Wel­come to my new “How To… Canada” series! In this series, I’ll try to put my knowl­edge to good use and shed some light on my new coun­try: Canada. You will learn how some immi­gra­tion tips and tricks, how to improve your pro­fi­ciency in both offi­cial lan­guages, how to find a job, how to set­tle in Canada etc. I’ll pub­lish a new “How To… Canada” post every Saturday.

Inter­ested in immi­grat­ing to Canada? Just want to know more about your options? You came to the right place. To start the “How To… Canada” series, I’ll present you with dif­fer­ent immi­gra­tion options.

Immi­grat­ing to Canada means to become a landed immi­grant, and to obtain per­ma­nent res­i­dence. As a per­ma­nent res­i­dent, you can live, work and study any­where and in Canada, you can receive social ben­e­fits (includ­ing health care), and after a cer­tain period of time, you can apply to become a Cana­dian cit­i­zen. How­ever, you can not vote and you must meet some res­i­dency require­ments (being in Canada at least two years in a five years period).

Canada is an open coun­try, with a trans­par­ent immi­gra­tion pol­icy. Even though immi­grat­ing is chal­leng­ing for many rea­sons, it is usu­ally doable.

First of all, let’s tackle some mis­con­cep­tions about the immi­gra­tion process:

• Mar­ry­ing a Cana­dian cit­i­zen doesn’t make you a Cana­dian cit­i­zen your­self: it only allows you apply for immi­gra­tion… like every­body else.
• Hir­ing an immi­gra­tion lawyer/ lying about some facts/ being a cit­i­zen of X coun­try speeds up the immi­gra­tion process: hon­estly, the only thing that can speed it up is fill­ing up the forms prop­erly. And it’s chal­leng­ing enough.
• I might win the immi­gra­tion lot­tery: not you won’t. There is no immi­gra­tion lot­tery for Canada. The USA do have a Diver­sity Visa Pro­gram (which is free by the way, please don’t get scammed), basi­cally a visa lot­tery held every year. Not Canada.
• Canada is heaven on earth: maybe, but it’s bloody cold.

Now, because there are so many scams asso­ci­ated with the immi­gra­tion process, you main ref­er­ence web­site should always be the Min­istry of Cit­i­zen­ship and Immi­gra­tion Canada. Also keep in mind that immi­gra­tion poli­cies change quite often, so always get the lat­est informations.

There are basi­cally six immi­gra­tion cat­e­gories:

• Skilled work­ers
• Skilled work­ers selected by the province of Quebec
• Spon­sor­ship
• Investors
• Provin­cial nominees
• Canada also wel­comes refugees
  

The most com­mon cat­e­gories are the skilled-workers and the spon­sor­ship ones, so let’s have a look at how it works.

How to apply in the skilled worker cat­e­gory?

Basi­cally, you need to have at least one year paid work expe­ri­ence, and this expe­ri­ence must be on the on the Cana­dian National Occu­pa­tional Clas­si­fi­ca­tion. Fac­tors, such as your lan­guage pro­fi­ciency (Eng­lish or French), your age (ide­ally between 25 and 35…) and your adapt­abil­ity help a lot. All these fac­tors will be add up to a mark. The cur­rent pass mark is 67 (it changes often…). You can take a self-assessment test to see if you would qual­ify: Skilled work­ers and pro­fes­sion­als self-assessment test.

What’s the dif­fer­ence between the skilled worker cat­e­gory and the skilled work­ers selected by the province of Quebec?

Que­bec is a province of Canada, but it has the power to select its immi­grants. You will still have to have some work expe­ri­ence etc. and pass the Que­bec skilled-worker assess­ment. In addi­tion to the fed­eral require­ments, a step will be added in your immi­gra­tion, since you will have to obtain a CSQ (Cer­ti­fi­cat de Sélec­tion du Québec). You can eval­u­ate your chances to be selected by Que­bec through this self-assessment test. If you’re selected by the province of Que­bec and fol­low up the immi­gra­tion process, you will be a per­ma­nent res­i­dent in Canada, so you can live and work wher­ever you want. How­ever, when you’re selected by Que­bec, you will sign a moral agree­ment that you will set­tle in Que­bec.

Whether you immi­grate to Que­bec or apply directly on the fed­eral level for the other provinces, you will have to:

• Take a full med­ical exam (you will receive instruc­tion on where to take the exam)
• Show that you have the funds required to set­tle in Canada. This is to prove you will be able to sup­port your­self when you arrive to Canada. As of July 2008, it’s $10,168 for one per­son, $12,659 for a cou­ple etc. For Que­bec, it’s much less: about $5,000 for a coupe. Note that you should have much more funds than that because your first few months in Canada are always tough!
  

And how about sponsorship?

Spon­sor­ship is the best cat­e­gory for you is your spouse is Cana­dian. Your main goal here will be to show that your rela­tion­ship is gen­uine: how long do you know each other, where did you meet etc. Inter­views are quite com­mon to make sure it’s not a mar­riage in name only…

You don’t have to be mar­ried to be spon­sor: common-law part­ners can be spon­sored as well. How­ever, note that you will have to prove you lived together for at least one year con­tin­u­ously before you apply for per­ma­nent res­i­dence. If you were not able to live together for a valid rea­son (visa denied, work com­mit­ment etc.) you can apply as con­ju­gal part­ners. You will then have to build a very strong appli­ca­tion to show that you are indeed in a love relationship.

As an appli­cant, you will have to pass a med­ical exam.

You can also spon­sor fam­ily mem­bers: see the list of eli­gi­ble rel­a­tives.

How much does it cost?

• Pro­cess­ing fees: $550 per per­son for the skilled-workers, for the spon­sor­ship cat­e­gory it’s $75 + 475$
• Right of per­ma­nent res­i­dent fee: $490 per person
• Third party fees: don’t for­get the med­ical exam, doc­u­ments trans­la­tion if needed, lan­guage test if requested etc.

This is just to give you an idea, as there are lower fees for depen­dant chil­dren, other cat­e­gories etc.

How long does it take?

Big ques­tion! The CIC has an offi­cial appli­ca­tion pro­cess­ing time page. That said, it’s not always accu­rate. Some things can speed up your application:

• Make sure that all your forms are filled up and that you pro­vide cur­rent information
• Make sure you include all the doc­u­ments required (police cer­tifi­cate etc.)
• Make sure you jus­tify and explain any­thing out of the ordi­nary (appli­ca­tions never have enough room for more expla­na­tion, just attach another sheet of paper!)

On the other side, some fac­tors can slow down your application:

• Forms miss­ing informations
• Police clear­ance required from var­i­ous countries
• Pre­vi­ous denied applications

Expect a min­i­mum of 6–12 months to sev­eral years for your appli­ca­tion to be processed.

Apply­ing from inside Canada vs. from out­side Canada has long been debated. It seems that appli­ca­tions take longer if you’re already in Canada, but you might qual­ify for a tem­po­rary work visa mean­while. Both ways have their pros and cons.

Final advices…

The immi­gra­tion process is a jour­ney. It is very drain­ing to gather all the paper­work needed and to fill up the form (it took me sev­eral months!) but this is nec­es­sary to ensure you pro­vide all the infos needed. Wait­ing for your appli­ca­tion to be processed can be long too… use this time to research about set­tling in Canada, to improve your French or your Eng­lish, to apply for jobs and even­tu­ally… even­tu­ally you will get it.

I’m not an expert of course, but drop me a line if you have any question!

Related arti­cles:

1. If You Immi­grate To Que­bec (4÷10)
2. How Much Does Immi­grat­ing Really Cost? (5÷10)
3. How Long Does The Immi­gra­tion Process Take? (6÷10)
4. 10 Com­mon Immi­gra­tion Ques­tions (8÷10)
5. How To Learn More About Canada (10÷10)