Can I work in Canada for a foreign company

[GavinSouthAfrica]

I'm in the EE pool for now but I'm looking to move to Canada before my ITA is called etc.

So I'm wondering how I can do this.

I am a Software Engineer for a company based in South Africa but we are launching our product in multiple countries and I'm in the lucky position of being able to work remotely.

I'm a UK citizen with the full passport

What I'd like to do is move to Ontario and work there for my company, they will be paying my salary into the Canadian bank account obviously.

Is there a visa option open to me in this scenario? I'm not looking to work for a Canadian company for the foreseeable future but I am pushing my company to launch their product in Canada as well in the next 18 months.

I have a wife and 2 kids. Masters degree and enough funds to meet the EE requirement.

Any advice?

 

[Bs65]

Others can comment but there is no specific visa that would support this and whilst technically as long as you had zero Canadian clients you could continue working remotely for a company outside Canada whilst a visitor probably not advisable with an EE application in process given immigration may take that as you are planning to actually live in Canada as a visitor ahead of any EE decision.

Add to that getting paid into a Canadian bank account could back up this impression that you plan to outstay your welcome as a visitor which by the way there is no guarantee that you would get a full 6 months on entry arriving with wife and 2 kids as visitors maybe with no ties in Canada nor that you could guarantee extending more than once or at all without a good case.

I guess it is a matter of if you believe you qualify for EE then why risk an application by possibly circumventing the system, what is the rush ?

Some people might suggest If 30 or under apply for an IEC permit which allows you to work in Canada although dependants cannot be part of the IEC application so they would need to apply for entry separately. Apart from fact this years program is either full or about to close not sure about impact to applying and having an EE on the go in parallel.