Right. You're all set, right. Great. Thank you all so much for joining us. My name is Katie Lay and my co-presenter today is my colleague Jessye Kilburn. And as Ellen mentioned, we're both lawyers at Heron law offices, which is located in Vancouver, Canada. And today we'll be talking to you about immigration options. For this as Cornell business students. But really for any international student who's looking to immigrate to Canada. Next slide, please. Before we get started, I just wanted to do a territorial acknowledgment. We want to acknowledge that Cornell University, where we have the privilege of speaking to you today, is located on the traditional homelands of the Cayuga Nation, which is one of the six Haudenosaunee nations. And Jessye and I are currently in Vancouver on the unseated traditional lands of the Coast Salish peoples, including the Musqueam, Squamish, Tsleil-Watuth, and Qayqat First Nations. One of the main goals of our firm, rather than provide immigration services to people, is to work towards decolonization. The indigenous nation of Immigration and Refugee Law, which is something that has been extremely overlooked. So we're working to fixing that and including indigenous voices in immigration law. Alright. Next slide, please. A quick overview. We're going to start out with a brief intro. Just so you know, some of the institutions and concepts, the basics of Canadian immigration law. And we'll move on to the present realities is that some of the challenges, especially for graduates from abroad with the non-Canadian work experience, which I'm guessing most of you are in that boat. Then we'll get to what you probably are really here for is strategies and pathways to Canada, including working here temporarily, applying through a provincial nomination program, and further studies or a business visit, for job hunting. Now we'll get to some common reasons for refusal and how to hopefully avoid them. And then a quick top five tips and strategies for Cornell Masters of Business Graduates. At the end, we will save about 30 min for question and answer. So please have questions. We're happy to answer at the end. You just have to do a quick disclaimer, that this is legal information, it's not advice. There are so many complexities and nuances that we can't cover in a presentation. So, it's sort of general information. It's important to always do your own research and if you do consult a professional directly. And finally, Canadian immigration really is a constantly changing field. So, the thing to always keep in mind is to have the most up-to-date information, which is always found on the IRC official website. Okay, so Canadian immigration system in seven slides. Where does Canadian immigration law come from? Where do you look to find it? So on the left here we have the sources of law. The legislation, the  Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, often called FERPA, is the primary source. So, everything flows from there. But you won't necessarily find all the details in that act. so below here we have the regulations and different kinds of program delivery instructions, ministerial instruction. All of these are found on the website. The jurisprudence is the case law. So that's the sort of governing loss and the court.  And then, finally, often, we do have to rely on experience. Not everything unfortunately is written down on the website. So often, as immigration practitioners we're talking to other practitioners to try to figure out what's happening lately and what we can do about it. On the right, we have the players. So, the main one is Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada or "IRCC." Then in terms of the border services agency, you have "CBSA," they do enforcement and customs, economic and social development. Canada is involved in assessing the Canadian labor market when there is a need to do so for work permits. We have the Provinces and the Territories. They're kind of like the states in the US. The Provinces in the South, and the Territories are the ones up North. So, they have their own nomination programs where they can nominate candidates for permanent resident. Of the eventual processing for permanent residence is done by the federal government, but the Provinces and Territories are really important. We'll get into that more later. The Immigration and Refugee Board "IRB" is an independent tribunal. It does some of the more complex cases involving a hearing. And finally, the federal court oversees all of the above. So if there's a refusal and it has to be challenged, that's where we go first. Next, just a quick overview of the types of representatives and advisors that might be available to you. Lawyers are licensed by the province of the Territory. And then there's something called a Registered Canadian Immigration Consultant that is a Canada wide registration, but it is limited to certain types of application. Similar paralegals, are in certain Provinces, but they are limited by types of applications. What you really want to avoid are unauthorized representatives. It's all too common. Quote on-quote, visa agents, unauthorized consultant, ghost representatives who sort of help you behind the scenes but don't disclose themselves in your application. We see way too often posts getting in trouble with these kinds of Representatives. so that's just the main thing to keep in mind. And then finally, a quick note on the province of Quebec. It has its own sort of hoops to jump through. It is a little bit special as a Province so if you are thinking about going there, I highly recommend it. I lived there for nine years. It's great. But you do want to get a representative from Quebec that is licensed there. Alright so very quickly these are the three main categories, of immigration status in Canada so we are going to go through each of them. Temporary residents, there are visitors, international students, and workers. So, um, for visitors, you'd have to look at what your citizenship is. Some citizenships are visa exempt, and this includes US Green Card holders. But they do still need what's called an Electronic Travel Authorization. U.S. citizens require only your passport to visit. And then many other countries, you do have to get a temporary resident visa, which you can apply for online, there are these applications centers around the world. International students, this does apply here all pretty much graduate students. But if you are interested in further studies, at PhD level, you can get a study permit for that. Most folks have to apply online. If you're an American citizen, you can apply at the border. And then for workers, there's two main types of work permit. Some require what's called a Labor Market Impact Assessment. So, the Canadian employer has to test the Labor Market to see if there's a Canadian who can fill the position. And if not, then they can hire somebody on a work permit. And then there's several kinds of exemptions from that requirement for Labor Market Impact Assessments so Katie is going to get into that later. But, basically they're all sort of founded on some kind of reciprocal agreement between Canada and another country on a certain kind of occupation. Or there's also one for francophones who are going to be working outside of Quebec. For permanent residence kind of like your U.S. Green Card. There's three main classes, so there's economic programs, get into later, but they're all based around some kind of work experience, education. There's also the startup visa program. For standard class we have spouses, common law partners, parents and grandparents, and then the refugee humanitarian classes as well. So all of these can lead you to permanent residence, which gives you the right to say permanently work anywhere, enter and exit, etcetera. But you do have this residency obligation. So every two out of five years you have to be in Canada. There's some exceptions or discretion on humanitarian and compassionate factors and an appeal rights to an independent tribunal. But that is something that you have to deal with for the duration of your time as a permanent resident until you become a citizen. These three paths here. You're born in Canada citizen by descent, but there is a one generation limit for those born outside of Canada and then citizenship by naturalization. So, if you have three out of five years of physical residence, Canada after becoming a permanent resident. You can count half day credit for time you were in Canada before you were a permanent resident. And then you have to pass a citizenship exam. And then after that, when you're a citizen, no more residency requirement, you can vote. Next. Big concept is inadmissibility. So this can pop up really in any of the temporary or permanent resident processes that I just mentioned. Essentially, it means that you can't be in Canada for one of a few reasons. One of the more common criminality. UIs, for example, recently increased in severity under Canadian law. So, Canadian immigration officers will look at the offense in the country where it happened and compare it to Canadian law. For nationals, anyone on a study, permanent work permit, or visitor are under a stricter standard for criminality than a permanent resident. So even a less serious offense can make you inadmissible if you're on a study from it or work permit. There is a possibility of rehabilitation or temporary residence permit. You overcome this inadmissibility if you can show essentially that you're not a danger to Canada. Second kind of inadmissibility is misrepresentation. So, this leads to a five-year ban from Canada. And it can be either giving untrue information or omitting information. So, if you ever had a previous U.S. visa refusal, you always have to disclose that to Canadian authorities. You still have to be careful just making sure the information across all your applications is consistent. And if you're using a representative, to always review the information in your application, before you submit it to try and avoid any problems with misrepresentation. Then there's medical inadmissibility so since healthcare is publicly funded in Canada, we do have this requirement of a medical exam. And anytime there's a condition that might be an excessive demand on the public health care system you might be medically inadmissible. Then lastly, non-compliance. So pretty much any breach of the Immigration Legislation can lead to an inadmissible on that ground. Over on the right, we have different kinds of removal orders. There's different types some are for a limited amount of time. The deportation order is for life, but you can apply for an authorization to return to Canada. Alright, so next we're gonna get into some of the present realities that challenges and possibilities of where Canada's Immigration System is right now and where it might be going in the future. So there's two key Canada wide economic immigration programs. What's on this side here is the base requirements for this program, these two programs. So just meeting these requirements isn't necessarily enough to get you permanent residents. There's also a points calculation on top of this, which we'll get to later. But these are the base requirements that sort of get you into the running. So the main difference between these two programs is one counts outside of Canada work experience and the other one, only inside Canada. They both require one year of Guild work experience. I'm going to get into in a second what guild means, what counts as guild here? So, the Federal Skilled Worker program. It does have to be continuous year of work experience, but you can include self-employed work, whereas the Canadian experience costs you can't include self-employed work, but it doesn't have to be continuous. Alright, so what does guilds mean? It has a very precise definition. It's not necessarily what you or I might think, skilled work experiences is. So, and this changed last fall. So be careful relying on old information because the whole sort of classification system changed very recently. Essentially there's something called the National Occupation Classification, where every job gets a specific code. And then those job codes or not codes are sorted into TEERS, which you can see along the left side of this table. TEER stands for training, education, experience, and responsibilities. So the Teers go from zero to five, only Teer 0, 1, 2, 3 that are shown on this side are considered skilled work experience for the Federal Express Entry Economic Immigration Program. The way that you are assessed as to whether your job meets the requirements of international occupation classification code is based on the main duties, so the job title isn't necessarily determinative. You have to show that you have done most of the main duties of the job. There is also an assessment of the wage, so you want to make sure that it's consistent with the job, the job that was performed. Alright, so after you met the base requirements of an express entry program you're then ranked according to points. It's called the Comprehensive Ranking System, gives points for work experience, education, and language. So, the most interesting way to show this would be to do sort of a mock points calculation, either based on somebody's real situation or if someone wants to make a situation up. Would there be anyone who would be willing to volunteer to run through this with us, you can unmute yourself. Alright, if not, I'm going to ask Katie, my Guinea pig. Alright. So here you have, you can see there's comprehensive ranking system tool where you can just fill out these drop-down menus. And at the end it'll show you the total of your points and where you got points for. So, it starts with marital status. Katie what is your marital status? Never married. And how old are you? I am 28. What's your highest level of education? Master's degree. Have you ever earned a Canadian credential? No. Alright, so we're gonna assume that you have taken language tests in the last two years and that you took the IELTS test. And then we'll assume because you are very intelligent Cornell graduate that you got tops scores. Do you speak French, Katie? No, no French. Alright. So, this is about Canadian Work Experience. In the last ten years, how many years of skilled work experience in Canada you have? Let's say I've never worked in Canada before. None or less than a year. What about outside of Canada work experience in the last ten years? Four years.  So, three years or more. And this question is about, usually relates to skilled trades in Canada. Do you have any secret carpentry skills, Katie? No, unfortunately not. Alright. So this this question is about a job offer supported by labor market impact assessment. Katie's gonna get into this later, but for now we'll assume that she doesn't have one, but she did I would give her some points. And again, nomination for the Province or Territory and Katie's going to get into that later, but we'll assume no for now. Yeah. Last question. Do you have any brothers or sisters in Canada? No, I don't. Okay. So now we're going to calculate your score. Scroll down here and see that you have 481 points. I'm going to quickly go back here. So what does that mean? Go to the next slide. Here. You can see the recent draws. So this means that out of all of everyone who is ready and wanting to be invited to apply for economics immigration through express entry. They sort of skim off the top, so everyone above a certain points threshold will get invited to apply. Katie with that 481, which on the March 29th draw here, she she would have qualified, but now it's going up slightly and you can see it's kind of around the high 400s lately. The ones that say 700, these are for the Provincial Nomination Program because if you do it at Province or Territory nominating you, you get 600 points. I'm going to just quickly show you... if for example Katie had gotten a year of Canadian work experience... let me just change this... So say she got her work permit and she worked in Canada for a year. Let's see how that would change her points. So now she got 521, so that makes the big difference for her and really puts her in the running for the reason point drop. Hey I see a hand up. Go ahead if you have a question. Oh, yes. Thank you so much. My question is, if you're coming for... even if you're coming from a native speaking language like an anglophone country, do you have to prove that you took your TOEFL or your English examination? That's my first question. And the other question is, let's say you've done internship, right, it's remote but with a Canadian company. How does that look like in terms of... does it count? Because an internship is like three to four months. So does it count the same? So for the first question, yeah. If you want points for language, you do have to take the test. Second one can get tricky. So I think I missed the first part of your question. Is the employer in Canada but you're remote? Right. Yes. So it's an internship, but it's remote with a Canadian company. Do you put it as... it has to be a year, right? Not few months? Yeah. It has to add up to a year. I can help step in if you'd like on a couple things. Sorry, Will here. I'm helping out on the presentation, just thought I would listen in and see where I can step in. So again, first of all, the exam, I think you mentioned TOEFL, that's not an accepted exam. So for English, it's IELTS, CELPIP and I believe Pearson is on the list and it should be approved soon and maybe one of you guys can check on. But the TOEFL not accepted. In terms of the virtual work. Like you're doing an internship for Canada, but you're not in Canada for Canadian work experience. You do have to be physically in Canada to obtain the Canadian work experience points. That's been rule that they've been enforcing quite a bit. So it does require a physical presence. The other thing that folks get in trouble for is if they're physically here, but then they're working remotely. For a US based employer or employee that's not in the Canadian labor market, they're just doing virtual work from Canada that has also been deemed not eligible for points, for the keen experience points. So there are some nuances to this, but a lot of it, I would suggest probably seeing us for one-on-ones afterwards because it can get a little bit tricky as Jessye has pointed out. Thanks. Thanks, Will. That was our affirms founder, Will. Alright, so, yeah, thanks for the question. Okay, So next slide here, you can see a little bit of an idea about what the pool looks like. So this is everyone who's waiting for an invitation. Your competition, I guess. You can see there's not really many people with that fruitional nomination over 600 points. Not too many, over 500, but there isn't really when you get below 500, there's a lot of folks waiting in a pool. This is Levels Plan. So the current government plan for the amount of permanent resident that'll be admitted over the next few years. You can see the economic immigration is going up. Family and the refugees. Humanitarian is going down. Something to flag for later in 2023 is that the government has announced they're going to start doing targeted draws for certain occupations. They want to be able to, they said cherry-pick applicants with the most in-demand skills in areas of the country that need workers. So these draws that you see here right now, they're not limited to particular occupation if anyone with skilled work experience But in the future you might see certain occupations being prioritized. We don't know what that'll look like yet, so it's something to just stay tuned. Next, another thing to be aware of is the backlogs. So during the pandemic things really slowed down, we do have this backlog with almost 2 million applications. About half of them are within service standards and about half are stuck in that backlog. If you want to see the average recent processing times, there is a tool online where you can check by type of application. So if you look at those two programs that I was talking about before, federal skilled worker is the first one. So this program right now we're at a 27 month waiting time. Which is pretty awful, but the Canadian experience class is done at five months. So that's just some things to keep an eye on. Alright, so I'll pass it over to Katie for strategic pathways, to Canada. Hey, thank you. Next slide, please. So in this first section, I'm going to go over these three questions. The first, how do I find a job or an internship to how does this job or internship help me stay in Canada or assist me in becoming a permanent resident. And then third, how can I avoid the labor market impact assessment process? So all reference labor market impact assessment is a little bit. While I answered the first two questions. As Jessye mentioned earlier, labor market impact assessments are done to basically assess and manage the Canadian labor market and effectively to make sure that we don't have such an influx of temporary foreign workers that there is a negative impact on the Canadian workforce. So one of the ways that LMIA's help to do this is by having employers advertise jobs to Canadian workers. And if no Canadian worker is available to take the job, then they can hire a temporary foreign worker. So I'll get a little bit more into avoiding that process after, but just to start next slide, please. How do I find a job or an internship? One thing that I really want to emphasize to all of you is that an immigration advisor, so immigration lawyer, registered, Canadian immigration consultant, or a paralegal cannot find you a job unless the person is a licensed recruiter. IRCC, is quite strict on this because they want to make sure that workers are not taken advantage of or not, but into dangerous situations. They want to make sure that workers are working in legitimate jobs that will protect them. So any kind of collusion between an immigration advisor and an employer is very, very looked down upon. And things like paying for your job are illegal in Canada. There's an act called the Temporary Form Worker Protection Act, which lays out a lot of the protections that have been set in place to avoid situations where vulnerable temporary foreign workers may be exploited for financial gains. So this is something that the Canadian government does take very, very seriously. And I just want you all to be aware that if you are in a situation that kind of makes you a little uncertain or gives you a bad feeling, please contact a licensed immigration professional to discuss it. Don't disregard those feelings of uncertainty. And if anyone is asking you to pay, for instance, for your labor market impact assessment, that is something that should be borne by the employer. And if you are in a situation where you're asked to pay for a cost that is supposed to be borne by the employer like labor market impact assessment, you are entitled to that money back so you can take action against the employer and get paid the money back because you are not supposed to be paying it. There are a lot of job-seeking websites such as Indeed, Jobbank, which is a Canadian government website that lists jobs available. There's also WorkBC and SaskJobs, which are examples of provincial job banks. Most Provinces have them. And a lot of these jobs may have LMIA advertisements if you are going the LMIA route. And you can see what's out there. Get an idea of what the pay is for different jobs. Next slide, please. How will the job help me moving forward? One thing that is important to know, and I think this may be different in Canada than in the United States, but unpaid internships are alright if you're a student, but if you're not a student, unpaid internships are not legal. You must be paid minimum wage and work that's been done as an unpaid internship is not beneficial towards your permanent residence. Paid internships that are under paid may also pose problems down the road with legitimizing your work experience. And you can look on Jobbank to see what the average prevailing wage is for different jobs. Just to make sure that you are within the average range, that you're not being under paid. As a temporary foreign worker, you are supposed to be paid the same wage as a Canadian worker. Again, this is something that's really, really important because we want to make sure that you are paid, what you are owed, what you should be paid. And this wage can also impact your permanent residence options because they do consider the wage that you've been paid for a lot of the programs. Similarly, if you are working in a position that's more low skilled, or if you are working as a contractor rather than as an employee these can also create eligibility issues. So make sure you look at the job descriptions, the tasks, the duties, and look to see what teer category your job is. And Jessye went over this earlier, so I've linked the teer categories here for you, but just keep that in mind when you're job searching. Next slide, please. And then question three, why avoid the LMIA if possible? LMIA's lead to what's called an employer, specific work permit, which ties you to a specific job. So the job listed in the LMIA, the job that the employer has advertised. And you can only work for that one employer in that one job for your own benefit if it's, it's not a bad option, but it's typically not what is best for you as the employee or for the employer because applying for LMIA's does involve quite a bit of a foot work from the employer as well. So it involves advertising costs. Employers have to advertise the position for four weeks on at least three different job sites. So that takes up some time and money. They have administrative and legal costs. And most importantly, there are compliance costs associated with the LMIA process. So there's a possibility that the employer will be audited and this can lead to penalties. So typically employers like to avoid LMIA's, a lot of employers prefer the provincial nomination pro gram, PR process instead there's a little bit less federal government oversight or there's less kind of eyes on the company. You also typically will get a longer-term commitment because employers specific work permits are only valid for two years. So every two years you would go through the same LMIA process, the same work permit application process, and it's just a lot of work for the employer and for you as the employees. So a lot of employers do prefer the PNP route. Some bigger corporate employers might have their own immigration council who do LMIA's a lot and don't mind and have set ways of doing it. But for smaller companies or start-ups, they may have challenges supporting you, um, or it may just be a little bit too costly. So those are just things to keep in mind. It's also important to make sure if you are going the LMIA route to make sure that your job offer matches the description. Make sure that you have the advertise job experience. And to plan ahead because as I mentioned, the employer does have to advertise for at least four weeks, so there is quite a bit of time that needs to be accounted for if you go this, this way. Next slide, please. Alright, so how do these things that we've talked about apply to you? Next slide, please. There are six LMIA exemptions and again, Jessye briefly touched on this, but I'll go into a little bit more detail. So first is international experience Canada. Generally. I think someone's unmuted, whatever my muting, please. Sorry. Great. Thank you. So if you are between the ages of 18 to 35 or for some countries it's 18 to 30. So just double-check depending on your country of citizenship, you're able to come work and travel in Canada. There are free trade agreements. So these are reciprocal agreements for certain occupations that depend on the country. So there are some agreements such as the CUSMA agreement. So Canada, US, and Mexico. And they have categories for business visitors, professionals, intercompany transferees, etcetera. There's also an intercompany transfers which permits international companies to temporarily transfer qualified employees to Canada for the purpose of improving management effectiveness, expanding Canadian exports. Enhancing competitiveness and overseas market, that kind of thing. Number four is the global talent stream, which looks for unique and specialized talent, or people who are highly skilled and work in sectors that are highly in demand. There's also reciprocal agreements which allow foreign workers to take up employment in Canada where Canadians have a similar opportunity abroad. Then sixth is the Francophone work permit. This is for people who are working outside of Quebec in skilled occupations. The reason why it's specifically people working outside of Quebec is because Quebec is a primarily French-speaking province. And Canada's really emphasizing the promotion of the French language outside of Quebec, across Canada. So this LMIA exemption, it doesn't require that the job be in French, but the candidates habitual language of daily use must be French. So at least a language level seven benchmark. And this means that you can, this means that the person, usually in their daily life would speak French. So the purpose of this exemption is to encourage people to speak French outside of Quebec and to spread the French language elsewhere in Canada. Next slide, please. LMIA-Exempt Work Permit process typically starts with an application for a work permit, usually online. Some situations you can apply at a port of entry, but typically you would apply online if you have status in the United States. So if you've been a resident, if you've lived there for a year or more, if you're a citizen, they will usually process your application in the United States, but it really is up to IRCC. Sometimes it may be processed elsewhere. For the LMIA Exempt Work Permit Process, your employer will have to submit an offer of employment through their employer portal, which is through the Canadian government, and will have to pay a $230 compliance fee. This is different than the LMIA. There's no advertising process. Typically employers are a little bit more amenable to this process because the compliance fee is less than the LMIA fee, it doesn't require as much from the employer. But again, this is something that the employer must do. You should not be paying the compliance fee. And you again, should make sure that the offer of employment that the employer submitting is something that you do meet the requirements of and then it matches what you've been told. Next slide, please. Not all activities require a work permit. There are two kinds of situations in which you may be able to work for a short time in Canada without a work permit. The first is for business visitors. Typically you can work in Canada for up to six months, if longer than six months you will need a work permit. And under this exemption, you have to show that you don't plan to enter the Canadian labor market, that your main place of business and your main source of income and profit is outside Canada. You also have to show that you have documents to support your application and that you meet Canada's basic entry requirements. So valid passport, that kind of stuff. There's also a short-term Work Permit exemption. So if you're a tier zero or one, so a manager or working in an occupation that usually requires a university degree, you are allowed to work up to 15 consecutive days in Canada every six months, or up to 30 consecutive days every 12 months. And it's important to note that the 15 days, it continues to be counted even if you leave Canada within the 15 days or the 30 days. So if you take advantage of this, you do need to wait the six months before you're able or the 12 months before you're able to take advantage of this again. Next slide, please. As of January 30th of this year (2023), you are eligible for a work permit if you're the spouse of someone who is working in any tier. So 01234 or five, as long as your spouse has a work permit of six months or longer. So before this update, it was only for certain tiers, but now they've expanded it. So almost all accompanying spouses of people with work permits are eligible for a work permit. And this is divided into two sections, high-skilled workers and low-skilled workers. Your spouse, and this applies, vice versa. So if you have a work permit a six months or longer, your spouse may be eligible. And if your spouse has a work permit then you may be eligible. It works both ways. You or your spouse, the accompanying spouse, can also obtain a visitor record or apply for a study permit. And under Canadian immigration law, the dependent child of a worker can attend preschool, primary school, and secondary school without a study permit, depending on the individual school district rules. However, if you have a child who is looking to study at a post-secondary institution in Canada and isn't a Canadian permanent resident or citizen, they will need to get a study permit before they can enter Canada or study in Canada. So if that's the situation that applies to you, make sure that you plan ahead for that. Alright, Next slide, please. The work permit processing is typically quite straightforward, so you'll get an approval or refusal in situations of misrepresentation that Jessye mentioned earlier. You will be issued a five-year bar if you're found to have misrepresented your application. So again, make sure that everything on your application is accurate, true. And if you are using a representative, make sure you vet everything before it gets submitted. You will typically be provided a work visa or a letter approval once your application has been approved. But you need to wait until you get your actual physical paper work permit at the port of entry before you start working. And then I know we'll talk about this a bit later, but a few common reasons for refusal or that people don't meet eligibility requirements, IRCC may have concerns about your intent. For instance, they may think that you are not planning to leave after your permit has expired and be concerned about that. They may think that you don't have the financial ability to support yourself. Or if they think that there are any discrepancies within the application or between your application and the offer of employment that may be cause for concern for IRCC as well. Next slide, please. For wages, your pay should be equal or equal to or above the median wage on Job Bank and should be within the range of jobs at the same position for people with the same experiences you. So as I mentioned earlier, just because you are not a Canadian citizen, doesn't mean that you're allowed to be paid less. You do need be paid properly. And that's something that's very, very important. Another major divide other than low skill or high skill in Canada is high wage and low wage, and the threshold is dependent on Provinces. The Provinces vary a lot. But as long as you're above the provincial average or high wage, and if you're below the provincial average or low wage. So the provincial average is ranged from $21.63. Average is the lowest, to $37.30 average is the highest. Next slide, please. Alright. Provincial nominee programs. Next slide, please. Why Provincial Nominee Programs (PNP)? Provinces and Territories have agreements with the federal government to support permanent residents. And this is something that gives the Provinces and Territories some power and some say over who gets to stay and live in the Province or Territory. The parental nomination will typically be followed by the federal government unless there's a reason that the federal government doesn't believe that it should be. But that's quite rare. And typically, but not always, under the PNP program, the average is more forgiving on requirements, so they may have a lower wage range, lower language requirements. The advertising requirements on employers maybe less strict. But on the flip side, there are some challenges. Almost all PNP skilled worker programs are tied to either to Canadian job offer or significant ties to a Province. So family or friends who live in a province. Next slide, please. There are five express entry  notification of interests streams that don't require a job offer. These are offered by Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. So in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, you do need to have graduated from a post-secondary institution in the province. So if any of you are looking to complete another degree in either Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, this may be an option for you. You need to meet one of the three program requirements managed under express entry which Jessye covered earlier. So federal skilled worker, federal skilled trade or Canadian experience class. And when you are creating your profile in express entry, you need to indicate the Provinces and Territories that you're interested in potentially moving to. Once that's done, the Province or Territory will search the Express entry database to find candidates who meet criteria for one of their streams. Maybe they'll pick you, send you a notification of interest, and then if you meet the base requirements, you can either accept or refuse the nomination. That's just a super, super brief overview. If this is something that you're interested in, again, we recommend that you set up a consultation with us. I know that this is probably it's just very, very general information, but that is a way to potentially immigrate without a job offer. You can also apply for the provincial nominee program and express entry together. Presidential nominee program does get you an extra 600 points if you get a nomination from a province. But you'll need to meet the requirements of both express entry and one of the three programs and of the provincial nominee program that you are interested in. Next slide, please. If again, you're looking to get another degree in potentially in British Columbia, Ontario, Manitoba, you may be eligible for one of the no job offer requirements streams. In BC, the international, postgraduate, and Ontario. It's the master's graduate stream. In Manitoba, it's international education stream. And there are certain programs that they look at or that they're prioritizing, which we've listed on the slide. I won't read it out because it's quite long. But afterwards when you are given the slides, I recommend just looking through and then it's a sketch when there is the international skilled worker program for occupations that are in high demand. And for that program as well, There's no job offer requirement. Next slide, please. The Atlantic Immigration Program is a program specific to Atlantic Canada, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland. And these Provinces are all like north of Maine and in the far east of Canada. And typically this region of Canada has been a little bit poorer, has had smaller populations on the rest of Canada. The Atlantic Immigration Program was designed to bolster the Atlantic economy and bring more people to Atlantic Canada. The Atlantic Immigration Program were placed a similar immigration pilot in 2002. There's no need for an LMIA but you do need qualified work experience unless you have graduated from a post-secondary institution in Atlantic Canada. Under this program, a designated employer would need to recruit a worker or recruit you as a worker, provide a settlement plan for the Worker settlements in the Atlantic Province and then would need to receive an endorsement from the Province. So the focus is primarily on international grads who have studied in Atlantic Canada, nurses and other in-demand labor market needs. And this program is intended to supplement PNPs rather than replace them so the programs work together. I've also linked a little bit more information here in case you're interested. But again, you would need either qualifying work experience or to have graduated from school and Atlantic Canada. Next slide, please. I'll make a brief comment on the PNP entrepreneur and startup visa options. BC and the Yukon Territory both have PNP entrepreneur programs. And there are also some startup visa options for permanent residence. So you are eligible for this potentially if you have a qualifying business with up to five owner applicants, each of these owner applicants would need at least 10% of voting rights or 50% total voting rights. You would also need to get a letter of support from a designated organization. So venture capitalists an angel investor, a business incubator. And depending on which of these designated organizations you have supporting you, you may need to pay a minimum investment. So for a venture capitalist, the minimum investment that you would need to provide is $200,000. For an angel investor at $75,000, you would also need to meet language requirements. So at least Canadian language benchmark five, There's also settlement funds that you would need to be able to provide separate from any wage that you would be earning as someone who's employed in Canada. This is money that you would need to show that you have before you come to Canada. And these settlement funds are specific amounts listed by IRCC that are updated every year and they vary depending on how many family members you'll be bringing over, I believe for one individual is around $13,000. But the more family members you're bringing, the higher the number is. So if this is something that you think would apply to you, look into that. But I also just want to note that these programs can often really over like be oversold or over promised. And they're very, very selective, require large financial commitment. Take a while to process PR, maybe longer than the typical PR programs. So if this is something that you're interested in, definitely recommend speaking to an immigration professional. Alright, next slide, please. Portals. Portals are very important to know about these days. IRCC is now focused on online PR applications and you have to apply using the online permanent residence portal. You'd need to apply it for your provincial nomination before you submit your PR application. And this too is done online through a Provinces PR portal. And I've linked the IRCC portal here for you. There are no more paper-based applications except in certain circumstances. So if you have an accessibility need that needs accommodation, you can submit a request to IRCC, and other available delivery methods are paper, braille or large print. But your application requests has to be approved by IRCC. So again, if that's something that you need if you're not able to apply via the portal, if you don't have access to a computer or if you need an alternative delivery method. That's something that you should take into consideration as well. Next slide, please. Then before I pass you back to Jessye, just some ultimate questions to consider. Is Canada your planA, is Canada your plan B how does it compare to the United States in your list of priorities. Two, do you want to be in Canada temporarily? Permanently? Are you still not sure? And three, if you want to be in Canada permanently, consider how you become competitive for selection. If you're not already. Do the scoring calculator, see how competitive you are. And ultimately, a big question to ask yourself is, is it worth the investment of time, of money? So, yeah, keep, keep these in the back of your mind as you revise our slides later as we finish our talk. And just try to think of your future plan and how everything is prioritized. Next slide. All right. The will be about a couple of ways, especially if you're not competitive for permanent residence selection from outside of Canada. Some things you can look at are either further studies in Canada or coming for a job hunt trip or even a business visit. Benefits of further studies in Canada. You can work usually only part-time. There's been a few exceptions recently, as long as you're full-time enrolled in your courses and then Graduates of Canadian institutions receive up to a three-year plus graduation work permit. This depends on the length of your studies. So if you're only doing a one-year program, you only get a one-year work permit. This is sort of equivalent to the U.S. OPT. Then of course, the post-graduation work permit can open up the pathway to permanent residence leader through getting Canadian work experience and then applying through the Canadian experience class. If you do want to apply for further studies. And you're looking for a school, it's important to check whether it's designated as a DLI, Designated Learning Institution is linked. The list here so you can search that later. This is the right leader you'll be eligible for a post-graduate work permit. If you had U.S. student work status before and you've a good U.S. immigration history or of course, if you're a US citizen, generally you'll make a good applicant for Canada. Although you should be aware that they do potentially refuse or one grounded immigration status. So for example if you had been in U.S. for awhile, but your citizenship is elsewhere, you may have to show your ability to return to that country of citizenship because you're not guaranteed to be able to return to the US. So you have to be careful, but whether you have enough ties to your country of citizenship and whether you provided evidence of that in your application. They may also refuse for purpose of visit there, especially for all of you who have a very prestigious master's degree. If you were to go to for example to a community college in Canada to do some business program they might have a bit of a red flag about that and question your purpose of visit, whether it's actually to study or whether it's for immigration purposes so we do see refusals for that kind of a refund. And then of course, you also have to show proof of finances. So of course, Canada is not quite as expensive as U.S. but we do charge national students a lot more than domestic students. So you have to be able to show proof of funds to support yourself while you're here. Job search as a visitor can be a good idea to come up in person to do the interview. Sometimes employers, if you're coming from outside of Canada, showing up in person can help them see that you're serious and address those concerns. For those who are American, Brazilian, Indian, and Mexican. There's something called CANDO processing. Actually a secret program that we only learned about through access to information requests. But basically it triages and expedites low-risk visitor application. So you'd hopefully get a faster decision if you're from one of those countries. So if you're just searching for jobs in Canada, you don't need a work permit but do be aware that if you're training or doing an unpaid internship you do need what those may constitute work, in which case you would need a work permit. And lastly, there's a temporary policy. It's been extended into 2025 that allows you to apply for work permit from inside Canada so you don't have to leave first, which is handy. Alright. The next just a few common grounds for refusal going over this a little bit, but generally for temporary residence, the main concern is that they won't leave Canada the end of their authorized day. So specifically, this can mean looking at family ties. If you have family in Canada or if you had family in your country of citizenship, those will be weighed. There's a visit, like I said, your, progression of studies doesn't seem logical. They may question your purpose of visit, financial grounds showing that you can support yourself. If you do want to do further studies showing you can pay your first year tuition plus 10,000 CAD and then immigration status as I was saying before. If you've been outside of your country of citizenship, for awhile, you may have concerns about ties to that country of citizenship whether you'll be willing to return at the end of your authorized stay. And then another common reason is insufficient evidence. So it's really important to put your best foot forward in your application to write evidence to address all of these grounds and all the other eligibility requirements. The officer isn't going to contact you if they already have evidence about this, they're just going to refuse you. So that's something to be mindful of. For the permanent residence side of things, usually, refusals revolve around some failure to meet the eligibility requirements or insufficient documentary proof that you do it via eligibility requirements. Again, really important to put your best foot forward with. All irrelevant evidence from the get-go. Then those inadmissibility, which was mentioning before, It was those concerns about criminality and misrepresentation, that that is a ground of refusal that you will get a heads up about or you should. Usually they'll send what's called the procedural fairness letter. And you are just requesting documents and you'll be asked to address a possible inadmissibility. That's a really good time to talk to a professional about it so that you can respond the best way possible. Some tips to remedy refusals. The first step that we always advise is to get more information. So there's something called an access information or Privacy Act request known as ATIPs. And this will let you see the officers notes so that you can understand their specific concerns. It really helps you assess your option, know what you're dealing with and know what's on your record. Because any future officer that is assessing new application in the future will be looking at it. So you want to know what's in there. This is a tongue twister. So remedying refusals, there's re-application, reconsideration or reopening. Reapplying means that you can just make a new application try to address your refusal grounds with new evidence. Reconsideration means asking the same officer to reconsider their decision. This is usually if there's a clear error that they've made. This is discretionary process and the timelines variables, so there's no guarantees, but sometimes it's worth a try. Then lastly, you can try to get your case reopened through judicial review. So this means going to court arguing that the decision was unreasonable or the procedural procedure was unfair. If you're successful, you can get a different officer to decide your case and get the opportunity to provide updated evidence. For applications like study permit that are currently being decided with the aid of advanced analytics or artificial intelligence. This can kind of get your case in front of a real-life officer and it gives you a chance to really get someone to consider your evidence, especially if you have a complex case. So if you do want to do this process, you have to go to the federal court. Only lawyers can help you with that. It can be along inexpensive process. Currently our experience is that the Department of Justice, the government lawyers often make an early settlement offer and consent to having your application reopened, especially if the advanced analytics artificial intelligence stuff is involved. Yeah, so again, if you get a bad officer the first time, this is a good way to get your case before a different officer. Go back to Katie for quick top five tips for Cornell graduates. Next slide please. So my top five tips. The first tip is review your contract with your Canadian employer before signing. This is important. You want to make sure your contract matches what you were told. You want to make sure you're signing onto the job that you think you're signing on to. You also want to make sure that you meet the job requirements and that the jobs duties requirements and skill level is what was advertised. Again, as we mentioned earlier, a lot of PR programs look at job experience and you do just want to make sure any contract you sign with a Canadian employer matches your skill level, matches what you were looking to sign onto. Because if it doesn't, it can negatively impact your permanent residency applications. Second, be transparent with your employer and see if you can gauge their ability to assist you on the front end with permanent residents applications. What this really means is see if your employer is maybe willing to keep you on indefinitely. Most PR programs that require a job offer require an indeterminate full-time job offer. So being up front with your employer about wanting to stay in Canada long term, if we wanted to work with them long term. And seeing if they would be willing to keep you on indefinitely is really helpful. If you do need an LMIA. Seeing if your employer will support you with that is really important as well for the provincial nomination route, seeing if your employer is willing to support you is important and just being open and honest with your employer about your intentions can save quite a bit of stress later down the road. Tip three, multi-layer your plans. So if you have Canada, the U.S. as you plan A and plan B, don't fully put your plan B on the back-burner, considerate while working towards your plan A if the U.S. is your priority, but you're also interested in Canada potentially, if immigrating to the US. doesn't work out. Plan the two of them together and consider what is needed for your backup plan while working towards your plan, A. Tip four, very important record, anything and everything for your own immigration records. If you hire an immigration consultant or a lawyer or a paralegal, keep copies of the applications they submit, ask for a full copy of your application. Make sure you know what's being submitted. Know, your addresses for the last ten years, know your job for the last ten years. This is stuff that they will ask you for. Your travel history. Times you leave and enter the U.S., countries you go to. When you've gone to. This is all really important to know because you may be asked about it on your application. The IRCC will want everything. So periods of unemployment, everything they wanna, they wanna know. So keep track of things, especially if you know that you're working towards an application for permanent residence or work permanent in Canada, you're better off chipping away at it in small pieces before then trying to scramble afterwords it. Again, keeping copies of what's been submitted for you and making sure you read over what's being submitted for you is very important because usually once it's been submitted, you can't look at it again and you have no idea what's been said, maybe misrepresented, and that will fall onto your shoulders. A more fun tip, tip five. Use your current U.S. students status to make exploratory visits to Canada. Canada is a huge country. All the Provinces and Territories are very different from each other. I've talked to a few people who think that Vancouver to Toronto is a day trip. It's not. Coming to Canada to scope out employers to see what Provinces you're interested in or Territory's you're interested in, is a really good idea. Because really each Province and Territory is so different. Alberta is a big oil province. Saskatchewan, Manitoba are very agricultural. Our capital, Ottawa is in Ontario, so is Toronto, which is our biggest cities. So if you're interested in more of corporate staff, that may be where you want to go. Vancouver is also quite techie. So if you're interested in working in business or tech, BC might be a good place, also big forestry industry. So don't be afraid to come to Canada, visit a few Provinces and Territories and see what interests you. And Canada. I known for being quite cold. But if you really want to avoid the cold, that the Territories are probably not the place for you, but it's really a beautiful country. So we highly recommend that you come up and check it out. Yeah, I think that's everything from us. We'll take some questions now if you have any. Thank you so much for letting us speak with you. Hopefully you learned something. And again, if you have any other questions, I know we just said a lot. If you have any questions that aren't answered by the slides or by every watch this recording, please email us or call us and we'll be happy to speak with you.