Coming on a visitor visa for inland application?

[dominokitty]

We'd like to apply inland so that my husband can work in Canada sooner on the pilot program- he is the main breadwinner in our family and I am a student, our alternative plan is to apply outland and have him here unemployed until the PR goes through... not ideal.. we'd have to live with my parents..

Can someone explain to me how that works as far as crossing into Canada goes? He comes from a visa exempt country if that matters. Will he be refused entry into Canada for telling the border control people the truth (that he intends to apply for PR inland)? Are they trying to encourage people to lie? How do we do this the right way? It will also be the first time he enters Canada as my husband. The last time he was here was when we got married. Will the border experience be different this time?

 

[Rob_TO]

While you must not lie to CBSA, at the same time you don't need to offer up information unless they ask specifically. So you definitely do NOT need to bring up the fact you intend to apply inland for PR to stay permanently in Canada. I would leave out any mention of an inland application since it may complicate things. If asked specifically about applying for PR, you can say you're considering it or it's a possibility.

So even though he's coming with intention to stay forever, he needs to act like a visitor. So things like bringing luggage typical of a visitor, having funds to support his stay, and showing he will leave after 6 months so having a return airplane ticket. Of course once in Canada, it's then perfectly fine to apply for inland PR.

Also I would be cautious around relying on a quick OWP with an inland app. As of now we are just going by CIC's promise to issue OWPs within 4 months of applying inland. Nobody has actually received an OWP yet that applied after the pilot program was announced. In reality who knows what issuing times will be, or if the times to OWP may start climbing up. For a visa-exempt applicant, an outland app may still be the better choice. Could be a couple months later to start working, but a couple years quicker to get PR.