Post
by Quantum » Tue May 10, 2005 11:35 pm
I'm a US citizen in Texas, and when I first went through CIC's website I gathered that for the general public, the wait was 14 months for permanent residency. And for skilled workers it was 3-4 months.
But in checking the status of my application for permanent residency I found statistics for prior years' processing times, and was shocked to find that for the Buffalo office, average processing time last year for skilled workers was 24 months! Yet in another forum I read someone's took 6 months.
I am 50, and every year this takes counts points against me. Plus I need to get on with the business I'll be establishing in Canada. So I'm very concerned, and I need to plan based on expected time.
I want to establish a telecom company in southern B.C.
I'd considered applying as self-employed, but business-class processing times are even longer, for some reason.
So Question 1 is, can anyone give guidance on recent actual Buffalo processing times?
Well, I can't wait 24 months or I'll lose my business opportunity, so I looked into temporary residency. Seems like for a work permit, one must have a job with a sponsoring company. In my experience it's next-to-impossible to get a job remotely, and anyway this isn't what I really want to do.
So I looked at NAFTA, and it appears I could operate there temporarily in the Trader or Investor class. But this seems to imply that I promise the visit is only temporary, which it will be obvious is not the case, from my permanent residency application. Investor class must be evaluated by Buffalo, but Trader does not. However if I live there as a Trader, CIC would probably not like this.
So Question 2 is, how can I move to Canada before permanent residency and begin operations, without offending CIC?