Hi everyone, new to posting on here and hoping I can get some help on this subject as I haven't been able to get a clear answer from the CIC Call Center.
A little bit of backstory though:
My now-husband moved to Canada in December 2014 from the USA under the premise he would be able to get a job with a company that a mutual friend of ours worked for. The job market suddenly busted and that company ended up having to lay off their current workers instead of hiring new ones. Where we lived at the time, the job market was already in the decline so it was hard to find a company that would apply for LMIA for him and we couldn't move because of my job. We decided we would just wait out the 1 year period before I can sponsor him for permanent residency.
The one year passed but we went through a traumatic experience causing the whole city to evacuate due to a wildfire and that significantly delayed our residency process until around now because we have had to stay away from our home for months, live through our savings, and try saving up again after we settled into a new place back in August. Not to mention, we found out I was expecting and am due in March.
We also made the choice to get married in October as we have always discussed being married before having children and the pregnancy was an unexpected surprise. A lot of things came into the picture to delay our savings, still being on only one income.
What I'm getting at is, I called the CIC Call Center and the agent told us that since we are able to apply for Family Class Sponsorship, hubby can also apply for an open work permit at the same time so he can work while we get his application processed. The only thing is, where do I find an open work permit application for him to fill out? Everytime we try to get one online, it tells us he goes through the Family Class Sponsorship application. Do we have to pay the extra work permit fees at the same time of our application? We have everything together, just trying to figure out the work permit situation because I am going to be on maternity leave soon and that reduced income will not be able to support our monthly bills and a new baby. I'm hoping with my well-written support letter and our complete application, he would be able to get a work permit expedited as we got his visitor visa expedited during the whole ordeal with the wildfire.
Any insight into this would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
A little bit of backstory though:
My now-husband moved to Canada in December 2014 from the USA under the premise he would be able to get a job with a company that a mutual friend of ours worked for. The job market suddenly busted and that company ended up having to lay off their current workers instead of hiring new ones. Where we lived at the time, the job market was already in the decline so it was hard to find a company that would apply for LMIA for him and we couldn't move because of my job. We decided we would just wait out the 1 year period before I can sponsor him for permanent residency.
The one year passed but we went through a traumatic experience causing the whole city to evacuate due to a wildfire and that significantly delayed our residency process until around now because we have had to stay away from our home for months, live through our savings, and try saving up again after we settled into a new place back in August. Not to mention, we found out I was expecting and am due in March.
We also made the choice to get married in October as we have always discussed being married before having children and the pregnancy was an unexpected surprise. A lot of things came into the picture to delay our savings, still being on only one income.
What I'm getting at is, I called the CIC Call Center and the agent told us that since we are able to apply for Family Class Sponsorship, hubby can also apply for an open work permit at the same time so he can work while we get his application processed. The only thing is, where do I find an open work permit application for him to fill out? Everytime we try to get one online, it tells us he goes through the Family Class Sponsorship application. Do we have to pay the extra work permit fees at the same time of our application? We have everything together, just trying to figure out the work permit situation because I am going to be on maternity leave soon and that reduced income will not be able to support our monthly bills and a new baby. I'm hoping with my well-written support letter and our complete application, he would be able to get a work permit expedited as we got his visitor visa expedited during the whole ordeal with the wildfire.
Any insight into this would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
