preferred over work-based health plans (i.e. ones that are attached to employment and would go away if your employment terminated).
I'm not sure how many people apply for 2 IEC work permits in a row, but hopefully this helps someone out. If anyone has questions about my application's specifics (which countries to get police checks from, which pages of passport to scan, etc.) feel free to ask.
First, a few erroneous assumptions I made:
I can extend or otherwise renew my current IEC work permit. --FALSE.
Apparently the IEC work permits are fixed, regardless of what you see on CIC websites telling you that work permits can be extended. I thought this was the case until about a month before my first permit expired. Since a condition of the permits is that you leave Canada on/before the date they expire, I had to find a way to stay (being happily employed and not ready to leave yet). So, I thought I'd just apply for a new IEC work permit and the implied status would see me through the period after my first permit expired.
IEC work permit applications give you implied status in Canada. --FALSE.
I very nearly didn't check this; I only asked a CIC agent on the phone to make absolutely sure, and to my shock they told me that since IEC permits are technically processed *outside* of Canada, if you're in Canada you don't get any implied status from this application. At this point I had two options; apply for a visitor permit extension, or try to get a work permit through the LMO/LMIA route (which, since it'd be processed in Canada, would give implied status). The visitor permit extension application would mean that after my first work permit expired, I'd no longer be able to work, but could remain in the country until the visitor permit expired. I decided to apply for that, since an LMO/LMIA is another time-consuming thing.
As luck would have it, my second IEC WP application only took 9 days from sending it to CIC to getting a positive reply; I had over a week to plan a way to get my new WP. This meant that my visitor permit application ended up being useless, but better safe than sorry (and it only cost 100 CAD). Now came the final trick in the process; I'd have to leave and re-enter Canada to get the new WP. This was done by driving to the Canada-US border and performing a process apparently called 'flagpoling'. The broad steps are:
> Get to the border. You don't need to talk to any Canadian border agents before crossing into the US, apparently.
> Once crossed, tell the US side you're there to do Canadian documentation stuff. The guy at the window will keep your passport, ask you to park and come into the building. They'll give you an 'administrative refusal' piece of paper to show the Canadians after a few minutes.
> Drive back into Canada. The border agent in the window will just ask for your passport, not any of the papers, and ask standard immigration questions. Then you'll be asked to enter their building to finalise the work permit stuff.
> Inside, present your passport with the letter of introduction and proof of health insurance (they're very particular about that). I waited about 10-15 minutes before getting a brand shiny new work permit, valid for another 2 years.
A few notes about the process;
+ From now on if any form asks 'have you been refused entry to a country', I have to answer 'yes' apparently. I'm guessing I can always explain it was for administrative purposes though.
+ Private health insurance is apparently preferred over work-based health plans (i.e. ones that are attached to employment and would go away if your employment terminated).
I'm not sure how many people apply for 2 IEC work permits in a row, but hopefully this helps someone out. If anyone has questions about my application's specifics (which countries to get police checks from, which pages of passport to scan, etc.) feel free to ask.
