Becoming Canadian from the US

[Ron in Regina]

Health Care? Well you have to have first stage approval (AIP)before you can apply for an open work permit(which applies to me, meaning I can work wherever with out needing a job offer.)

Whitley, so what you are saying is that if you apply within Canada, you can start working even before you get the immigration visa (as in your case). You obviously cannot do that if you apply outside Canada, I assume they wouldn’t even let you into the country until they give you an immigration visa.

So what I said earlier, the advice I gave to Thomas Lee (admittedly it was only a speculation, an educated guess) was right, you are better off coming to Canada as a visitor, get married here and then apply for immigration, rather than apply outside Canada.

Google, "Canadian immigration office in USA" and see what happens.
"Canadian Visa Offices" in the USA are Buffalo, Detroit, L.A., N.Y.
City, and Seattle. None are very close to Regina, Sk. Whitley, from
what I understand, if she applied in the USA, would have been assigned
to the Buffalo Office, for whatever reason...
Visa Offices outside Canada

Once you're in the Immigration system, and after you have your Stage
One Approval, and then purchase a work visa, then you can work in
Canada. You can not work in Canada until you're set up to pay taxes
in Canada, if I understand things correctly. I'm no expert by any means.
I don't even pretend to be.

 

[Whitley]

Health Care? Well you have to have first stage approval (AIP)before you can apply for an open work permit(which applies to me, meaning I can work wherever with out needing a job offer.)

Whitley, so what you are saying is that if you apply within Canada, you can start working even before you get the immigration visa (as in your case). You obviously cannot do that if you apply outside Canada, I assume they wouldn’t even let you into the country until they give you an immigration visa.

So what I said earlier, the advice I gave to Thomas Lee (admittedly it was only a speculation, an educated guess) was right, you are better off coming to Canada as a visitor, get married here and then apply for immigration, rather than apply outside Canada.

What I am saying is in reguards to American Citizens. They DO NOT need a visa to enter Canada. Actually, Americans can visit Canada with a passport and can stay for 6 months as a vistor. As Canadians can do in the USA. As I said before where you are married makes no difference in the processing. As long as you are married or have proof of a common-law partnership that is all you need to get started.
Did you not read the part about how he went and visited his fiancee did he have a visa? I don't think so. I also visited my husband with out a visa. Visas are for more foreign vistors, i.e Mexico, England, Russia, Iraq. Outside and Inside applications both have their pro's and con's it depends on what fits them. Not what fits you. Or what you think. Before you guess or make speculations you should really educate yourself first. Or leave it to people who know first hand about it, or even second hand like Ron.

As for the open-work permit and health care, First stage aprroval AIP basically is that you qualify for P.R. and they are just finishing up (which can take a few months or a year) so you can work and not have to keep waiting twiddling your thumbs any longer. Open-work permits and Skilled worker permits are 2 different things. You can have a Skilled work permit while you have a P.R application in processing and you won't have to apply for the open-work permit.

Utah doesn't have a Canadian immigration office, the only one I am aware of is the one in buffalo and I would have to go there if they needed to interview me and that wasn't something I wanted to do.

Whitley, now I find that hard to believe. Buffalo? If not Salt Lake City, I would think they would have a Consulate somewhere on the West coast, Los Angeles or San Francisco.

And why Buffalo? I assume they have a consulate in New York City. So they have two in New York, and nothing west of New York State? I don’t think even a politician would work on such an absurd, twisted logic.

No, I think they very likely have a consulate in California (which is not all that far from Utah) and perhaps even in Chicago.

Incidentally, I lived in Salt Lake City for seven years, I studied at University of Utah. Where were you in Utah?

Okay so I admit I was wrong about the American Immigration offices,I was told that Buffalo would have been the easiest office to go through, had I gone that route. Another note, I am not sure all of those offices handle P.R applications as in Canada not all of them do either. I am no expert on outside processing, because it did not fit what I was looking for in the terms of immigration, I wanted to be able to live with my husband, and outside immigration would not have allowed that as soon as I wanted.
As to where I lived in Utah, I lived in SLC aswell.

 

[Whitley]

I think fortunately I have a few things going for me.I don't have a criminal record and Im in good health.I also served many years in the Armed Forces and at the same time was a member of the Carpenters Union for 22 years.I hope these things will make me look a little more presentable to the Canadian Government.Im going there in March .I hope I can go to work.Im excited about getting started.
More info would be great,Im taking it all in and I hope the advice I've gotten so far is semi accurate . Thanks again

Did you take the eligibilty test that I posted? That will help you know if you will be able to have a skilled workers permit. What info would you like, I can help you find it. The CIC (Citizen and immigration of Canada) website is very hard to understand but once you start understanding it does get easier.

 

[Thomas Lee]

Thank you Whitley,you seem to be well educated in this whole process.Again,I am going there in March and I will apply when I get there.I do want to work right away,but seems that I'll have to jump through a few hoops first.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

Did you not read the part about how he went and visited his fiancee did he have a visa? I don't think so. I also visited my husband with out a visa. Visas are for more foreign vistors, i.e Mexico, England, Russia, Iraq…. Before you guess or make speculations you should really educate yourself first. Or leave it to people who know first hand about it, or even second hand like Ron.

What are you saying here, Whitley? Are you saying that I claimed that Americans need a visa to enter Canada? I said nothing of the sort. Let me repeat what I said.

What I said was that it may be better to enter Canada, get married and then apply for immigration visa, rather than apply for immigration visa before coming to Canada. I said nothing about Americans needing a visa to come to Canada.

Outside and Inside applications both have their pro's and con's it depends on what fits them.

Quite possibly. However, the inside application seems to have one big advantage over outside application (as I see it). If you apply from inside Canada, you can start work before you get immigration visa. With outside application, you have to wait until you get immigration visa before you can come to Canada and start work.

Anyway, that is my understanding. Or do they let you enter Canada after you have got the stage one approval, but before you are approved for immigration?

 

[SirJosephPorter]

I think fortunately I have a few things going for me.I don't have a criminal record and Im in good health.I also served many years in the Armed Forces and at the same time was a member of the Carpenters Union for 22 years I think fortunately I have a few things going for me.I don't have a criminal record and Im in good health.I also served many years in the Armed Forces and at the same time was a member of the Carpenters Union for 22 years

Thomas, I see a possible complication here. You say you served in armed forces; did you live any foreign countries, other than USA? If you did, they will check for criminal record in every country that you have lived in the past. Depending upon where you lived, the background check itself can take several months.

We know an Indian couple. They went from India to Britain, lived there for 20 years and then applied for immigration to Canada. When they were called for interview, he was under the impression that the process was drawing to a close (apparently interview is one of the last steps in the process).

He got quite a shock when he was told at the interview that the police inquiry will take four months, and they will have to investigate in Britain as well as in India.

So if you lived in countries other than USA, you may expect a prolonged police inquiry.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

As to where I lived in Utah, I lived in SLC aswell.

Whitley, SLC was a great place to live, I enjoyed living in Utah. I was there form 1971 to 1977 (after that I and my wife moved to Britian).

 

[Whitley]

As to where I lived in Utah, I lived in SLC aswell.

Whitley, SLC was a great place to live, I enjoyed living in Utah. I was there form 1971 to 1977 (after that I and my wife moved to Britian).

Yeah I wouldn't know what Salt Lake was like then, I wasn't even born.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

Perhaps not, Whitley, but we can agree on some things. The weather in SLC is great. While they do get plenty of snow, it hardly rains in the summer, they have glorious summers. It rarely rains over there, in the six years I was there, I never owned an umbrella.

Mormons by and large a nice bunch of people (I don’t know if you are a Mormon). I knew many Mormons (I even read the Book of Mormon while I was there) and they were nice, friendly people.

World class ski resorts (Park City, Snowbird etc.) are just a car drive away. The scenery is beautiful in summer (Bryce Canyon etc.). Why, even the Great Salt Lake itself is a world class attraction, even better than the Dead Sea (which we are planning to visit next year).

All in all, a great place to live.

 

[JediGrrrl]

This has been amazingly helpful. Thank you for the links!