Help To Bring Girlfriend to Canada

[Kramerr]

Hi....

I have met a wonderful lady online. She is from the Ukraine but currently living in Poland. She currently has a Polish work visa. She has a university education in the field of English Teacher. What steps do I need to take in order to bring her here. Marriage in her country won't work due to my work here in Canada....I cannot take any long periods away from my job.

Any help with this matter is greatly appreciated.

 

[scylla]

Your girlfriend will need to apply for a TRV in order to come to Canada as a visitor. In order to be approved, she will have to convince CIC that she is a genuine temporary visitor, has strong ties to her home country / country of residence, and has no plans on remaining in Canada long term. If she is approved, she can come here and marry you so that you can sponsor her for permanent residency. I would recommend you not marry as soon as she arrives (wait a number of months or better yet - have her return home and get married on a subsequent visit). If you marry too quickly, CIC may not believe your marriage is genuine and may refuse you.

There is no guarantee the TRV will be approved. If it's not approved, you will have no choice but to travel to her in order to meet her and get married. Once again, I would very strongly recommend that you not get married the first time you meet her (visit her at least once, preferably twice, before getting married). If you get married on your first visit to see her, you'll likely run into issues sponsoring her later.

 

[Kramerr]

What about going the work visa or student visa route ???

I have already received her resume, cleaned it up and will be sending it out to various organizations.

The only other way I can think of is to enroll her in a program of study at one of the colleges where I live.......get her accepted and tell her to apply for a student visa.

 

[scylla]

What about going the work visa or student visa route ???

I have already received her resume, cleaned it up and will be sending it out to various organizations.

The only other way I can think of is to enroll her in a program of study at one of the colleges where I live.......get her accepted and tell her to apply for a student visa.

Assume getting a work permit will be very difficult. In order to obtain a work permit, she will first have to find an employer in Canada willing to offer her a full time job. That employer will then have to obtain an approved LMIA (permission to hire a foreign worker). As part of this process, they will have to advertise the job for at least a month to prove no Canadians could be found for the role and also pay a $1K processing fee. Processing for LMIAs can take four months or more and there's no guarantee of approval. Do not waste your time applying for teaching positions. Canada has way more teachers than roles and there is zero chance an LMIA is going to be approved for a teaching position. She should be looking for other employment if she wants to try to obtain a work permit.

Yes - she could go the study permit route. Note that she will have to pay foreign student fees. To be approved, she will first have to apply and be accepted by a school in Canada. The program she takes in Canada needs to make sense in light of her previous experience and education. So if she has a bachelors and teaches - then it would probably make sense for her to take a Masters in the education field in Canada. She could also try for a related post graduate diploma - although these have lower study permit approvals. To be approved for the study permit, she will need to demonstrate that she has strong ties to her home country and has no plans on remaining in Canada long term. Additionally, she will need to show she has sufficient funds to cover first year tuition + $10K in living exepenses (no - it doesn't matter if she is going to be living with you - she still has to have this amount available). So this means she will need to show at least $25K bank balance to be approved (more depending on her tuition). It's too late to obtain a study permit for January. So she would be looking at May or September if she wants to give this a go. She has lower chances of approval if she applies from Poland (since she doesn't have permanent residency there).

 

[scylla]

What about going the work visa or student visa route ???

I have already received her resume, cleaned it up and will be sending it out to various organizations.

The only other way I can think of is to enroll her in a program of study at one of the colleges where I live.......get her accepted and tell her to apply for a student visa.

Just to add... If you are interested in going the student permit route - I would encourage you to check out the posts in the International Students section of the forum. Reading through these will give you quite a bit of information about what it takes. And of course you should also check out the information available through the CIC web site.

 

[Kramerr]

What is the time frame to process a trv ??? Is it possible for a travel agency to handle the visa application and processing ??

 

[scylla]

Processing times for visitor visas by visa office are posted here:

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/information/times/temp/visitors.asp

Note that these are just approximations and processing times can vary from application to application.

Generally I would recommend that you handle the TRV submission on your own to ensure information is complete and accurate. However if you don't wish to do that, there are agencies that handle processing.