Extenuating circumstance - deceased Canadian spouse?

[squarian]

I am an American citizen.  I married my wife, a Canadian, in Calgary in 1999.  We settled in the US and in 2001 we had a daughter, who is a dual citizen. In 2005, due to complications in childbirth, my wife and our second child died. It was always our intention to return to Canada in due course to raise our family - we lived together in Canada for a period before our marriage, she came from an established (UEL) Canadian family, and it seemed inconceivable to her not to raise her children in her own country.  It has taken me the four years since her death to resolve some legal matters arising from her death and provide some stability to my daughter, but I would now like to raise her in her mother's homeland. 

I have read the CIC website regarding professional-class immigration, worked through the scoring calculator, and come up with a score of 76.  I am a university professor, clearly fall into the 4121 classification with a decade's full-time or full-time equivalent experience, but in a tight and competitive field where I am unlikely to find a comparable position in Canada.  I'm very willing to work in other fields.

My questions are:

1) Do I understand correctly that the professional class depends on verifiable past experience in one of the 38 categories, not necessarily on having a job offer in that field in hand?  In other words, would I be accepted for my experience even if I'm more likely to find work in a different (though related) field?

2) Under the provisions for "substitute evaluation" or otherwise, would it be beneficial to me to indicate that both my wife and daughter are Canadian citizens? 

[aghijan]

My questions are:

1) Do I understand correctly that the professional class depends on verifiable past experience in one of the 38 categories, not necessarily on having a job offer in that field in hand?  In other words, would I be accepted for my experience even if I'm more likely to find work in a different (though related) field?

2) Under the provisions for "substitute evaluation" or otherwise, would it be beneficial to me to indicate that both my wife and daughter are Canadian citizens? 

First of all, although very late, I am sorry for the loss.

1) Yes you do. You must qulify under one of the listed jobs regardless of having a job offer from a Canadian employer.

2) If you can prove the relationship, that I suppose you can, it would be beneficila to say your wife was and your daughter is Canadian citizens.