That is not correct. CBSA agents are also not immigration agents and often give out incorrect advise. If you want to work remotely you must contact IRCC and ask if you can work remotely and change the condition on your WP. If anyone on a WP could work remotely then you could work from another country not just another city in Canada. To get a WP you have to show why you need the employee to be in Canada. Anyone working remotely with another location specified on their WP is taking a huge risk.
LMIA Closed Work Permit: Can I work remotely from another province?
- Thread starter stnguyenvn
- Start date
You must follow the requirements on your WP or there can be consequences. There are no rules that you can work remotely as long aren't working from another office building. If you want to work remotely you should contact IRCC and ask whether you can change the terms of your WP. Remote work became much more common during Covid so we haven’t seen the repurcssions of people not meeting the conditions of their WP. There was likely also more flexibility during the height of covid when it came to people working remotely from other locations. Needing an employee to be physically in Canada is one of the reasons foreign nationals can get WPs. If you can work remotely the argument that you need to be in Canada diminishes dramatically. There are many people living in Asia while working for a North American employer and working EST or PST who start working in the middle of the night so if you can work remotely IRCC could deny your WP because you don’t need to be in Canada on a permanent basis. If you could work remotely from anywhere there wouldn’t be a location specified in your WP. Most employers want employees to meet the terms of their WP because they don’t want any issues getting WPs in the future. There have been posts from foreign nationals who wanted to work remotely from other regions of Canada and the employer’s lawyer told them they couldn’t because of the terms of their WP.
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Agree! Telus has been operating a call center in the Philippines for more than a decade now.
That's not true. Canada isn't just allowing immigrants to come because they need to be physically present in Canada to do their job. I was working perfectly for my employer for 11 months before I moved to Canada. And my Client Letter included NOTHING anout needing to be based here physically to do my job. The reason I gave was that I want to grow my skills and career via the engaging and including tech community in Canada. If what you say is true then they would have denied my Work Permit seeing that I was working without issues for the company already in my home country.
Also, if what you say is really true then the IRCC would not have written 'Work Remotely inAlberta' on my LMIA. The IRCC themselves approved me working remotely in Alberta and that is why it's could be on my LMIA.
You are forgetting about the taxes that we immigrants bring into Canada. That's money we would be paying to our home country instead and Canada is benefitting greatly from it.
For anyone wondering, just call IRCC and ask if it is okay to do so. I did so again today (December 19th) and they have confirmed again that you can work from a province or city different from the one on your Closed Work Permit as long as it is remote/online and not in-person. If IRCC themselves have confirmed it, what else do you want? To speak with the legislators themselves?!
Disclaimer: Things might be different if your employer is in Quebec or if you live in Quebec. So if you are or your employer is in Quebec then make sure to call IRCC yourself and confirm! I can confidently speak for my situation where my employer is in Ontario and I live in Alberta and similar situations not involving Quebec.
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You do know that when you call IRCC that you are talking to a telephone call centre, not an IRCC officer. The call centre regularly gives bad information. Most agents don’t know the specific rules and regulations or operational manuals. Read “location of work”.
https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/publications-manuals/operational-bulletins-manuals/temporary-residents/foreign-workers/eligibility/eligibility-admissibility-conditions-including-validity-period.html
Location of work (mandatory imposition)
Location of work must be imposed as a condition where an LMIA has been issued or where it is a requirement of the LMIA exemption [R185(b)(iii)].
For example, when an employer has several franchise locations but indicates only one location on the offer of employment submitted through the system, the work permit should reflect the physical location of work and restrict the work to that location. However, if the employer indicates in the offer of employment that the worker will be working at multiple work locations, the officer should not restrict the work permit to a single location and should indicate in the “Remarks” field that the worker is authorized to work at the various locations across Canada.
For LMIA - supported work permits: The officer should impose the location of work to match the destination on the LMIA. This is to ensure that the temporary worker is working in the same labour market area assessed by Employment and Social Development Canada.
For LMIA-exempt work permits: Where the location of work is important to the exemption (such as for provincial nominees or specific “significant benefit to Canada” situations), location must be imposed.
This time and in the past too, the agents at the IRCC Call centre put you on hold so they could go get the correct information (if they aren't sure). The back of your Work Permit literally says to call that number 'should you require clarification or additional information', so if you don't want to take the information they give, that's okay too. To each his own.
An added reason I believe there can always be exceptions (in this case, an exception to remote or online work in a different city), is that although the reference you provided above says 'The officer should impose the location of work to match the destination on the LMIA', my Work Permit did not infact match the destination on my LMIA...to which the officer said they couldn't change it and that it would be okay regardless.