Canadian PR application for dummies

10 min readJul 30, 2019

Unlike most credible entities that shun some or all responsibilities of their words or actions in some fashionable way, I shall begin with a less elegant disclaimer: I am not a Canadian immigration lawyer so if you have a few thousand grand to spare on this endeavor, you are better off hiring one and may stop reading now.

But if you want to be frugal, economical, wise or cheap or whatever other fiction you spin up to justify boarding on this approximately year-long journey without any professional help, perhaps this post will help you. Or not. No promises.

You may have pondered on some deep philosophical questions such as h1b or not to be? Or, what would it be like to freeze oneself to death? Or, will Canada suck less with this global warming fad? With all that delusion of intellectual deliberation, you somehow landed on the conclusion that Canada is perhaps a good back up plan. In reality, odds are that you are scared for life that you may have grown apart from your roots in your young adult life. When the far-away wolf howls in a moonlit sky, you lie wide awake and deep down you probably know that you cannot survive back home. Either that or you are simply running away from any random fascist commander in chief.

With that bad signal-to-noise ratio at the onset, let us begin. There are many ways to get to Canada, we will be discussing the express entry, specifically for a federal skilled worker. Why just this? Three reasons. First, this is the only method that I have some modest details about. Second, this is the most likely mode of application for the readers of this blog. Last and most important, mah blog, mah rulz.

Now Canada, in an attempt to boost its economy, is welcoming healthy, able-bodied, reasonably educated, preferably non-criminals, experienced (rather skilled), affluent, relatively young individuals (or families) from around the world. They are validating this through medical checks, background checks, educational checks, work-related evidence, financial ability and age parameters respectively. We will look at each one of these.

The first question to ask oneself is, am I even eligible? You can take a look at the eligibility criteria and current cut-off, then go and see if you are likely to make the cut. The variables you can change, in the order of ease, are language scores, finding a job in Canada, adding years of experience, adding an educational qualification. The variables that would adversely affect your scores are delaying the decision for several months (since you grow older (I know, it sucks here too) and the cut-offs keep growing higher) or popping out a(nother) kid. So consider taking the first step now while adding this factor to your fam plan.

What is the first step? (Language and academic evaluation)

a) You will need a language score. Since you are reading this in English, good odds, IELTS is the likely way to go. Si vous parlez français, que faites-vous ici? You may want to book the date soon as IELTS servers are probably overwhelmed with requests and these guys are setting up new test centers to meet this surge in demands. Some links to help you prep towards the end of this post. Another thing to note is that not all sections weigh equally. Being a good listener helps in the exam.

b) You will need an educational credential evaluation. This entails paying a bunch of paper snobs to validate that your academic qualifications such as your university transcripts. This is a good thing since others can now buy phony paper degrees ya’ll. If you are one of them, I would advise against it. On second thoughts, go for it and share your experience in the comments. Credential validation bodies recently require the universities to directly send them copies of your transcripts. For international applicants with multiple degrees, perhaps sending your highest/most recent qualification will be most efficient.

c) For multiple family members, changing the primary applicant may increase the odds of success.

You can bookmark this link and come back when you have finished a) and b). Perhaps check out the links below.

Photo by Guillaume Jaillet on Unsplash. Seems random though.

What’s next? (Profile creation and ITA)

Once you have your language score and educational evaluation, you can create a profile and submit it. If you make the cut-off, you will get what is called the invitation to apply (or ITA) in a week or two but no later than a month. In a rare case you don’t make it, try assessing what you can change, perhaps change the primary or get a real degree?

In the time between your profile creation to an ITA, there are a couple of things you can do. Please do these only if you feel super confident about you hitting the cut-offs.

Fingerprints and background checks? … really?

I strongly advise you get your background checks or police clearance certificate from all the countries you spent more than 6 months in.

This is different for different countries.

For US-based immigrants, you will need to send your fingerprints to the FBI’s identity history checks. The fingerprints need to be done in a particular way, on a particular paper, by authorized entities, and on a sturdy paper. Most police stations in most countries will do this at a small fee. More details here. Some private institutions are also authorized to do this, these tend to be faster yet expensive. (Based on what I hear there is an uptick in the time, FBI takes to return these.)

For Indian citizens, you will also need a police clearance certificate from the passport office (if you are in India) or an Indian embassy (if you are outside India).

For citizens or individuals who have spent more than 6 months in any other country, you may find more details here.

A ton of documents?

Of the stupidest reasons to get a reject, the one that perhaps tops the list is not uploading colored scanned copies. Some people are stingy even on the cloud storage space, don’t be one of them. A close second would be missing the 60-day window due to a lack of planning for the below documents:

a) Medical check-ups: This is valid only for 12 months from the day you take the test so time this right to avoid doing it again. You can pick a ‘panel’ from the approved list here. As long as you provide the number in your application and the receipt of the test you should be good. Another thing, these folks are not supposed to share the result, but if you are a sweet talker you would know of any red flags and could potentially save on some application fee in case you don’t qualify. I can neither confirm nor deny doing this. What you need to consider though is that these can cost $80 to $525 depending on where you do these. If you are unlucky or not the best at planning, you may have to do this again.

b) Bank statements for proof of funds: For most US banks you can download this in a particular format online or request it for no cost. Be sure to avoid major transfers for a couple of months from when the snapshot was taken and try to surpass the minimum suggested amount by a significant margin for the size of your family. You may want to highlight your salary deposits using actual or digital highlighters.

c) Photo: Bring all the attitude you can carry as you are not allowed to smile in the pic. Also, all the swagger should fit in these dimensions. They have also demonstrated what not to do in the pics in the link. Think of how it is posing for insta? Yeah, avoid all of that and you should be good.

d) Marriage certificate: This thing has to be in English or French or translated in either language so that it doesn’t look like hieroglyphics to the immigration officials. One basic requirement here is that you should be married. (The article was for dummies, you smarty, get off my post.)

e) Degrees, transcripts, and educational evaluation: A thing worth noting, these have to be from the university, not the college in case the distinction exists for your case. You may want to scan these together or merge these using pdf editors (available free online, if you wish to give away your grades to the darknet.)

f) Proof of experience: Before you go have that awkward conversation with your boss about you considering moving to Canada, you may want to check where you sit in the NOC (national occupancy code) as the job description and duties should have a huge overlap with the description stated there and your boss, or worse, the HR has to sign that document. On some brighter sunshines, Canadian provinces (known as states in some other countries) may come up with a list of NOC codes and waive off some requirements based on point-in-time economic demands. Keep an eye for that here.

g) (All) Police clearances: For each country, you spent more than 6 months in, you need a cop clearance. Cops around the world, especially from the regions that suck are probably upset because they are now taking fingerprints of reasonably educated people when they much prefer stoned, homeless, yokels. Send colored scanned copies for this document. (Ideally, all documents should be colored scans.) Be sure to check this link.

h) Passports: All stamped pages are requested. If you wish to spam them with all the pages, I can’t stop you from being mean. Don’t forget the expired passports too. To all the wanderlusts out there, hope you enjoy scanning your bruised passports, you insta snobs!

i) Fingerprints: People who do excessive manicure need to be worried. This new requirement may just disqualify you since your fingerprints may be rubbed off with all that first world self-pampering you do. More on that here.

Tracking (or complaining)?

Once you have submitted all the required docs, you will turn an expert at twiddling your thumbs. From anywhere between a month to a year you could expect just a couple of updates. These, in my opinion, are irrelevant unless they are asking you for some important docs but several online communities of creatively obnoxious people exist to take away business from shrinks who cure anxiety.

However, one data-driven tracker can help project some estimates on the timeline here. If you have no friends or family you can complain to fellow Canada-immigration-aspiring-loners of the digital world here. Some people have even found the love of their lives on these immigration forums.

On rare occasions, tracking is necessary. If you are outside the country, you can ask for GCMS (Global Case Management System) notes from some partners for a small fee. Check out this link to find out more. You can find out which provider is cheapest for your region and payment method combination. If your case goes to Ottawa, those guys tend to chill a bit compared to others. (IDK, fellow complainers on the forums told that to me, okay?)

I got the golden email! Yay?

Easy there tiger (or tigress (the world’s a touchy place, gotta be super careful)). We are still a month (or two) away. Pack your passports in fancy sandwich bags and get a self stamped envelope from FedEx and send these with a photo from Walgreens that meets the dimensions for Canada’s passport. This exists in all Wallgreens that have a photobooth, most folks who work there just don’t know yet. If you can talk your way into looking at the system, you can find this config. Use the same skills for procuring a stamp, sign, and cutter from them. Good luck. As in good luck on getting the cutter because unless your passport goes missing a hurricane, you should have your COPR (Confirmation of Permanent Residence) and one-time entry visa stamped in a month (or two).

That imaginary hurricane should give you at least a few sleepless nights. We don’t want to put shrinks out of business, do we?

Some passports say that you are not allowed to send those over international borders. You watch a lot of thug-life videos on YouTube so ignore that legally binding line from your soon to be former country. If things work out, the Canadian passport happens to be the strongest, you can simply walk in 165 countries. No questions asked.

Ever wonder, H1b or not to be? I have authored another post on immigration that has over 12k views and 7.5k reads. I deflate other cheerful balloons of life in a similar dark style on my blog. Don’t bother opening if you don’t care for satire. Also, free to ask the silliest questions in the comments below. I will shoo away anybody who tries to judge.

Now, to all the dorks who want to ‘prepare for a language test’, below are some excuses to hide from your friends…

Important Links — IELTS

IELTS Practice Tests

IELTS Learning Resources

IELTS Books

IELTS n General Training — Cambridge English
British Council IELTS Preparation Guide

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The uber driver.

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Canadian PR application for dummies

Written by Urban Malgudi