Permission to stay
Our renewed work permits through Aug. 1, 2009, arrived in yesterday's mail. We each have permission to live and work in Canada until then.
Andrew's permit has always been painfully specific. It states which employer and which position he is allowed to work in, then goes on in explicit detail about how he is not permitted to attend any school during his stay, nor is he allowed by this permit to have any job other than his specific position at the University of Calgary. Mine states that the reason I have a permit is because I am a spouse of a person with a permit for a specific position. It is an open permit, meaning I can work for any employer I please, but it explicitly forbids me from attending any school and from working in day care, teaching, or health care.
The renewal process was easy, fill out a multiple-page form and send in some money. The initial process last spring was a little bit more complicated. It took Andrew a few tries to find out which Canadian consulate in the U.S. he had to deal with, where to send our passport-sized photographs, and what was the right amount to pay for the correct type of permit. All he got to show for the effort was a receipt that he could wave at the border to show he had paid for and qualified for a permit. I got off easy as his spouse. I just showed up with him, the marriage certificate and my passport when he reported at the immigration office at the border and was asked if I wanted to pay a fee for an open permit so I could work, too.
The renewal process wasn't so easy for a friend of mine. She had an open work permit through a "work holiday" program that Canada has with Korea, giving Koreans permission to come for one year to work in Canada. My friend worked for months with her employer to get the correct forms filled out, get the employer to write a justification for a labor market analyst on why she was the best person suited for the job (as opposed to any Canadian who might have applied for the job), get documents about her schooling faxed in. Then, the day before her permit was due to expire, the government asked her for some additional documentation that she couldn't fax them until the next day. The permit expired without a renewal and she was allowed to finish the week at work, but not to continue working. She's headed back to Korea in July. She's going to miss her boyfriend, who I believe is a naturalized Canadian, because he isn't going to move to Korea.
The labor market analysis and the fact that she didn't possess the background in the positions on the "preferred status" list of occupations were the stumbling blocks for another person from the U.S. I know who was trying to get permission to live and work in Canada so she could be in the same city as her Canadian boyfriend. She wasn't in skilled labor or academia or engineering or civil service (the most common types of listings on the "preferred status" list). She didn't have a job offer from an employer who was willing to go through the process with the labor market analyst, and she hadn't had the chance with a tourist visa to live long enough in Canada for her relationship to qualify under law as a common-law marriage, because she couldn't afford to live very long in Canada without a job.
I've found out through these anecdotes that Canadian laws about foreigners' permission to work give preferential treatment to people who are married and highly educated.
Andrew's permit has always been painfully specific. It states which employer and which position he is allowed to work in, then goes on in explicit detail about how he is not permitted to attend any school during his stay, nor is he allowed by this permit to have any job other than his specific position at the University of Calgary. Mine states that the reason I have a permit is because I am a spouse of a person with a permit for a specific position. It is an open permit, meaning I can work for any employer I please, but it explicitly forbids me from attending any school and from working in day care, teaching, or health care.
The renewal process was easy, fill out a multiple-page form and send in some money. The initial process last spring was a little bit more complicated. It took Andrew a few tries to find out which Canadian consulate in the U.S. he had to deal with, where to send our passport-sized photographs, and what was the right amount to pay for the correct type of permit. All he got to show for the effort was a receipt that he could wave at the border to show he had paid for and qualified for a permit. I got off easy as his spouse. I just showed up with him, the marriage certificate and my passport when he reported at the immigration office at the border and was asked if I wanted to pay a fee for an open permit so I could work, too.
The renewal process wasn't so easy for a friend of mine. She had an open work permit through a "work holiday" program that Canada has with Korea, giving Koreans permission to come for one year to work in Canada. My friend worked for months with her employer to get the correct forms filled out, get the employer to write a justification for a labor market analyst on why she was the best person suited for the job (as opposed to any Canadian who might have applied for the job), get documents about her schooling faxed in. Then, the day before her permit was due to expire, the government asked her for some additional documentation that she couldn't fax them until the next day. The permit expired without a renewal and she was allowed to finish the week at work, but not to continue working. She's headed back to Korea in July. She's going to miss her boyfriend, who I believe is a naturalized Canadian, because he isn't going to move to Korea.
The labor market analysis and the fact that she didn't possess the background in the positions on the "preferred status" list of occupations were the stumbling blocks for another person from the U.S. I know who was trying to get permission to live and work in Canada so she could be in the same city as her Canadian boyfriend. She wasn't in skilled labor or academia or engineering or civil service (the most common types of listings on the "preferred status" list). She didn't have a job offer from an employer who was willing to go through the process with the labor market analyst, and she hadn't had the chance with a tourist visa to live long enough in Canada for her relationship to qualify under law as a common-law marriage, because she couldn't afford to live very long in Canada without a job.
I've found out through these anecdotes that Canadian laws about foreigners' permission to work give preferential treatment to people who are married and highly educated.