You’ve got a one year visa – what if you want to stay on?

I'm not sure about you but before I moved to Vancouver I had some pretty fixed images in my mind of what it would look like. Here are two pictures of the West End, overlooking the Pacific, where there are some pretty nice sunsets. When its not pissing rain.

Chances are twelve months in Vancouver will fly by and soon you will find yourself getting a bit scared by the expiry date on your working visa, and the foot note stating that it cannot be extended (although I think this might have changed for the 2010 USIT visa, if anyone can confirm that, let me know)

The Irish Mammys will hate me for saying it, but its easy to get pretty comfy over here. I know mine is none too happy about my being on this side of the world (they make a shite cup of tea she claims)

The year passes so quickly in this part of the world, I know that that is purely perception based, but I’m convinced that it’s to do with the fact that there are four distinct seasons in this part of the world, comapared to Ireland’s one season, the lesser known WRINGER (WINTER SPRING SUMMER rolled into one tweleve month season)

I’ll share my experience of what we did when we decided about eight months into our stay that we wanted to stay on. Our respective companies were onto us about our impending expiry dates of our visas, and fortunately, offered to sponsor us. In British Columbia there is a programme called the Provincial Nomination Programme (PNP) which is basically a form of fast tracking visas for employees in specific industries or companies.
Here is a lin that explains the programme a lot more efficiently than I could: http://www.welcomebc.ca/en/immigration/come/work/about/index.html

Most medium to large size companies have a good bit of experience in sponsoring foreign employees, their HR people will be pretty familiar with the process and likely have a lawyer that specialises in immigration law working with them to help the process along.

The net result of PNP is that you end up with Canadian residency, which means you have a residents card. After about five years of that you will be eligble to apply for Canadian citizenship. I’m pretty far from that stage, so I don’t know much about it. Other than the fact that you have to take an exam that tests you about beer and bears and maple syrup and other important Canadian things.

I’ll probably get thrown out of the country for taking the piss out of them on this blog. Better stop.