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Mthornt

Hero Member
Dec 28, 2015
817
207
Canada
I would apply as soon as possible. EE and the other immigration streams are constantly changing, and so while you may be anticipating a score of 481, CIC can change the rules pretty quickly and all of sudden your situation completely changes. For example in Nov. 2016 when they changed what constitutes a job offer, and how many points it awards (some went from getting 600 points to 200, or 50, or none at all!).

I was in a similar situation, also at a very large company, and I was able to get my letter from HR without my leader ever even knowing about it. If you know you want to make the move eventually, and you qualify under the existing rules/conditions, I'd do it sooner rather than later, or it's possible the situation can change before you know it.



I was able to pick up my paper degrees from my parents' house this weekend, so I should be able to submit for ECA today. I have an M.Sc. and B.A. from a US university and was planning on only having the M.Sc. assessed-- this is okay, right? Is there any reason I should have my B.A. assessed as well?

I'm also conflicted as to whether I should apply for EE as soon as possible or to wait, for two reasons:

First, I have plans to stay with my company at least until I'm vested in my 401(k), which will be another year (February 2019). I'm afraid to jeopardize my current employment by applying for PR too soon and having to request experience letters from my workplace. I think I can go directly to HR, and my company is very, very large (Fortune 100), so I'm sure I'm not the first, but I'm worried about it nonetheless. I know I will eventually have to discuss the leave with my manager, but I don't want to do this any sooner than necessary.

Second, I want to wait until my partner, who is a Canadian citizen living in Ontario, finishes his second diploma (April 2019) and finds employment before I make the move. Realistically this means I wouldn't be moving until some time in summer 2019. I'm not worried about it taking a little while because I have the lease on my apartment until the end of September, and I don't intend to leave my current job until I have a job offer in Canada.

My thought process has been that I should just apply to EE ASAP and, if everything goes accordingly, do a soft landing in Toronto some time in early 2019 (I'm in Canada at least twice a year anyway because of my partner) and have my partner bring my PR card on his next visit (or mail it if it doesn't arrive in time). I'll stick it out in the states until I'm ready to move, at which time I'll drive my car and most of my belongings up.

I'm anticipating a CRS of 481 (provided my M.Sc. is assessed appropriately and I can demonstrate sufficiently that I actually speak English), so I suspect I'd receive an ITA pretty quickly. Should I go for it ASAP or put it off until maybe July-November?
 
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clguy

Hero Member
Apr 7, 2017
256
44
CAR EXPORT - IMPORT PROCESS
We have a car loan for our 2016 Mazda CX-5. The remaining balance of the loan is $22K. Does anybody know if we can move the car to Canada and keep paying the loan in the US? Is it possible to transfer the loan to Wells Fargo Canada? Any other idea?
We like the idea of taking the car to Canada because at this point we will not get the money to cover the whole remaining balance, and for flexibility since we will not have any credit history in Canada and it would be hard to get a new loan there. (Or is it possible to transfer credit history from the US to Canada?
Thanks in advance for your insight regarding this!
You will be able to drive it in Canada for 6 months or so. After that if you are stopped by the police they might give you issues. The other option you have is certain banks have new immigrant(2 years or less)packages that may qualify you for a loan to settle the loan in the US so you can import the car. Me personally, I would drive the car until I run into issues with the police. I don't think it is possible to transfer credit history.
 

clguy

Hero Member
Apr 7, 2017
256
44
They tell me I will have to take the written test. Just got my driver record, so will probably go for license next week.
What province told you that you had to take the written test? What state are you coming from? How long have you been a licensed driver ion the US?
 
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Cubicrootofthee

Star Member
Jan 10, 2018
133
30
USA
NOC Code......
2173
VISA ISSUED...
13-08-2018
Thank you very much for your response!
Soft landing is pretty straight forward. We did ours at Pearson Airport (Toronto), and it was pretty fast and simple. We first did our quick interview with immigration, and then stopped next door to get our social insurance numbers. Then before leaving we had our items to follow lists stamped and copied, and we were on our way. Literally took like an hour and we were out the door.
So, you get the Social Insurance done at the airport after immigration but before clearing customs? Am I reading that right?
 

Mthornt

Hero Member
Dec 28, 2015
817
207
Canada
So, you get the Social Insurance done at the airport after immigration but before clearing customs? Am I reading that right?
Basically yes, the when you get to the customs agent, you'll let them know what you're there to do and they'll direct you on where to go. Getting your social insurance number normally requires a separate trip, however at Pearson Airport you can get it right on site. This is not necessarily the case at most landing sites.
 

JERiv

Star Member
Jul 4, 2017
71
61
Texas
I was able to pick up my paper degrees from my parents' house this weekend, so I should be able to submit for ECA today. I have an M.Sc. and B.A. from a US university and was planning on only having the M.Sc. assessed-- this is okay, right? Is there any reason I should have my B.A. assessed as well?

I'm also conflicted as to whether I should apply for EE as soon as possible or to wait, for two reasons:

First, I have plans to stay with my company at least until I'm vested in my 401(k), which will be another year (February 2019). I'm afraid to jeopardize my current employment by applying for PR too soon and having to request experience letters from my workplace. I think I can go directly to HR, and my company is very, very large (Fortune 100), so I'm sure I'm not the first, but I'm worried about it nonetheless. I know I will eventually have to discuss the leave with my manager, but I don't want to do this any sooner than necessary.

Second, I want to wait until my partner, who is a Canadian citizen living in Ontario, finishes his second diploma (April 2019) and finds employment before I make the move. Realistically this means I wouldn't be moving until some time in summer 2019. I'm not worried about it taking a little while because I have the lease on my apartment until the end of September, and I don't intend to leave my current job until I have a job offer in Canada.

My thought process has been that I should just apply to EE ASAP and, if everything goes accordingly, do a soft landing in Toronto some time in early 2019 (I'm in Canada at least twice a year anyway because of my partner) and have my partner bring my PR card on his next visit (or mail it if it doesn't arrive in time). I'll stick it out in the states until I'm ready to move, at which time I'll drive my car and most of my belongings up.

I'm anticipating a CRS of 481 (provided my M.Sc. is assessed appropriately and I can demonstrate sufficiently that I actually speak English), so I suspect I'd receive an ITA pretty quickly. Should I go for it ASAP or put it off until maybe July-November?
You'll need to decide how much risk you're ok taking. Laws, processes, and governments can change, so if you wait too long it may be much harder to get through to PR. Or something else could happen that impacts US-CA relations and immigration (i.e. NAFTA talks blows up; Trump does something really dumb). Plus the longer you wait, the less points you get due to age. Once you do get PR and do a soft landing, you always have up to 3 years to move, really. So it's not like doing it now just to get it done will be all that detrimental.

Barring your real issue that is, which is your bosses find out and having a problem with it. Since you work at a very large corporation, chances of your boss finding out are fairly slim as you can work with Central HR directly (the further removed from your work area, the better!). If they do find out you can just hope for the best and make sure they understand this is you "planning for the future" and that you may not move at all (come up with a story line, just in case). But you'd need to keep in the back of your head that worse case scenario, some managers/companies are total jerks and they might let you go.

You could always try to get your work validated via showing paystubs, and other means. But I believe that that's harder to do.

On a personal note, we decided it was worth it to take the risk of my wife's bosses finding out. She went through central HR at her workplace (not her immediate contact), and we did our soft-landing last December with her bosses being none the wiser (it's really none of their business, anyway :) ).
 

moose17

Hero Member
Jun 30, 2017
277
227
@northern sunshine, I have friends who work in HR who assured me that requesting a generic proof of employment letter should be no problem. They're used regularly for loans and things. My husband stuck to saying it was for a financial matter I believe (which is basically true, it's one facet of our choice to move) and if asked more, which he wasn't, he would have said I was considering getting a loan to start a business to expand on my freelance work and "you know those banks want everything but your first born!" (as my therapist put it haha). His company is small but their HR is very discreet and slipped him the letter the same day he requested it. She even redid it a few weeks later when we realized a date had a typo without issue.

Of course, some wouldn't be okay with a made-up story about a loan but it's completely valid to say it's a personal matter and refuse more, it's no one else's business either way. The other thing is in a case where you're not moving immediately, there won't be anything suspicious besides the letter itself since you won't be dealing with major move-related things anywhere near the same time so even if anyone side-eyes the letter, when your work goes on as normal for months after anyone wondering will stop.

Also, I was reassured by a few people that even with more info, the company was unlikely to let my husband go. Granted, that could easily be company and industry specific but in his case it was very unlikely that they would have done so. At most he may have risked not getting a promotion (not that his company's structure even had room for that), but that was about it.

All that said, the employment verification call for our rental in Toronto happened a week the lovely discreet HR person wasn't there and the call got taken by one of the company's owners :eek: On top of that, the questions apparently were more like those a potential new employer would ask, so things got awkward FAST and he had to reveal our move plans a few weeks earlier than intended. Luckily they were great about it! But yeah, just make sure to time asking for a letter for when HR's actually around ;). We didn't have the luxury of timing the rental call (got a great one we wouldn't have passed up for that issue) so take advantage of what control you have earlier on!

@Ang&Guille, everything I've read says you need the title in hand for exporting/importing the car. If you end up being able to make that work, I have the same car as you if you want to talk modification issues. It looks like we have most if not all of the necessary things already. Have you looked at that at all? I hope I'm right on that. It'd be nice to need no more than a front license plate holder added (my state only does back plates).
 

northern sunshine

Hero Member
Mar 22, 2017
674
715
USA
Category........
FSW
Visa Office......
Ottawa
NOC Code......
2112
App. Filed.......
12-06-2018
AOR Received.
12-06-2018
Med's Done....
02-06-2018
Passport Req..
26-07-2018
LANDED..........
23-02-2019
Thank you for sharing your experiences. :) It makes me feel a lot better about the whole deal. Bonus: I was (finally) able to track down the original job postings for the two positions I've held over the past few years thanks to habitually saving semi-important documents in hard-to-remember places, so requesting the letters from HR should be fairly easy.

@JERiv , not to worry, I still have a few years to go before the points start dropping off for age! ;)
 

moose17

Hero Member
Jun 30, 2017
277
227
Thank you for sharing your experiences. :) It makes me feel a lot better about the whole deal. Bonus: I was (finally) able to track down the original job postings for the two positions I've held over the past few years thanks to habitually saving semi-important documents in hard-to-remember places, so requesting the letters from HR should be fairly easy.

@JERiv , not to worry, I still have a few years to go before the points start dropping off for age! ;)
That's great! My husband had saved his original job description too so he was able to attach that in his request to HR and they just copy and pasted it, no need to talk to his boss or anything. Casual as I am about this now, I'll admit we were terrified at the time. I couldn't believe when my husband came home for lunch with the letter and that was that! Until we noticed the typo lol, but that was no problem either.
 

Mthornt

Hero Member
Dec 28, 2015
817
207
Canada
One thing to remember when getting your document is to make sure the duties/description of the role closely matches the NOC code for which you are using. I've seen people in the forum talk about them getting rejected even with having the same job title, if the description doesn't match.