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Canadian immigration options for older applicants like intracompany transfer, significant benefits work permit, entrepreneur immigration etc.
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How to move to Canada in your 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and 70’s.

If you’re in your 50’s, 60’s, 70’s or even older and considering immigrating to Canada, it’s difficult but not impossible. Specially if you are an entrepreneur, an executive or a senior manager. You just have to be young at heart 🙂 While age is a factor in the points system, you can still qualify if you possess strong language skills, substantial work experience, have the education and in most cases the right funds. Today we’ll explore some of these options and their requirements.

The first key question is whether you’ll be eligible through one of Canada’s flagship immigration program like Federal Skilled Worker through Express Entry or would you have to choose another option. Since the majority of skilled workers come through express entry FSW, let’s look at the requirements for that as that can still be an option for you.

Let’s start with Express Entry. It’s basically a system which has three immigration programs tied to it, Federal Skilled Workers, Federal Skilled Trades and Canadian Experience class. CEC requires at least 1 year of Canadian work experience and Skilled Trades is for skilled trades professionals only and has limited no of applicants. So let’s focus on FSW. To make an express entry profile, i.e. to even enter the game, you need to score 67 out of 100 points in FSW eligibility scale in FSW. And the FSW scale has points for Age, Education Work Experience, English or French language ability, and certain other factors like job offer, your spouse’s language skills, and whether or not you or your spouse have Canadian education or Work Experience or a relative who is a PR or citizen. So as long as you have good education and language skills, the only thing that’s not in your favour here are the points for your age. If you are more than 47 years old, you get 0 out of 12 points for age. Which is a good thing in a way as well, since it means that even if you’re 50, 60, or 70 year old, you still only lose 12 points. And so if you have a bachelors degree, good English ability, 6 years of work experience in the last 10 years, you score 60 points. You’re still short of 7 points. If you’re spouse has English or French ability at an average level and you or your spouse have a relative who is a Canadian PR or citizen you can get 10 points in total for adaptability and at least be in the pool of candidates. So you’ll be in the game, but winning will be very very difficult. So what’s the solution? There are two options. The first one is starting a business in Canada and offering yourself a job offer through programs like intracompany transfer or significant benefits work permit. Or if you’re an executive and not a business owner, finding a job offer as a senior manager and and intracompany transfer can be the options as well.

If you’re an entrepreneur, once you work for a year in Canada in your own business, you will be able to claim 15 points in the FSW scale for arranged employment in total, which will not only make you eligible for FSW but will also give you 200 points in Express Entry Comprehensive Ranking system. Which can put you over 500 points which means a good chance of you getting PR. And this is true regardless of your age. Even if you’re in your 60’s or 70’s, as long as you’re an active business owner, running the business and have very good language skills, and have a bachelors degree, this option is doable.

Warren Buffet is 92 right now. He is actively managing Berkshire Hathaway. He posses the education skills and can afford to start a new business in Canada obviously. So arguably, if he wanted to do it, he could get Canadian PR and citizenship this way. Not that he wants to do it, just saying. And this is an important point. Currently, there is no program in Canada where you can just throw money and become a PR. There is no investment program. All the programs are entrepreneur kind of programs where you have to actively manage a business. We don’t have any US EB5 kind of investment programs. There was only one investor program in Quebec and that is also on hold. When it was active, the processing times were very long, 5-7 years.

If for some reason, you won’t be eligible for Federal Skilled Worker, intracompany transfer or significant benefits work permit won’t be a good option for you since even though you can get a work permit, getting PR will not be possible through the express entry route. So you have to look for other programs. One reason for you not being eligible for FSW can be your education, another can be your language ability for example in FSW< you need to score at least 6 out 9 in all four modules of IELTs. You need to have at least high school education. I’ll leave a link for you to download the FSW calculator so you can play around with it and try different combinations to see what you’ll end up scoring. (insert a screenshot).

So if you’re not eligible for FSW, you then have two main options. You can look into one of the many Provincial Entrepreneur programs, or start-up visa program can be an option too, especially if you have an innovative idea, product or service.

For now let’s look into the provincial entrepreneur programs. The way most of these programs work is that they rank you based in your net worth, the amount you wish you invest in your business in Canada, the clarity of your business plan, the no of jobs you’ll be creating, the location where you’ll be starting your business, the nature of your past experience, your education, age, and language skills. If you score on the higher side, they then invite you to submit a detailed application including your business plan, net worth valuation report, proof of education etc. And then if they review your application, might interview you and if they approve the application, they ask you to sign a performance agreement committing that you will do what you just said in the application. They offer you a letter of support that you can use to apply for your work permit. Once you get the WP, you come to Canada and start your business. Once you run it for 12 months, you then share a report with the respective province and they then nominate you for PR. You use that nomination and again apply to IRCC, the federal department, to get your PR. Till you get your PR, you must keep running your business. Once you spend a certain time in Canada, you can apply for your citizenship.

For these entrepreneur programs, it is important that you have experience of owning and managing your business or experience as a senior manager as an employee, typically for at least 3 out of the last 5 years. These programs can get very complicated but nonetheless, these programs are what you need to eventually obtain your Canadian PR.

That’s the gist of it. Age is just a number. If you are an older applicant, even if in your 50’s, 60’s or 70’s, you may well have a good chance of immigration provided you have the right skills, experiences and investment. And for most of these programs it is important that you are currently actively running a business and are not retired. If you think you might be a good fit for one of these programs, feel free to schedule a consultation call where we can review your profile and discuss in more detail. I will leave a link in the description.

Btw, if you don’t meet the requirements for any of the above programs. And there are more than 2 dozen entrepreneur or business programs. Another route can be family sponsorship. Where you enable your younger children to come to Canada for Study, job or business, and then obtain PR once they are able to sponsor you. Currently that is a lottery based system though and can be uncertain.

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