Canada Immigration expo (London) - feedback

[Cappuccino]

Hi, just thought I'd give a little feedback into the Canada expo myself and my wife went to yesterday in London. I must say overall we were quite disappointed. There were 2 Canada seminars both run by immigration lawyers


The first talk was from Willis Brazolot & Co, and this talk was very well done and probably very useful for anyone not fully understanding the various ways you can immigrate to Canada. A couple of useful pieces of information I got from the questions at the end:

1) As of 2 weeks ago, London office had not received any post-June-26 applications (although we figured as much given no-one has received an AOR yet!). He said he was also fairly sure none of the other visa offices have either.

2) I asked a question about the NOC duties and how many of these it was necessary to fill. He said the immigration officer will evaluate each applicant's duties on their full merits, but that the NOC duties are listed in order of importance. Therefore if say there are 8 duties listed, you are far more likely to be accepted if you have experience in the first 3 or 4 duties than if you have experience only in the latter 3 or 4 etc. The operation manual says you must have the "essential" duties therefore I think having experience in at least the first couple of duties of each list are fairly necessary.

3) If you apply via provincial nomination, you are not tied to that province at all once you get your visa, you just have to stay there during the application process.


The second talk was from Goldman Associates, and this I must admit was a real let-down. This guy is not only an immigration lawyer but also runs an employment agency. From start to finish he really slammed the Federal Skilled Worker system category 1, slating it as a "lottery" and he doesn't like selling lottery tickets. The figures he gave were misleading because he said that last year there was 200,000 immigrants from FSW1 and this years there will only be 20,000 therefore 90% will be rejected. This IMO is not true at all. The FIRST 20,000 eligible applications will be accepted and then CIC will close their doors, and also the 20,000 limit is for principal applicants and not for total immigrants, so it is more likely to be around 70,000. He was more or less incinuating that 10% of the applications received would be approved almost by random "luck".

Reading between the lines I think he was pushing for people to get a job first, via his agency of course, since then he could get the extortionate fees for getting your visa AND also get fees via his employment agency from the employers.

He was also very vague regarding questions I asked him. Like I asked when they would could an FSW1 application towards the 1000/20000 cap and he just said "when they look at it". I asked whether it would be after the completeness check or the eligibility review and he didn't look like he had heard of either, and just said "well, ... erm... eligibility review".

After the talks we went round the various stalls there. We were hoping for at least 1 or 2 job related Canada stalls. 75% of the stalls were for Australia and New Zealand, and there were no job stalls at all for Canada. We did get some useful information regarding finances/moving money, shipping costs and also pet relocation. One potentially interesting stall was a healthcare stall for Canada, and by the time we got there (early afternoon on the Sunday) it had already closed!

The tickets were £15 each, and IMO were a bit of a rip-off. In hindseight I really wish we had gone a few weeks earlier to Canada-live. It wasn't a complete waste of time but like I say we were slightly disappointed!

Wayne.

 

[BobbyB]

Sorry, but what use are these EXPO's, when they have more than enough applicants already on their database that they are not able to process their applications in a timely fashion. I mean they are trying to sell a "commodity" which a lot of buyers have already paid for, but not received anything. Is it for business purposes?

 

[wxyz123]

Hi, just thought I'd give a little feedback into the Canada expo myself and my wife went to yesterday in London. I must say overall we were quite disappointed. There were 2 Canada seminars both run by immigration lawyers


The first talk was from Willis Brazolot & Co, and this talk was very well done and probably very useful for anyone not fully understanding the various ways you can immigrate to Canada. A couple of useful pieces of information I got from the questions at the end:

1) As of 2 weeks ago, London office had not received any post-June-26 applications (although we figured as much given no-one has received an AOR yet!). He said he was also fairly sure none of the other visa offices have either.

2) I asked a question about the NOC duties and how many of these it was necessary to fill. He said the immigration officer will evaluate each applicant's duties on their full merits, but that the NOC duties are listed in order of importance. Therefore if say there are 8 duties listed, you are far more likely to be accepted if you have experience in the first 3 or 4 duties than if you have experience only in the latter 3 or 4 etc. The operation manual says you must have the "essential" duties therefore I think having experience in at least the first couple of duties of each list are fairly necessary.

3) If you apply via provincial nomination, you are not tied to that province at all once you get your visa, you just have to stay there during the application process.


The second talk was from Goldman Associates, and this I must admit was a real let-down. This guy is not only an immigration lawyer but also runs an employment agency. From start to finish he really slammed the Federal Skilled Worker system category 1, slating it as a "lottery" and he doesn't like selling lottery tickets. The figures he gave were misleading because he said that last year there was 200,000 immigrants from FSW1 and this years there will only be 20,000 therefore 90% will be rejected. This IMO is not true at all. The FIRST 20,000 eligible applications will be accepted and then CIC will close their doors, and also the 20,000 limit is for principal applicants and not for total immigrants, so it is more likely to be around 70,000. He was more or less incinuating that 10% of the applications received would be approved almost by random "luck".

Reading between the lines I think he was pushing for people to get a job first, via his agency of course, since then he could get the extortionate fees for getting your visa AND also get fees via his employment agency from the employers.

He was also very vague regarding questions I asked him. Like I asked when they would could an FSW1 application towards the 1000/20000 cap and he just said "when they look at it". I asked whether it would be after the completeness check or the eligibility review and he didn't look like he had heard of either, and just said "well, ... erm... eligibility review".

After the talks we went round the various stalls there. We were hoping for at least 1 or 2 job related Canada stalls. 75% of the stalls were for Australia and New Zealand, and there were no job stalls at all for Canada. We did get some useful information regarding finances/moving money, shipping costs and also pet relocation. One potentially interesting stall was a healthcare stall for Canada, and by the time we got there (early afternoon on the Sunday) it had already closed!

The tickets were £15 each, and IMO were a bit of a rip-off. In hindseight I really wish we had gone a few weeks earlier to Canada-live. It wasn't a complete waste of time but like I say we were slightly disappointed!

Wayne.

i think a total waste of time and money all these consultants and expos. every inforamtion is available on internet. why you be going there in the first place?