Volunteering while waiting

[krishnalynn]

I am looking into doing a volunteer position to pass some time while I'm not working much and waiting for PR. I'm on a closed work permit now but I have downtime.

There's a registered charity that helps rescue animals here in town that needs a volunteer two days a week. There's no paid staff and the charity is run by volunteers only. I'm just getting a little nervous seeing all the other posts on here saying any volunteer work is illegal. Not sure how correct this is. It does say on CIC's website that charitable volunteering is allowed, but volunteering is not allowed if it takes important experience away from a Canadian. This is pretty general...people could put anything on their resume? Their examples for what's allowed are working at a crisis center or building houses for Habitat for Humanity, but someone in psychology or a non-profit industry could use that experience too? Maybe I'm overthinking it. The place I want to volunteer at has a lot of random people who want to volunteer there so they can't take everyone.

Anyone have any experience with this? It would really boost my mood to help out a charity I believe in.

 

[canuck_in_uk]

You cannot take a paid position away from a Canadian citizen/PR. As this charity has no paid staff, there is no risk of that and you can most definitely go ahead and volunteer there.