Mark Holthe 0:05
ANNOUNCER. This episode of the Canadian immigration podcast is sponsored by the Canadian immigration Institute, one of the best sources of video content on Canadian immigration to help you navigate your way through the Canadian immigration process. Head on over to the YouTube channel, where there's tons of video content, and you can join mark yes myself in a number of live video streams, Q and A's all designed to help you navigate your way through this crazy Canadian immigration process. When you're done there, like and subscribe and then head on over to the Canadian Immigration institute.com where you can find all those awesome DIY courses that I've been talking about. Thank you, Canadian immigration Institute. You are the sponsor of this amazing little podcast. You
Speaker 1 1:05
i The Canadian immigration process can be complex and frustrating. With the Canadian Immigration Department making it virtually impossible to speak to an officer. There are few places to turn to for trusted information. The Canadian immigration podcast was created to fill this void by offering the latest on immigration law, policy and practice. Please welcome ex immigration officer and Canadian immigration lawyer Mark Holthe, as he is joined by industry leaders across Canada sharing insight to help you along your way.
Mark Holthe 1:51
Welcome back. Everyone to another edition of the Canadian immigration podcast. I'm your host, Mark Holthe, and I'm here with my co pilot. Alicia Bachman Bahari, how are you, Alicia?
Alicia Backman-Beharry 2:01
I'm doing well, Mark, we are. We're having many consults these days with people who are trying to get creative with their Express Entry applications.
Mark Holthe 2:11
Indeed, they are. And when you're battling for points, you're going to look to every avenue possible, and one of those is trying to claim concurrent work experience, in other words, work experience in Canada and work experience outside of Canada at the same time. So that is the gist of what we're going to be talking about today in Episode 176 and this is a part of our getting it right series for express entry. If you go back to our previous episodes, we have a whole series on this topic, because more than ever before, getting it right is critical, because it can make the difference between you getting permanent residence and not so. Let's slide over here just quickly and take a look at actually, take a look about our roadmap. So Alicia kind of give me a little bit more of a context here for what we're talking about
Alicia Backman-Beharry 3:01
so many clients right now are trying to figure out, how do I maximize my CRS score? And sometimes, when they're focused on maximizing their CRS score, they might forget about the minimum requirements. And so that's one of the things we wanted to talk about today, was making sure that if you are being creative and you're trying to work two jobs at one time in order to get your Canadian work experience for CEC. But also, if you came to Canada as a student, and you were never actually working for one full year in a high skilled occupation before you came to Canada, some people are trying to do that concurrently with their Canadian high skilled work. So they're saying, Oh, well, maybe I'm a software developer and I can work in Canada full time, 30 hours a week, but I can maybe, because of the time zone differences, maybe I can work in India as a software developer remotely and accumulate my one year foreign work experience. So if this is the situation that you are in and this is what you're looking at doing. Listen to this podcast, because we're going to talk about you might be able to do that, but there are pitfalls, there are risks, and it must be done absolutely correctly in order for there not to be negative ramifications.
Mark Holthe 4:16
Absolutely and if you've listened to Episode 175 we talked about one of these strategies for increasing your score if you don't have foreign work experience. So some have just come and study directly and are then trying to maximize this CRS score. There's a section here skill transferability, where if you have foreign work experience, you can get bonus points. And if we break this down a little bit further, we can see here, if you have good language, there's points for education, but then there's points for having foreign work experience with your good language, and this is often where people can can gain a few more points if they hit one year of foreign work experience, that one year can actually give them 25 more points, which can make all the difference when they are trying to get those. Precious invitations to apply. So so let's just talk a little bit about the minimum requirements Alicia.
Alicia Backman-Beharry 5:09
And so this is where it is very important to understand why you're getting points, where you're getting points, and how you're getting points. And this now involves a deep dive into the ministerial instructions, but also making sure you're not, you know, missing the forest for the trees, right? You've got to make sure that you still hit the minimum requirements for either CEC or FST, which is not as likely, or FSW, so Federal Skilled Worker. And here's the problem, when you're looking at the Federal Skilled Worker, if you are not yet at your one year of Canadian high skilled work experience under FSW, you still have to meet those selection factor pass mark points and concurrent work in that situation will be counted differently. So no matter what, remember that you still must meet minimum eligibility for CEC or FSW in order to get your Express Entry profile in the pool and actually have a valid profile.
Mark Holthe 6:11
Indeed. Whoops. Here we go. We'll advance to the next one. Okay, so let's talk first about Canadian work experience and what counts as Canadian work experience for the purposes of the comprehensive ranking system. So we know, when it comes to the Canadian Experience Class, which is one of those, you have to have at least one year of skilled full time work experience within the previous three years. So it's not continuous, not like the Federal Skilled Worker Program, where, if you're qualifying through there, the minimum one year must be continuous, must be skilled full time or the equivalent, and part time paid all those kinds of things. But when it comes to the comprehensive ranking system, those same kind of basic rules apply. However, for Canadian work experience, when you're claiming it for comprehensive ranking, you can actually include up to 10 years the work experience that's gained in the previous 10 years. So anything else to add to that one, we're kind of zipping through this because these are, I think most people understand how this can be claimed, and what constitutes Canadian work experience, what constitutes foreign work experience, but at the same time, can you do them both? That's kind of where we're we're driving, because we know there's caps on on how much you can claim. You can't, you can't say, Well, I'm working 40 hours a week, and so therefore I'm going to, I'm going to obtain my 15 160 hours in less than 12 months. This is a big one I deal with all the time. Alicia, all the time, yeah.
Alicia Backman-Beharry 7:32
And that is specifically because of ministerial instruction section 15 sub six and under Canadian work, just like Mark was saying, you know, you can't stack jobs. You can't say I'm working two Canadian jobs, and I'm working 25 hours at one and 25 at the hour hours at the other. Therefore I'm working 50 hours a week, and I ought to be able to hit my one year sooner. You cannot do that. And it's literally, because if you look at the ministerial instructions, respecting express entry, you go down to section 50, and you look at work in excess. So section 15, sub six says you're not allowed to work simultaneous periods of work in more than one full time occupation in Canada that then is going to try to count you. It'll be just evaluated as one single full time work period in one occupation in Canada. And then the other wrinkle that often catches people unawares is you cannot claim Canadian high skilled work if you are engaged in full time study in Canada. So that's under Section seven. So that's the next section 15, sub seven. Be really careful that you cannot claim if you are engaged in full time study, right? You cannot claim if it's unauthorized work, which is sub seven, sub B, point one, and you also can't claim if you're self employed. There's some except exceptions for doctors. But remember, you know, you can't say I'm employed for myself in Canada. I'm working my own consultant gig, and then I'm working foreign work experience that is not going to count as well. So just make sure that you take a look at that and that you are authorized. So you must have maintained your authorization to work in Canada for it to be able to count wrinkles.
Mark Holthe 9:16
Yeah, big wrinkles. One thing I'll also point out, as well as people, when the government created that dumb policy that allowed workers to work, to study full time without a study permit, some people felt, Oh, well, I don't have a study permit, so therefore I can still count this work experience that I'm on right now with, say, my post grad work permit. Well, it doesn't say holding a study permit. It says engaged in full time study so basically, what that did was it in many instances, people who chose to then go to school or then they lost the ability to claim that work experience when they were on, say, a post grad work permit at that time, and they did a very poor job. They didn't think that through. And I think that was very poor, that poor on the government's part at that at that stage,
Alicia Backman-Beharry 9:58
yeah, yeah. So this is what. We're looking at in terms of the restrictions on Canadian high skilled work experience. When we look at foreign work experience, the restriction on foreign work experience is under Section 25 sub four, and again, it has a similar provision on work in excess, that says any period of work experience that exceeds full time work in one occupation or simultaneous periods of work experience in more than one full time occupation, where now we're talking about foreign work, are to be evaluated again as a single period of full time work experience in a single occupation. So we know that Canadian work, you cannot work more than one Canadian job simultaneously to try to get to your year sooner. Same thing with foreign work, you cannot work more than one foreign work experience period, two jobs, and try to claim your foreign work experience sooner. But what can you do? And so this is where it's interesting, because we have a few im reps responses, right? So we have sent inquiries to IRCC, and there is an interesting response. And so the response is that we are also looking at section 73 of IRPA, or irpr, sorry, the immigration refugee protection regulations. So this response comes back. This was from 2024, and the question was, well, are you prevented from claiming simultaneous Canadian and foreign work because of section 25 sub four. And the response is on page two of this document, and it says, well, basically, under the regulations, they've set up express entry so that full time work is at least 30 hours of work one week, and you cannot get there sooner. You still have to work your 52 weeks no matter what. So that is clear. So it says, here's the problem, work in excess is specifically precluded, so not allowed in this context of selection grid points for foreign work experience under FSW. So keep that in mind, and that's because of the regulation 80 sub four. There's also three different sections ministerial instructions, where it says, also, you cannot use work in excess, just like we talked about, we talked about two of them in the MIS but what they're saying is, well, if you're Canadian in one occupation and foreign in another, the work in excess provisions don't capture that scenario. So basically, government never contemplated it, right? The legislation was written in a way where nobody thought that people would try to do this and look, they say it's being reviewed, right? So this might all go away, right? This ability might go away if they change the legislation or the MIS but right now, on the very bottom paragraph of this letter, it says, Therefore, currently, there's nothing precluding or preventing you from claiming both Canadian and foreign work experience at the exact same time. But, and we will talk about this in a minute, it's the genuine genuineness of the work. So if you're saying I'm working 40 hours in Canada and I'm working 40 hours in my remote work online, an officer needs to believe that you have the capacity to work 80 hours a week and at the same time, right simultaneously, because of time zone changes, you're probably working overnight. So how are you practically making that work and sustaining that over a 52 week period without spontaneously combusting, so making sure that you're meeting your job, so the lead statement of your job, and then all of the main duties, or a substantial number of the main duties, for both of those jobs simultaneously.
Mark Holthe 13:42
Yeah, and you know, Alicia, this is something that we see, not just in this context, but across the board. So if you're ever in a situation where you've got, you know, a slight little change, something that's not quite fitting into the mold, you know, but, but if you know, if you make that claim, you get a big boost. Immigration is going to be looking at it closely. I'll give you a similar example. It's the same as individuals who decide to get married after they obtain their eapr. So whenever there's this big boost or this advantage to doing something that, on the surface, it kind of looks like a workaround, like it wasn't really meant to happen, but the rules don't preclude it. Then the way the check and balance for the government is they just don't believe it. So if someone gets married after they submit their eapr, then that spouse is not included in the actual calculation of the the 11.2 the actual completeness check and the eligibility sections, so their score is not added on to yours, where most spouses, if you add them at the beginning, then their human capital and their CRS, there's about 40 points that are attributed to them. And so individuals can really lose out. And so the evil, I guess, that immigration is seeing right now is that some people are just getting married, and it's not genuine. Marriages of convenience after they get their eapr, just to add in a spouse. And then the way they go, and they're saying, Okay, well, if that's the case, then you prove to me that you're really a genuine it's a genuine relationship. So when individuals now more so than ever before because of, you know, increasing fraud and things like that, the government is now in a position where they're saying, Okay, if you want to claim this, and yes, we're not going to reassess you. But you getting married right now is pretty darn convenient, and you're going to need to prove that your relationship is genuine. So we're saying now that when you're adding a spouse on, you pretty much have to include everything that you would normally in a spousal sponsorship. So in like manner here, like Alicia is talking about, if you're saying, Oh yeah, I'm doing both. I'm working full time in Canada, I'm working full time foreign, they're like, well, when are you sleeping? And remember, if you're saying that I work, I'm working 40 hours each. Well, that's going to be tough. Now, I remember Alicia. There were a couple, there were a couple months when I was articleing at one of the national firms that I most definitely worked 80 hours a week. It was a miserable time, but for a whole year, wow, that would have been tough. And so we know that 30 hours is the minimum threshold. So we see a lot of people saying, Yeah, I worked in Canada, 30 hours, and I worked 30 hours at this job abroad. And the government's like, well, that's pretty convenient. So whatever you do, remember that you have to be able to prove it. It might be theoretically right now, as we look at our at the at the most this most recent response here, let me get to the right one. I got the wrong one. Here we go. So if we go here and we look at this response, it's clear here, and remember this, if we go back, this was kind of back response looks like 2024 so even this is a little bit dated, because we never get things right off the bat, like right soon. It's always, there's always, like, a year and a half delay, so we don't know what they're thinking about this. Now, obviously there hasn't been direct policy, but yeah, Alicia, go ahead.
Alicia Backman-Beharry 16:53
Well, we do have another imreps response, and that's a 2025, response. We can't share the screen just because we can read it to you instead. So yeah, and just to give
Mark Holthe 17:04
credit, this comes from Richard Kerlin. So big shout out to Richard, who, who likes base is he digs in and gets all these access to information, little nuggets, and then he shares them with us. And so we subscribe to his service. And so big shout out to him, but we're not going to pull that out, you know, but we will tell you guys to go subscribe to it. If you're a practitioner, or somebody wants to get up to speed with all this stuff, go check out Richard's Lex Bay. So we won't show it, but Alicia, yeah, describe what it said.
Alicia Backman-Beharry 17:30
Yeah, yeah. So basically, it's saying that there is a more recent im reps response. So, you know, maybe, maybe Steven Mearns has also gone and done an A tip response on this and pulled that, I don't know. So it's, it's out there somewhere, but basically it's saying, how do you claim remote work experience when you're working two concurrent jobs? And so this is from February 2 of 2025, and it says, okay, it is possible for an applicant to claim one in Canada. So they're physically present in Canada, and they are also saying that they are working simultaneously remotely outside of Canada. And basically it's saying, depending on the applicant's qualifications, the CRS system may grant them skill transferability points for that foreign work experience and CRS core points for the Canadian work experience at the same time, it also says, if you're doing that work experience may also be eligible towards the program requirements for express entry if all requirements are met, but the system will not grant additional Federal Skilled Worker selection criteria points for work experience in excess of 30 hours, right? And that's because we were looking at the MIS and it's also because you still have to meet those minimum eligibility criteria, and doubling up or trying to do concurrent work is not going to give you that FSW eligibility sooner. So then it goes on to say, remote work for a foreign employer while you're residing in Canada is most likely going to be considered foreign work experience for the purpose of express entry, but the current system does not capture remote work. So the issue is, how do you properly put this in your profile, so that it's not misrepresentation, so that it doesn't mess up your police certificate and your security background checks? So what it says is, make sure to select the country or territory of the employer when you're claiming that remote work performed from inside Canada. But then you're going to have to do a really good job of explaining this all in your letter of explanation, so that it's very clear what's going on. And you also have to provide proof of everything.
Mark Holthe 19:39
Yeah. So this is possible, you guys, it's absolutely possible, if you do it correctly, well, you'll know that if you're, say, studying in a remote or by correspondence, as that government describes it, they specifically instruct you to list the location of study as being where you live, and then beside the name of the institution you just put by correspondence. In in parentheses to indicate that no this is, you know, this is remote study. If you were to put the location as Alicia identified of the study, or in this case, the work as being the place of the premises of the business, even though you're working virtually, then it could trigger a request for a police certificate for that country, even though you've never lived there, so on in this case. So for study, you're going to do it the opposite. You're going to say that you lived, you know, where you actually live is where you're studying, but to claim this work experience, that's, it's, it's a flip. So then it's going to trigger, potentially the the request for a police clearance certificate. And then you're going to have to indicate in very detailed letters of explanation, please note that, you know, I actually didn't live here, as you can see from my address, but I'm doing it this way so that I can ensure that I'm getting my CRS score points. And that's what they mean by Express Entry, that CRS score points for foreign work experience that I've obtained concurrently. And you know, for us, I would almost include, I'd almost include Richard's im reps in my submission, as well as the other response that the government has. So So there you have it. We've covered quite a bit. Alicia here, other items that you want to hit on before we wrap it up.
Alicia Backman-Beharry 21:13
Yeah, just making sure that when you are claiming remote work experience, this is just like Mark said with the marriages. This is where they're going to be really scrutinizing what you've submitted. So the Richard curlin's Lex based response specifically says you have to provide the remote work agreement, right? So in that letter from the foreign employer, there needs to be something acknowledging that they understand that this is remote work, that everything is okay with that, where the employer and the employee are physically located. That all has to be outlined. And the other thing is, is that it ought to be authorized work, right? So making sure that you've done things properly, so that you can show the tax records if you need to be incorporated, or if you have your sole proprietorship in that foreign country, making sure that you are complying with foreign laws when you're doing that work.
Mark Holthe 22:01
So yeah, all of those are things that we take into consideration. All right, so hopefully that was helpful for those of you who are looking to scratch out a few more points, this may very well be possible for you, so you can take a look at it. Ultimately, it's a volatile process, and we're available to help if you need any assistance with it, but if it's done properly, it may be possible for now, all right, we'll wrap up this episode 175 the Canadian immigration podcast. Great to have everyone here with us, and we will see you again soon. Take care.
Speaker 1 22:36
Thank you for listening to the Canadian immigration podcast. Your trusted source for information on Canadian immigration law, policy and practice. If you would like to book a legal consultation, please visit www.holthelaw.com you can also find lots more helpful information on our Canadian immigration Institute YouTube channel, where you can join mark on one of his many Canadian immigration live Q and As See you soon and all the best as you navigate this crazy world we call Canadian immigration. You.
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