Wait times and choosing inland or outland

[dutchct]

So some background first, my girlfriend is currently on a one year experience Canada work visa, that she received in August 2014. We've been living together since May 2014. We met in New Zealand Janurary 2014. She is of Japanese nationality.

We are planning to get married to help out with getting her a Canadian PR but will also allow me to live and work in Japan in the future. I'm planning on sponsoring her.

Now for the wait times.


Inland: Right now according to the cic website, the wait time is 14 months for initial assessment and 8 months for step 2. I take this to mean it would take 22 months for her to get PR?

I've read on this forum that first approval (and thus work permit) tends to come around 6-8 months. Is this still accurate, or is it more like 14 months?


Outland: Since she is Japanese it looks like she has to go through the Manila office(?), which currently has a 15 month processing time.

Is this processing time the time it will take for her to get PR? Will she still be able to get first approval and a work permit earlier on?


If she wants to keep working after her Experience Canada visa expires and doesn't get first approval in time, does she have any other options to pursue a visa to continue working?

 

[MilesAway]

For inland: no, 6-8 months is not accurate. 14 months is the timeline for past applicants, and the trend has been increasing, so it may be even longer by the time you apply. So 2 years would probably be on the lower end.

For outland: 15 months is the upper end, because that's the time it takes to process 80% of the applications, meaning that most people will have a lower number than that. Visa-exempt applicants tend to go a bit faster, and face less scrutiny. If you apply outland, there is no work permit. In order to keep working, her employer would need to get a LMIA and she could then apply for a work permit. Finding an employer willing and able to obtain that is much easier said than done.

 

[Aussam]

Keep in mind it takes about 3 months from the date you get married to the time you'll get the Marriage Certificate.
It would be much more straight forward if you were married and applied for spousal sponsorship opposed to Common-Law ( living together for a minimum 1 year) and heaps more for Conjugal (Reasons beyond control that you cannot live together or get married)
Definitely apply OUTLAND though! More often than not, you'll receive your PR and able to work than INLAND's 1st stage approval.
Take a look at one of the Manilla threads to get a better idea on how long the process will take …

http://www.canadavisa.com/canada-immigration-discussion-board/manila-tread-for-english-speakers-join-here-t123646.0.html

It will take some time, maybe a month, for police certificates as well.
As what MilesAway has said the only way is to get a LMO number from her employer she is currently working for (reasonably possible depending on what she does for a job but will take about 3-4 months) or from a new employer (nearly impossible)
Your girlfriend won't be able to work past the end date of her IEC. You cannot bridge with an IEC as well so she will have to apply for a Visitor visa before it expires. I don't believe she can get another IEC either.

 

[Kayaker]

As Miles Away said, Inland processing times have gone up drastically, so unless a divine miracle happens, I don't think people applying now would get their PR in less than 2 years. Keep in mind that she should not leave Canada for any reason while her PR is processing. People are often caught in a dilemma when an emergency happens and they want to go back home, but are afraid to.

Many (maybe a bit over half) applicants who go through the Manila VO get their PR in about 7 or 8 months. As a Japanese person being sponsored by a Canadian living in Canada, the chances of her being finished in that time is extremely high. (CIC seems to scrutinize couples who live outside Canada more - they're not convinced the couple Are moving back to Canada.) And yes, Japanese applicants get less scrutiny because cases of immigration fraud by Japanese citizens is very rare.

I don't know when you are getting married, and yes, as Aussam pointed out, marriage certificates seem to take a while to obtain, plus she would have to have her koseki changed in Japan. She can do that by going to the consulate here, but all that takes a while. So I don't know when you guys will be able to apply, so I am not sure if she will have her PR and be able to work before her IEC expires. (Well if she applied today, she probably could, but I am guessing it's going to take you a while to get married and get all the documents together.) In any case, she will have to stop working when her IEC expires and apply to change her status to that of a visitor. (You can do it online and it's easy.)

So if she applies Inland, she might be able to get first stage approval (which comes with Open Work Permit) after about 14 months, or 18 months, or whatever it will be by the time her application comes to the front of the queue. Then it will be 8 months or so until she gets PR and can leave with country. Unfortunately, at the time you apply, you will have no idea how long you will wait. The "processing times" on CIC's website is PAST statistics. It is not a forecast. Many people waiting over a year today applied when CIC said the processing time was 7 months. Since then, it has gone up to 14 months and counting.

If she applies Outland, she might be able to get PR in about 8 months, and there will be no travel restrictions. She can come and go as she pleases.

On a related note, I applied in February 2014, came to Canada in March 2014 and stayed here as a visitor until I got PR after 7 months. I crossed the land border to the US to do my landing in October 2014 and became a PR. I just got my PR card now, and I've had my driver's license, SIN and Ontario Health Card for a while. I'm from Japan, and my husband lived in Canada when I applied for PR. First marriage for both of us, no dependents.

 

[dutchct]

Thank you for your detailed and articulate replies!

 

[screech339]

If I am reading your post right, you said you got 1 year experience Canada work permit. Sounds like an IEC work visa. You won't get "implied status" to continue working past IEC expire date even if you submitted OWP with the inland application. You would have to quit working on last day of IEC and get "implied status" as a visitor only.

Screech339