host (illegal, non-regulated) immigration consultants are playing would-be immigrants to Canada for fools, and making off with people’s life savings by manipulating non-existent job offers in the Atlantic Canada Immigration Pilot Program (AIPP). Prospective Chinese immigrants seem to be a prime target. On a daily basis UCIC receives inquiries about this program from individuals on every continent . Click on the link below for details and insight on a “money- for-nothing” scheme:
A CBC News story in September 2019 exposed the method of demanding that prospective immigrants in essence pay for their own job by handing over huge sums of money, from which a prospective employer may be ‘paid off’ to make a phony job offer, for which the employer is paid with the applicant’s own funds, and the applicant receives no compensation during the so-called employment period.
Our advice for prospective immigrants to Canada is that there are no tricks, gimmicks or back doors to entry to Canada. You can’t buy your way into the country, and if you fall victim to this type of ghost consultant fraud, you’ll likely lose all your money, and end up back in your country of origin. Worse yet, a fraudulent attempt to enter Canada will also end all your dreams of coming – and staying – legitimately.
Here’s how you’ll feel if you are issued an Invitation to Apply (ITA) for Permanent Residency in Canada. The key to getting that ITA is to work with us to maximize your score.
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e have updated and expanded our Express Entry information page. Be sure to either read it for the first time, or re-read it once more. Have you created your profile yet? By creating a profile, individuals are ‘visible’ to the Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) for program-specific draws and regular draws. From this pool of applicants, regular draws invite applicants with the best scores to apply for Permanent Residency in Canada.
Canada’s strong economy, particularly in its heartland of Ontario, makes this path especially attractive to applicants from the trades and professions; to those with language skills in Canada’s official languages; and to those with family ties to Canada.
This is an especially good time for young, qualified, and motivated individuals who are progressive thinkers to consider coming to Canada. Upper Canada Immigration can assist you in getting into the Express Entry system; help you to maximize your chances; and steer you toward a coveted Invitation to Apply for Permanent Residency if your score has reached the threshold to be drawn. Time works against you. This means if you are serious about coming to Canada, don’t wait that extra year or two before you start the process.
pper Canada Immigration Consultants (UCIC) comes to the Caribbean on an annual basis. We meet with people seriously interested in coming to Canada. There is a small charge for the meeting. This is to ensure that the people who see us make a commitment to their future. We credit the entire meeting charge to your account once you become a client of ours. We’ll be frank and candid with you, and let you know if you have a good chance of succeeding in a desire to come to Canada.
We use Facebook because so many of our clients and prospective clients are on that platform. The Upper Canada Immigration web site has some useful resources for you. If you are serious about coming to Canada to live, work, study or do business, consider retaining UCIC to work with you. Plan to meet with us. We will visit the Caribbean again in 2020:
You may also wish to e-mail Andrea Seepersaud if you are ready to begin the process of immigration to Canada, and wish to see if you are an eligible immigrant. Not everyone is a high-probability prospect. If you are, or if you are not, we will let you know fairly quickly.
Update: Based on some of the questions asked by interested visitors to the Upper Canada Immigration Facebook Page, and from those who have asked to see me in Guyana when I visit in March, I have updated the web site’s Q & A Page. Please be sure to check it.
I was born in Guyana, and came to Canada in the 1980s. Learn more about me. Southern Ontario is home to a large and vibrant Guyana expatriate community. I look forward to returning to the Caribbean each year, and assisting qualified and determined folks on their road to permanent residency in Canada.
Andrea Seepersaud President, Upper Canada Immigration Consultants
New Canadians from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have an easy time integrating into Canadian life.
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pper Canada Immigration Consultants is doing an outreach to folks in parts of the United Kingdom this spring. Perhaps you saw our information on Facebook, in our e-newsletter, or on this web site, and you are wondering what to do next. If you are from the UK, please read this page first. It has lots of handy tips and sound advice for people seriously considering emigrating to Canada.
Call us via WhatsApp or by phone. The sound of a human voice is always best. For your initial consultation, we can arrange a telephone (or Skype or WhatsApp) appointment for a detailed discussion. Because of the time zone difference, mid-evening UK time is still in the midst of the working day in Ontario. If you are in Canada, or plan to come for a visit, we can meet with you. Here is how you can help us work with you:
Please complete this on-line form. This web form describes your situation, and enables our consultant to gain insight into what you may need us to do for you.
Our web site is a treasure trove of free information for you. It also offers you a way to write us a short message. For example, you could advise us that you had just filled out the two forms above. Click or touch here to send a message.
What happens after that?
Our staff will assemble your information, and contact you. We will need to know about your academic or trade background and your qualifications and experience. If you have raised a question in a message to us, we can respond briefly, and offer you an introductory consultation. This does not cost you anything, and lasts a short time.
When (or if) it looks as if your inquiry has substance and merit, your consultant will lay out a path for you. At this point, you become a paying client of Upper Canada Immigration Consultants;
After your initial consultation, we follow up with an Engagement Letter if your case would benefit from our services.
Once we have agreed to work together, a Retainer Agreement will detail the scope of our services, the terms of your billing and a tentative timeline. From then onward, you are our client, and we are working on your behalf.
new Government of Canada pilot program will match applicants for permanent residency to jobs in rural Canada. The community-driven initiative aims to address ongoing labour shortages in rural and northern communities of Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, Yukon, Nunavut and Northwest territories.
The objective of the five-year economic immigration pilot project is to stimulate economic growth in communities that have, in recent years, seen population declines, and have job vacancies for mid-level positions that are never filled. The Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot promises to link communities experiencing labour shortages to the one source that can supply a steady stream of human capital – immigration.
Merrickville calls itself “The Jewel of the Rideau.” It is located near Kingston, halfway between Montreal and Toronto, and close to Ottawa.
Launched in 2019, this pilot program aims to rejuvenate rural Canada, while answering the prayers of thousands of potential new Canadians who are seeking a new start to their lives. Each year during the next five years, Canada will bring 2,750 principal applicants and their families to these outlying areas of Canada. Communities wishing to be a part of the initiative will enroll in the pilot by demonstrating their capacity to respond to the influx of human resources through social capital, supportive infrastructure and readiness to welcome and settle newcomers. The deadline for communities to get on board is March 1, 2019.
Thirty percent of Canada’s GDP is derived from rural Canada, where the workforce between 2001 and 2016 has shrunk by 23 percent. The percentage of retirement-age population has steadily increased, while the potential for work and economic benefits remain. Some 78 percent of immigrants tend to settle in large urban areas in Canada, where friends, family and established ethnocultural communities exist. The vision of newly arrived immigrants is no different. This five-year plan aims to assist rural communities to set themselves up as attractive, welcoming and economically viable for newcomer settlement, by offering supports.
The Northern and Rural Immigration Pilot could tap into the best practices of previous approaches to community-driven programs, where community collaborative efforts have included business and service sectors working closely with government to settle and integrate newcomers into the local environment.
Canada, the second-largest country in the world by land size, welcomes immigrants on an ongoing basis through various programs, initiatives and pilots. The Atlantic Immigration Pilot Program implemented in 2017 has been successful in driving economic growth in the provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador. So far, 734 principal applicants along with their families totaling 1,562 people, have been approved for permanent residency.
The Government of Canadian has defined participating Northern and rural communities as either:
Cities of 200,000 but classified as remote because of distance from an urban centre; or
Those with a population of less than 50,000, and located at least 75 kilometers from centres boasting a population of 100,000 or more.
The pilot will operate through the respective provincial nominee programs of the identified provinces and territories. The local community and economic development office for each community is expected to play a key role in matching candidates to local job openings. Potential candidates will have to wait until later in 2019 when participating communities would have been designated, and the parameters respecting candidate applications defined.
Contact us for more information, and to discuss whether the Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot might be a route to Canada for you.
Be sure to subscribe to our periodic e-newsletter to receive updates on immigration to Canada, and find out when and where our consultants may be in your area for a meeting.
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pper Canada Immigration uses a mail list manager called Mailchimp. It is a powerful tool. It helps us keep in touch with you, and helps us get you specific information quickly. For a list and description of the open source software we use in our business, and which you can use too, click here.
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his is good news for sponsors and their spouses. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) confirmed in late April 2017 that the period of conditional permanent residency, imposed since October 2012, on sponsored spouses and partners has now been removed. All spouses and partners, upon landing will now have full permanent residency status.
In October 2016, the current government in its Forward Regulatory Plan resolved to change this condition in the spring of 2017. Many of our clients have been asking about the changes that we first talked about in an earlier article on this website Silly Spousal Sponsorship Rule. We are happy to report that this change is now in force.
Initially the last government, in its effort to address the problem of fraudulent marriages to achieve immigration status and non-genuine marriages of convenience, imposed a two-year conditional permanent resident status on all sponsored spouses and partners. This condition. to the degree that it was ineffective as a deterrent or not, also gave rise to situations of domestic abuse from which vulnerable partners remained trapped for the duration of the condition, for fear of losing their residency. Although there were exit clauses written into permanent residency conditions to protect spouses and partners from staying in volatile and abusive relationships, victims continued to endure the harsh conditions rather than risk losing their status. By removing this condition from all sponsored spouses and partners upon landing, there is now a greater chance of individuals facing physical, sexual, financial or psychological abuse at the hands of their partners, of confidently seeking safety and help outside of their home.
Commitment to family reunification
This change means Canada has reinforced its commitment to family reunification under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA). It represents a more humane approach to spousal applications, while also embracing gender equality. Canada will protect vulnerable spouses and partners from willful neglect and gender-based abuse. For foreign nationals sponsored as spouses and partners, repeal of the permanent residency condition indicates a level of trust that the family-class immigration program applicants are assumed to be honest and trustworthy. The change recognizes that people are overwhelmingly involved in genuine relationships, and are interested in coming to Canada to be honestly reunited with their loved ones for a better life.
One can, however, expect visa officers to be as vigilant and as thorough as ever in ensuring that the small percentage of phony spousal applications by unscrupulous individuals are quickly identified, and summarily tossed out.
Ontario’s 2017-18 signature Budget measure means all eligible Ontario residents 24 years of age and less are fully covered for the cost of all 4,400 drugs in the Ontario formulary.
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he Province of Ontario’s 2017-18 budget, passed in 2017, implemented universal drug coverage for Ontario residents age 24 and less, and who are eligible for its Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP).
Ontario became the first Canadian province or territory to extend pharmacare coverage to its residents. Coverage for eligible Ontario residents became effective in 2018. The entire Ontario drug formulary of more than 4,400 drugs is included, from routine prescriptions to expensive treatments.
Newcomers to Ontario can qualify for the Ontario Health Insurance Plan if they are:
A Canadian citizen;
An Indigenous person (registered under the federal Indian Act);
A permanent resident (formerly called a “landed immigrant”);
Have applied for permanent residence, and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada has confirmed that they meet the eligibility requirements to apply (i.e. have not yet been denied); are in Ontario on a valid work permit and are working full-time in Ontario, for an Ontario employer, for at least six months.
Your spouse and any dependents also qualify if you do. You are eligible to apply to OHIP if you are in Ontario on a valid work permit under the federal Live-in Caregiver Program, or are a convention refugee or other protected person (as defined by Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada).
OHIP annual health care premiums are among the lowest in the world.
A new American President who won by dividing the country, and has never held any elected office in his life? Your Canadian brethren have been there before.
A leader and provincial political party dedicated to the breakup of Canada won election in the Province of Quebec during the 1970s, and was re-elected – twice! Canada and Canadians survived two separation referenda, the last by a slim one percent margin. Quebec remains part of a strong and united Canada;
Canada’s largest city of Toronto – larger than Chicago – elected the late Rob Ford as mayor in 2010. His struggles with alcohol, drugs and bizarre behaviour made talk shows and news coverage across the world. Toronto subsequently elected a staid replacement in 2014, and life continues;
In 2006, Canada elected a Prime Minister whose Conservative Party actions in many respects resembled some of the Republican and Trump agenda. The Conservative government won two minority and one majority government, governed Canada for ten years, and was decisively defeated in 2015.
Canada and the United States are more than joined at the waist of North America. We are family in every literal and figurative sense. No two nations on earth have ever had a larger trading relationship. Our families marry across the border, and share a common language, most of our culture and values, and a friendship and trust warmer than any other two nations on earth or in history.
What are the odds of America surviving a Trump presidency? Probably pretty good. Even when a President’s party has had a grip on both Houses of Congress, any thought that the President ‘controls’ government is fanciful at best. And this President is not even on-side with his own party’s 2016 election platform! Though the majority of states may be governed by Republicans, U.S. states are fiercely independent and autonomous levels of government. Still, is there the potential for America, as our beloved brothers and sisters have known it, to come unglued? To be frank, your neighbours to your north concede that Americans have steered their ship of state into dark and uncharted waters.
In the past several years, America has crept into the list of top ten places from which new immigrants come to Canada. Every year, some 20,000 Americans leave the United States for a new life in Canada.
When Canada entered both world wars, Americans made their way north to join Canadian forces in the struggle. Canada stood by the United States when no other nation would during the Iranian revolution, and brought American hostages back home safely. American air travellers grounded in Canada by the attacks of September 11, 2001 found a few days of welcome in uncounted Canadian homes. It’s what family members always do to help one another.
Should you come to Canada?
Canada is at the same time a nearby and familiar land, as well as a very different country. If leaving your USA home and coming to Canada is more than a reaction to the state of America, it’s time to look into it. This will be a hard look.
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