Hiring an Immigration Lawyer is not mandatory, but hiring a trained Immigration Lawyer could save you time, money and complications throughout your Immigration journey. While many applicants apply and succeed on their own, many others who apply on their own encounter preventable delays or rejections. A trained Immigration Lawyer will know how to navigate the Canadian Immigration system and associated laws/policies, which are often complex, technical and constantly changing. Errors and/or Omissions in an application increase the chances of lasting and costly consequences such as delays in process or rejections. An Immigration Lawyer has the education, training and experience required to guide you in addressing these complexities as they arise and can also anticipate, and in some cases, prevent issues before they arise. As such, hiring a trained Immigration Lawyer who can identify pathway suitability, strengths, weaknesses, and any errors or omissions, will enhance the chances of your application proceeding as smooth as possible from the first instance.

In general Immigration Lawyers have more legal training and academic experience than Immigration Consultants. Immigration Lawyers must complete: 1) law school, 2) an undergraduate degree (at least 3 years of it) , 3) a  bar exam to be legally registered with provincial or territorial law societies, and  4) complete an 8 to 12 month internship period with a law firm after their studies. Immigration Consultants generally undergo a one-year certification in order to become registered with the Immigration Consultants of Canada Regulatory Council and are not required to have completed an undergraduate degree to start their certification. While Immigration Consultants are legally able to represent you, only Immigration Lawyers are allowed to act on your behalf in federal court, in the rare event that it’s required.

There are numerous paths to immigrate to Canada either on a temporary basis through work-study-visit or permanent through economic-family sponsorship-refugee-humanitarian and compassionate grounds. To visit Canada, you will need to apply for a Temporary Resident Visa (TRV). To work in Canada temporarily, you will have to obtain a work permit, typically after securing an offer of employment from a Canadian employer. To study in Canada, you must first apply to a designated learning institution, then once you’re accepted, you can apply for a study permit. To move to Canada permanently, you must qualify for one of the various federal and/or provincial Immigration programs and submit an application for permanent residence to Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). Each program will have various eligibility requirements and conditions that must be met in order to apply.  If you are interested in Immigrating to Canada, please fill out our Online Assessment Form, which is designed to assess your qualifications for Immigration to Canada based on IRCC selection criteria.

To obtain Permanent Residence (PR) status in Canada there are four general pathways a foreign national may navigate depending on their individual circumstances: the economic route, the family sponsorship route, the refugee class route, or through a humanitarian and compassionate application (this type of application is reserved for rare cases). Within each pathway there are several programs that contain specific requirements which must be met by the prospective applicant.

To apply for Canadian Citizenship, you must first become a Permanent Resident (PR) , provide proof of your ability to speak and write in English and/or French, be physically residing in Canada as a PR for at least 3 years (1,095 days) out of the 5 years prior to applying, meet all tax requirements, and pass the Canadian Citizenship Test. Alternatively, if one of your parents was a Canadian citizen when you were born.

It is a unique four-digit number assigned to each occupation in the Canadian labour market listed under Canada’s official job classification system.

It is the temporary legal status of a worker, student, or visitor, who is in Canada, and submitted an application to extend their stay from inside Canada before their status expired. The Implied Status allows a worker, student, or visitor, to continue carrying out the activity they were doing in Canada under the same conditions as their previous status document ( E.g. Study or Work Permit) until a decision is made on this application for extension regardless of how long it takes for the decision to be made.  The Implied Status of a worker, student, or visitor, can only be maintained for as long as they remain inside Canada, meeting the conditions of their previous authorization until a decision is made on their extension application.