Refused express entry

[gerrylyons]

Living and working in Ontario for the last 10.5 years. I applied for my PR in March 2020 through my lawyer and only got an answer yesterday. I have a closed visa and can only work for my company which is named on my visa. The lawyer said that because i receive a T4 and a salary i was employed and not self employed. Immigration said i was self employed and refused my application. The lawyers say i can reapply as self employed but it takes 37 months and i don't think i can go through the English test shit and medicine all over again as I'm now 53 and my life has been on hold long enough.
Arrived in Canada from Ireland with my family 2011 when my chgrildren were 10 and 12 now 21 and 23. My daughter is in university and my son had to turn down a police job because the PR was rejected. My son would now be aged out of any other PR applications because he is over 22. I employee 24 Canadians at present and before the pandemic it was 35. I have paid wages of over $900,000 in the last 4 years but all of that means jack. Looks like we will have to sell up and move and start again not something i really want to do at 53.
If anyone has any Ideas please let me know.

 

[scylla]

Living and working in Ontario for the last 10.5 years. I applied for my PR in March 2020 through my lawyer and only got an answer yesterday. I have a closed visa and can only work for my company which is named on my visa. The lawyer said that because i receive a T4 and a salary i was employed and not self employed. Immigration said i was self employed and refused my application. The lawyers say i can reapply as self employed but it takes 37 months and i don't think i can go through the English test shit and medicine all over again as I'm now 53 and my life has been on hold long enough.
Arrived in Canada from Ireland with my family 2011 when my chgrildren were 10 and 12 now 21 and 23. My daughter is in university and my son had to turn down a police job because the PR was rejected. My son would now be aged out of any other PR applications because he is over 22. I employee 24 Canadians at present and before the pandemic it was 35. I have paid wages of over $900,000 in the last 4 years but all of that means jack. Looks like we will have to sell up and move and start again not something i really want to do at 53.
If anyone has any Ideas please let me know.

Have you ordered your GCMS notes? Has the lawyer shared the refusal letter with you? Did your lawyer receive any additional information requests or a PFL during the processing of your application? If so, what did those letters say and request?

Do you have your own company? I'm a bit confused by that since you say you employ 24 people.

Has your lawyer talked about the possibility of an appeal?

 

[Copingwithlife]

Living and working in Ontario for the last 10.5 years. I applied for my PR in March 2020 through my lawyer and only got an answer yesterday. I have a closed visa and can only work for my company which is named on my visa. The lawyer said that because i receive a T4 and a salary i was employed and not self employed. Immigration said i was self employed and refused my application. The lawyers say i can reapply as self employed but it takes 37 months and i don't think i can go through the English test shit and medicine all over again as I'm now 53 and my life has been on hold long enough.
Arrived in Canada from Ireland with my family 2011 when my chgrildren were 10 and 12 now 21 and 23. My daughter is in university and my son had to turn down a police job because the PR was rejected. My son would now be aged out of any other PR applications because he is over 22. I employee 24 Canadians at present and before the pandemic it was 35. I have paid wages of over $900,000 in the last 4 years but all of that means jack. Looks like we will have to sell up and move and start again not something i really want to do at 53.
If anyone has any Ideas please let me know.

Do you own this company that issued this T4 ?

On the articles of incorporation, are you listed as the owner/director?

or

Are you an employee of said company ?
Big difference

if you got laid off , would you be eligible for EI ? If yes , you’re an employee

If no, due to you owning this company, then a arms length relationship doesn’t exist . Are you signing the T2 when it’s filed ?

 

[armoured]

At minimum I would suggest speaking to a different lawyer.

It sounds like your current lawyer decided to see if he could get around the self-employed restrictions for that program, and blew it. Or worse, didn't know about them.

 

[gerrylyons]

Have you ordered your GCMS notes? Has the lawyer shared the refusal letter with you? Did your lawyer receive any additional information requests or a PFL during the processing of your application? If so, what did those letters say and request?

Do you have your own company? I'm a bit confused by that since you say you employ 24 people.

Has your lawyer talked about the possibility of an appeal?

My lawyer is away until Tuesday. I have a copy of all letters as i have access to the cic online account.
We received a e mail from immigration called Procedural fairness on Jan 11th 2022. Lawyer replied to this within the time frame allowed. This was the only extra information that we were asked for over the 2 years.
Yes i own the company that issued the T4 and employee 24 people in 2021. I own 51% of the company and my wife owns 49% of the company. My company was set up in early 2011 before we came to Canada.

 

[gerrylyons]

At minimum I would suggest speaking to a different lawyer.

It sounds like your current lawyer decided to see if he could get around the self-employed restrictions for that program, and blew it. Or worse, didn't know about them.

At this stage i'm on my 4th lawyer as most of them don't understand what they are doing and give you bad advice. They just want a their fee before they talk to you and do nothing after that. This lawyer only does immigration and seem to know what he was doing. I don't think they understand that really they are playing with peoples lives.

 

[scylla]

My lawyer is away until Tuesday. I have a copy of all letters as i have access to the cic online account.
We received a e mail from immigration called Procedural fairness on Jan 11th 2022. Lawyer replied to this within the time frame allowed. This was the only extra information that we were asked for over the 2 years.
Yes i own the company that issued the T4 and employee 24 people in 2021. I own 51% of the company and my wife owns 49% of the company. My company was set up in early 2011 before we came to Canada.

In that case the refusal makes more sense. It does in fact seem to be quite clear that you were seft employed unfortunately.

Was this under CEC? (I assume so.) What exactly was the content of the PFL? Was it around not being able to claim your work experience under CEC due to it being self-employment? This would make sense. How did your lawyer try to argue this? The PFL letter is effectively an intent to deny communication so I assume there was a significant package of information that your laywer submitted to argue otherwise. Having said that, given the information you've provided (and assuming I've guessed correctly this was under CEC), I think it would be extremely difficult to argue that you are no self-employed.

Sorry if I missed this earlier, do you still hold a valid work permit? Also, what province are you in?

 

[scylla]

At this stage i'm on my 4th lawyer as most of them don't understand what they are doing and give you bad advice. They just want a their fee before they talk to you and do nothing after that. This lawyer only does immigration and seem to know what he was doing. I don't think they understand that really they are playing with peoples lives.

Following up on my post above, if I'm right that you tried to apply under CEC, then your lawyer should have frankly known that your employment would be classified as self-employment. You own the company, so what else would it be? IMO a good lawyer would have understood this path wasn't going to work, not even pursued it, and looked for other options (e.g. PNP).

Do let us know if your work permit is still valid and which province you are in.

 

[scylla]

The lawyers say i can reapply as self employed but it takes 37 months and i don't think i can go through the English test shit and medicine all over again as I'm now 53 and my life has been on hold long enough.

I was just re-reading your first post. What business area are you in? The true self-employment stream is extremely restrictive in what occupations are allowed (my guess is that it's unlikely you would qualify). More likely, you would need to look at the Start Up Visa stream which does have long processing times and also has a mandatory requirement of finding a designated organization (basically an angel investor) who is willing to support your application and invest in your idea. This isn't a stream where you can go at it alone.

 

[gerrylyons]

I was just re-reading your first post. What business area are you in? The true self-employment stream is extremely restrictive in what occupations are allowed (my guess is that it's unlikely you would qualify). More likely, you would need to look at the Start Up Visa stream which does have long processing times and also has a mandatory requirement of finding a designated organization (basically an angel investor) who is willing to support your application and invest in your idea. This isn't a stream where you can go at it alone.

My company has some property and a pub restaurant.

 

[scylla]

My company has some property and a pub restaurant.

Yeah - so that won't meet the requirements of the Self Employment stream. This program has the following requirements to qualify:

Relevant experience
Your experience is relevant if you have:

• taken part in cultural activities or athletics at a world-class level or
• been a self-employed person in cultural activities or athletics

https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/self-employed/eligibility.html

You would need to look at the Start Up Visa immigration program:

https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/start-visa/about.html

 

[gerrylyons]

Following up on my post above, if I'm right that you tried to apply under CEC, then your lawyer should have frankly known that your employment would be classified as self-employment. You own the company, so what else would it be? IMO a good lawyer would have understood this path wasn't going to work, not even pursued it, and looked for other options (e.g. PNP).

Do let us know if your work permit is still valid and which province you are in.

Work permit is still valid until March 22nd 2022. Im i right in understanding that under a restricted visa that i have and can only work for my own company that you are not allowed to apply for express?

 

[gerrylyons]

Do you own this company that issued this T4 ?

On the articles of incorporation, are you listed as the owner/director?

or

Are you an employee of said company ?
Big difference

if you got laid off , would you be eligible for EI ? If yes , you’re an employee

If no, due to you owning this company, then a arms length relationship doesn’t exist . Are you signing the T2 when it’s filed ?

Yes I'm employed by the company
The corporation would return a T2
I would not be able to get EI

 

[scylla]

Work permit is still valid until March 22nd 2022. Im i right in understanding that under a restricted visa that i have and can only work for my own company that you are not allowed to apply for express?

I don't know what kind of work permit you have. Assuming it's a closed work permit, then you can only work for the employer named in that work permit. You can't work for anyone else.

You can still claim points for your work experience in Canada but not as Canadian work experience under the CEC program. You would need to have enough points and be selected through the FSW stream of Express Entry (which hasn't had draws for over a year and will have very high scores once it reopens).

 

[scylla]

Work permit is still valid until March 22nd 2022. Im i right in understanding that under a restricted visa that i have and can only work for my own company that you are not allowed to apply for express?

So to clarify my post above, you can still apply under Express Entry, but it would need to be through the FSW stream and not CEC. Your EE profile should list the Canadian work experience as self employment.

The FSW stream through EE hasn't had a draw since Dec 2020 and scores will be 480+ once the program reopens. We don't know when the program will have the next draw. Most people here think the earliest that will happen is summer.