Info Session: Canada’s Economic Immigration Programs

Employer Benefits

• Exemption from LMIA process, which saves time & fees
• Support from IRCC to find candidates abroad
• Serve clients in both official languages
• Tap into new markets & international networks
• Settlement support & pathway to permanent residence

Worker Eligibility

• Language of daily use is French (language of workplace can be English)
• Job offered is skilled (NOC 0, A, B)

and um and so it’s important that you put in all the details around the job because that is what is assessed later on in regards to the work permit so to recap for you before um if they apply for their work permit a foreign national must have one of either two things either only exception to this is that they’re eligible for an open work permit which allows them to work for any employer

they can apply for their work permit online or at a visa application center and those who do not need a visa to travel to canada also have the option of applying upon arrival at a canadian port of entry many but not all work permits can be extended from within canada and it’s very important that the application be submitted before the current work permit expires and this is in order for them to get what is called maintained status which means they can the worker can continue to work in their job while a decision is being made if they continue to work for the same employer under the same conditions and

Allow for 6 weeks processing after biometrics are provided.

IEC ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

1. Complete the Come to Canada questionnaire and get your personal reference code.
2. Create your Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) account. Select “Apply to come to Canada” and use your personal reference code to begin your application.

PROFILE SUBMISSION AND WORK PERMIT APPLICATION

3. Submit your profile and choose the IEC pools you want to be in.
4. If you receive an invitation to apply via your account, you’ll have 10 days to start your application.
5. Once you start your work permit application, you have 20 days to complete and submit it, and pay the appropriate fee.

8. Upload all supporting documents, including police and medical exam certificates, if applicable.^Footnote*
9. Pay your IEC fee of CAD$161 with a credit card online through your IRCC account. Other fees may include a CAD$85 biometrics fee and CAD$100 Working Holiday open work permit holder fee.

BIOMETRICS

10. If a biometric instruction letter is required, it will be sent to you through your IRCC account after you submit your application. After receiving the letter, you will have 30 days to submit your biometrics at a visa application centre (VAC). For more information, visit Canada.ca/biometrics.

IEC WORK PERMIT ASSESSMENT

11. The work permit application assessment may take up to 56 days. We may ask you to provide additional documents.
12. This is your last chance to withdraw from IEC and obtain refunds (IEC fee, open work permit holder fee, employer compliance fee).
13. IRCC will send a Port of Entry Letter to your account. Bring this letter with you to Canada.

let’s move to the next slide please so there are a variety of uh labor market impact assessment exemptions that an employer may use an lmia exemption can help employers save time and fees when hiring skilled foreign workers so how do you know if you can use an exemption so you can check the complete list of exemptions on the immigration website if you’re still not sure ircc offers a free service called the international mobility workers unit which provides opinions on whether or not you the employer and the temporary foreign worker you want to hire are exempt from the labor market impact assessment process and whether or not a work permit is required so just to let you know i think there’s over 50 exemptions that can be used so i’ll just highlight a couple of the ones and bring a few to um to your attention today the whole the full list is on our website under a program called the international experience canada employers can hire youth aged 18 to 35 from around 35 countries who are looking to gain international work experience iac is intended as a cultural exchange program and i’ll provide more details about this shortly now we’ve already heard about the provincial nominee program and once a candidate that you’re supporting through the provincial nominee program is nominated they will be able to get an lmia exempt work permit and start working while they’re waiting for their permanent resident application to be processed canada also has a variety of free trade agreements with other countries that contain provisions for reciprocal talent mobility provisions and they set out the details regarding nationalities and professions qualifications where somebody might be able to enter canada without the labor market impact assessment another exemption that i’d like to bring to your attention is something that we called open work permits and so there’s many people who are already in canada who might have an open work permit and an open work permit is um not employer specific so it was say it does not have an employer’s name on it and it will often say on it that the person can work for any employer in canada but we’ll get a little bit more into some of these except exceptions later on so there are a number of other lmia exemptions that exist because of the significant benefit that certain skilled foreign talent brings to canada and i’ll move on and talk about that so let’s move to the next slide so one of these exceptions and exemptions is the francophone mobility program which was created to facilitate the immigration of skilled french speakers to strengthen minority official language communities outside of canada and canada has a goal of increasing um these minority communities outside of quebec to four percent um in in close to four to four percent by 2023 so for employers is quite beneficial for several reasons it can be used to hire a skilled foreign worker of any age from any country to fill any skilled job knock b or above and to qualify the foreign workers language of daily use must be french so the language spoken in the canadian workplace does not need to be french though can be good for business to have a balance employees who can offer services in both of canada’s official languages next slide please so as mentioned canada canadian employers can hire youth participating in international experience canada you do not need a labor market impact assessment to hire an iec participant who may be on an open working holiday work permit or who you can support for specific work permits under the young professionals category now there are three streams under the international experience canada one is international co-op stream which we do not see a whole lot of people participating in but the young professionals is a category where as an employer you could give a job offer and job offer needs to be related to the individual’s education so if they’ve received education abroad in early childhood education and you want to offer them a job offer you can make that submit that in the employer portal and then they would get an employer specific work permit without having to go through the labor market impact assessment process the other program which is used most often is the working holiday program and often just to give you an example we see people on the ski hills who are participating in the working holiday programs and so there’s many australians who come and work on the canadian ski hills during our their summer in our winter and then they go back to australia for the winter and they get to ski you know 12 months of the year but people can work in any profession as long as they meet the criteria of this program it is important to note that due to the