HELP

[kennyb]

Hello.....

I am hoping for someone to give me some sort of guidance on this immigration process, as I am completely clueless and calling the immigration offices in Canada has gotten me nowhere. So I was hoping I could just tell the story and some kind soul could tell me what the best/quickest possible avenue is to take for my boyfriend (German) and I (Canadian) to live together in Canada. Keep in mind we know absolutely nothing about immigration thus far and honestly I find the Canadian immigration website extremely hard to navigate (links everywhere).

So my boyfriend and I have not quite been together for a year yet, however he has wanted to move to Canada for quite some time now. (I met him on one of his trips here). He is willing to do whatever it takes to gain permanent residency here in Canada however we don't know what the best way is for us as we don't qualify for Common Law (I'm not sure what the process would be for us to even live together for a year, so if anyone has information on that... if Common Law is our best option, I would appreciate it!) He is an apprenticed Mechanic and has worked his way up to become a project manager at a high end car factory in Germany. He has no current job offer at this time...and it appears to be almost impossible to get after many attempts.

So I guess this is just a desperate plea for anyone to give advice on what to do.. We have entertained many ideas (and are not sure if they're even possibilities) such as:

Work Permit and living together to achieve Common Law status in Canada
Express Entry - He has already written and achieved the appropriate bench mark in the IELTS test (but that's the only step we knew to take so far)
Finding a German company that might be willing to transfer to Canada
Getting a lawyer (or if this is possible to do on our own)

We know these avenues exist and are sure there are many more but we are not sure if any of these are viable options or if there is a better route.. and if so, how we go about doing it.

If anyone has ANY advice I would greatly appreciate it. We're willing to put the work in. It's one of those things where you know you met "the one", however getting married for the sole reason of a rapid immigration doesn't really feel right to either of us.

Thank you for your help! and if you need any further information feel free to ask!

 

[Leon]

This is possible to do on your own. You don't need a lawyer.

He can check on the self assessment for express entry if he has enough points. He might not have enough points without a job offer in which case he'd have to try to get one. If he gets one, he can also use that to apply for a skilled work permit in order to come to Canada sooner.

Or he can check if he qualifies for a working holiday visa. There are two types, working holiday and young workers. He can get the working holiday for one year, use that to secure a job and the next year he can apply as a young worker. That is if he qualifies. He can not be older than 35 for that.

If he qualifies, you can use that year to live together in Canada for one year to apply as common law and then you can apply to sponsor him. Or you get married and then you can sponsor him right away.

If he doesn't qualify, he'd be looking at securing a job, possibly as a mechanic, and trying to get a regular work permit which he could use to apply under express entry.

If he is not successful in getting a job and work permit nor can he apply for the working holiday, he can only visit you for up to 6 months at a time without working although he can extend his visit visa if he applies for it. You could still marry him and sponsor right away or use a visit visa for him to live with you in Canada for 12 months to qualify as common law. You could also split it up that you visit him and he visits you. You do not have to cohabit for 12 months in Canada, it can be split up between countries as long as you can prove it.