Working holiday to permanent resident. Advise needed.

[wenwenwen13]

Hi there,
I am currently working in Canada on a working holiday visa. I will be marrying a Canadian before my visa expires. I've seen on the website that it can take a couple of years to get permanent residency. So even though I will be married to a Canadian, will I still have to leave Canada once my visa expires?
Advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[taffy7]

what country are your from . You can apply for a visitors visa. As soon as you marry you can apply for spousal sponsorship. If you having been living as common law for 12 months you can apply now . Two ways to apply inland or outland. You can still stay in Canada on an outland application but only as a visitor .

 

[wenwenwen13]

I am from Australia. We have been living together for over 12 months.
So I am unable to continue working when my working visa runs out even though I will be married and have applied for spousal sponsorship?

 

[scylla]

I am from Australia. We have been living together for over 12 months.
So I am unable to continue working when my working visa runs out even though I will be married and have applied for spousal sponsorship?

Working holiday visas cannot be extended and you will have to stop working once the visa expires UNLESS you have a new and approved work permit in hand before your IEC expires. There are basically two ways you can get a new and approved work permit before your IEC expires.

Have your employer obtain an approved LMIA and provide you with a full time job offer, you can then apply for a closed work permit tied to that specific employer. Note that this process will take several months. Unless you have at least six months to spare - I wouldn't count on this working.

Have your common law partner sponsor you using the inland route and include an open work permit with the application. The open work permit will be approved around four months after your application is received. Downside is that the inland route takes and extremely long time to process and you are not supposed to leave Canada while it's ongoing. You would most likely be far better off applying outland.

 

[Quink]

Check out the elegibility criteria for the IEC for Australian Citizens: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/work/iec/index.asp?country=au&cat=wh

This bit is worth noting:
"If you participated in IEC before 2015, you are eligible for a final participation of up to 24 months in the category of your choice."

So my understanding is that you can apply for one more IEC visa, which will give you another 24 months of work and plenty of time to wait for the sponsorship permanent residency.

I'm not 100% sure of the finer details of doing that, but it's worth a bit of research because it'll totally solve your problem.

 

[wenwenwen13]

Thank you all very much.