Canadian Experience Class: Are You Experienced?

On September 17, 2008 Citizenship and Immigration Canada (“CIC”) finally opened the door to permanent resident applications under the much anticipated Canadian Experience Class (“CEC”). Application forms instructional manuals and more information can be found on the Citizenship and Immigration Canada website.

The CEC is designed to facilitate immigration applications for foreign nationals who have experience in Canada and is divided into two separate streams. The first is temporary foreign workers stream and the second is post-graduation stream.

To qualify under the Foreign Workers stream, applicants must have completed at least 24 months of legal work experience in Canada within the 36 month period prior to application at the national occupation classification skill levels of O, A or B. These three levels represent employment in management occupations (O), occupations that usually require university education (B), and occupations that usually require a college education or apprenticeship training (C).

To qualify under the post-graduation stream, applicants must have successfully when a completed at least two years of legal full-time study in Canada at a publicly funded institution, and institution authorized to grant degrees under statute, a training institute, or a provincially accredited private college. The applicant must obtain a bachelor degree, diploma, apprenticeship or postgraduate degree. In addition to having completed studies in Canada, and applicant must have completed at least 12 months of legal full-time employment within a 24 month period at national occupation classification skill levels O, A or B.

Both streams require an applicant to obtain a language testing score suitable to the national occupation classification skill level in which employment experience the claim. For example, Applicants who claim at work experience at the O or A skill levels and are tested in English, must achieve an aggregate International English Language Testing System (“IELTS”) score of 28 with no more than one individual area score of 6 and applicants at B skill level must achieve an aggregate IELTS score of 20, with no more than one individual area score of 4. IELTS tests four language areas including speaking, listening, reading and writing. Under limited circumstances applicants may be exempt from taking a language test in English or French is their first language.

Applicants must qualify at the time of application which means that you cannot complete your studies or your work experience while the application is in process.

This CEC is designed for easy and quick evaluation by immigration officers as compared to other applications streams currently in use in that the criteria are clearly defined and assessments is rated on a pass or fail to score. Unlike the federal skilled worker program there are no units of assessment or points and there is no room for discretion. And like all other immigration applications an applicant must not be found inadmissible to Canada on grounds such as health, security or contravention of Canada's immigration laws.

There is no obligation to remain in Canada at the time of application and if an applicant leaves Canada for filing the application he or she may file the application at the Visa office serves his or her area. Applicants from within Canada can submit their applications to the Canadian Consulate General in Buffalo, New York.

Despite the apparent simplicity of this new class of applications, the devil is in the details. There are a number of situations where you work experience were studies will not qualify under the program in a careful review of the regulations and assessment of an applicant’s credentials must be completed before submitting an application. Moreover, as a new type of application you can expect immigration officers around the world to struggle through somewhat of a training period before we see the true benefits of this new class.