The review of Canada’s 10-year tourist visa has been greatly accelerated, and tourists can use the travel-to-work policy to obtain immigration status

The speed of applying for a Canadian tourist visa from China has increased significantly. It used to take more than 400 days, but it recently dropped to 47 days. At this juncture, Canada's tourist visa has suddenly accelerated its approval process, which has also added a lot of flexibility to the majority of immigration applicants.

In August 2020, the Immigration Bureau launched a temporary policy for domestic online application for tourist visa to work visa, allowing domestic tourist groups to apply for work permit online, stay in Canada to work legally, and accumulate Canadian work experience. Then obtain Canadian permanent residence status (Maple Leaf Card) through provincial nomination or CEC. This temporary policy issued in August 2020 was originally planned to be closed on February 28, 2022, but now the Immigration Bureau has extended it again to February 28, 2023. This means that friends who hold a tourist visa (maintained status or restoration status also counts) can convert their tourist visa into a closed work visa in Canada before February 28, 2023.

What is a closed work permit?

Closed work permit is opposite to open work permit, so this temporary policy does not apply to open work permit (such as PGWP holders, spouse open work permit holders). Closed work permit employer-specific work permit can be divided into two categories: one is Lmia-supported, the other is lmia-exempt offer of employment (the employer needs to register the employee portal to obtain the Offer of employment number, and then the applicant takes the Offer of employment number to apply for a work permit. The most common one is to apply for a provincial nominee work permit). In most cases, it falls under the first category, which means the applicant needs to first obtain an offer from a Canadian employer, and then the employer applies for a labor approval letter Lmia before he or she can apply for a closed work permit.

Before the implementation of this temporary policy, overseas applicants have two ways to apply for a work permit:

1) When applying overseas, it is recommended to submit a language score of at least IELTS 5. (especially NOC 0AB positions) to prove whether you are qualified for the job and ensure that the work permit is successfully approved;

2) Entering Canada with a tourist visa and going to the border for an interview for a work permit, but not fully prepared, Applicants who have poor English expression skills (especially for NOC 0AB positions), are nervous on the spot, and have trouble answering questions will face great challenges;

Now that this policy is in place, it means that applicants with limited English proficiency , you can submit a work permit application online in Canada without submitting language scores, and you no longer have to take the risk of going to the border for an interview to change your work permit. After the applicant's LMIA is approved, he or she can submit an online work permit application through the support of the new policy, which solves the language barrier problem for most people.

Special Note:

This policy only allows closed work permits, that is, designated employers. This temporary policy not only limits work units, work locations and employers, but also limits positions. This means that you need the cooperation of your employer to be eligible to apply, and you cannot change employers and job positions without authorization while holding this work permit.

Applicants must meet the following conditions:

1) Be in Canada at the time of application;

2) Have valid visitor status in Canada at the time of application, including maintained status or restoration status. If your guest status has expired, you will need to restore your guest status before applying for a work permit. If the applicant has held a work permit in the past 12 months and later changed his status to a visitor because the work permit expired, he can apply for authorization to start working during the current work permit approval period;

3) Submit a work permit application in Canada with a labor approval document (lmia) approved by ESDC or an lmia-exempt offer of employment (such as a provincial nomination work permit) between August 2020 and February 28, 2023;

4) Hold a valid employer job offer;

5) Meet other admissibility requirements, such as physical examination and no criminal record.

Travel-to-work is suitable for people:

1) Accompanying mothers can convert to work permit status to accumulate Canadian work experience, and later obtain a Maple Leaf card through the provincial nomination category or CEC.

If you are in NOC 0AB position, your children can also attend public primary and secondary schools for free, and the remaining annual tuition fee is 15,000 Canadian dollars;

2) Those with poor domestic language scores, poor work background, low immigration budget, and low academic qualifications applicant. Taking advantage of this temporary policy, IELTS scores are waived. In addition, there are no high requirements for applicants’ domestic work background and academic background.

Difficulties with this temporary policy:

1) It requires support from Canadian employers.

Applicants need to first find an employer that matches the work experience of the person concerned. At the same time, the employer also needs to apply for a labor approval LMIA from ESDC. Matching is difficult, and reliable employers are hard to come by.

2) Apply for Labor Approval LMIA

If Canadian employers need to recruit foreign workers, they must first submit an LMIA application to ESDC. With the LMIA conformation letter, workers can apply for a work permit.

LMIA application qualifications:

Applying for a labor approval requires extremely strict and cumbersome employer qualifications. Therefore, applying for an LMIA is not an easy task. Simply speaking, at least the following five requirements must be met: The requirements are as follows:

The position being recruited must comply with Canada’s National Occupational Category (NOC), and the salary must be in line with the average salary in the employer’s region;

The employer must have been in Canada four weeks before applying for approval Place recruitment advertisements in Canada for four consecutive weeks (at least three recruitment platforms) to prove to the labor department that it cannot find suitable employees in Canada;

In addition to advertising, employers also need to consider other ways to recruit , increasing the possibility of approval from the labor department;

If the employer submits a high-paying position, it also needs to submit a transition plan to the labor department and promise to retain existing Canadian citizens or permanent residents;

When submitting an application for approval, the employer also needs to attach many company documents, such as business registration certificate, business license, and annual tax return 100/125/T2 125.