Carlie: Hello there. It’s Carlie with the Expat Focus Podcast. Have you visited expatfocus.com? On our website you will find comprehensive destination guides and recommend service providers for everything from international health insurance, to help with financial planning, and recommended international movers. You can also subscribe to our newsletter to never miss an update.
Moving has been top of mind for some Americans since the US Presidential election, and the enquiries have been pouring in for Immigration Consultants, Canada Abroad. Deanne Acres joins me to explain exactly what is required for US citizens who are set on leaving America, for Canada.
Deanne, why do Americans typically look to Canada as a first option when they’re wanting to move abroad? Is it purely geographic?
Deanne: That has a lot to do with it. A lot of people tell us they look at Canada because it’s close. They can remain close to friends and family and not be a long distance away from them. Culturally, we’re quite similar. Obviously, we’re not exactly the same, but your day to day is very similar. English is, you know, the primary language spoken in Canada, so there’s no language barriers for them. A lot of things, you know, same food, same restaurants, same…just all the day to day things are very similar for them, and a lot of Americans have at least visited Canada or been there before, so they feel it just very similar to America, so they’re going to be quite comfortable there without any kind of a huge culture shock.
Carlie: Yeah, I can imagine. I feel like it’s a little bit the same for Australians with New Zealand, for example.
Deanne: Yeah, yeah, I would imagine so, or at least we think so, right? But I’m sure there’s some differences there.
Carlie: I say this as someone who’s never actually been lucky enough to make it to New Zealand, but it’s on my bucket list. Can you tell me, has Canada kind of expected by now a bit of an influx of interest from Americans moving there after the four year US election cycle?
Deanne: Yeah, each election cycle, it’s not always a huge increase. It honestly depends on the candidates. So the first election where Trump won, we saw a mass influx. I think they crashed the Canadian immigration website that night, people who are interested. I know all the other companies that I work with, everyone was getting inundated with people looking to move to Canada. When Biden was voted in we didn’t see that influx, we didn’t see that traffic. But again, this election cycle, we have seen it again. So a lot more interested in Canada. So it’s not necessarily every election, it really depends on the candidates that are in there.
Carlie: And just out of curiosity, Deanne, what do Americans see as better in Canada? Is it purely to leave the USA or is there something really attractive about Canada that makes Americans want to move there?
Deanne: From what people have told me, they see us as maybe a kinder, friendlier country, a bit more liberal. Obviously, parts of the United States are very liberal. So, I don’t think they necessarily see us as better all the time, but there’s certain things that they like about us. A lot of people talk about our healthcare system, they think it’s a lot easier than the US healthcare system, especially in terms of cost. So there’s little things like that that they like. Overall, it’s not sort of,”Canada is better than the US”, but it really varies from person to person that I speak with.
Carlie: There is no freedom of movement between the US and Canada. So for an American wanting to move to Canada, there is an application requirement. Can you tell me about what that involves?
Deanne: So it really depends what they are coming to Canada to do. A lot of people right now are looking to retire in Canada, so we don’t actually have a retirement visa in Canada, which a lot of people are surprised to learn. They think that if they’re financially independent, they can just come up and buy a property and live in Canada, which is unfortunately not the case. So, you know, whether they’re looking to work, study, permanent residency, it’s all very different types of applications. But Canada does have an agreement in place, the Canada-US-Mexico agreement that makes it a bit easier for professionals in certain occupations to come and work in Canada.
Carlie: Okay, so there is kind of a favorability between the three countries.
Deanne: Definitely, and American citizens can apply for study permits and work permits at the border on entry, which other countries can’t do, which can cut down on processing times quite a bit. So there are little benefits for American applicants, but it’s not a freedom of movement where we can just move back and forth and work in each other’s countries.
Carlie: So, say you’re a middle aged qualified professional, for example, how do you start that application?
Deanne: So, again, it would depend, are you looking to come temporarily or permanently? I’m going to assume permanently, a lot of people…
Carlie: Let’s say it’s permanently. Let’s say you’re an American who’s like, “okay, it’s time for me to just start a new life in Canada.”
Deanne: Yeah. Usually a lot of people start with the Express Entry system, which is our points based system. So it looks at age, education, language, work experience. It’s very ageist. The older you get, your points start to decline quite a bit. So as you get older, unless your profession is one of the in demand professions, your chances of immigrating without requiring a job, go down. If you’re younger, well educated, you have some work experience, then it’s more of a simplified process.
But I would always recommend that someone usually complete an assessment where someone can say, “okay, this is the program that you might want to look at,” or, “unfortunately, you know, based on your age or potentially your occupation that there’s no opportunities for you.” You always have to kind of start with that because depending on the profile, they might not have an opportunity, whereas some people have more than one different pathway.
Carlie: I know I spoke broadly with Rory in another episode of the podcast recently, he’s from Moving to Canada, about some of those in demand jobs, sectors, professions. Can we talk for Americans, I’m guessing there’s a more simple skills transfer, education recognition, for example. What puts an American at the top of the points list?
Deanne: So in terms of the point system, every country is ranked the same. So Americans don’t get more points. But if we’re looking at occupations, let’s say they’re in a skilled occupation, like doctors, as an example. Their medical degrees are easier to recognize in Canada than other countries. Several different provinces in Canada have now said, “if you finished your degree in the United States and your residency, we’re no longer going to make you do certain examinations or supervised work when you come to Canada, you can just start practicing.”
So they’re making it easier for certain professions from the United States to come to Canada and to be able to work in their professions much, much quicker than other countries. And that’s honestly a benefit to Canada as well because we definitely need a lot of people in healthcare. So they’re trying to make it easier for at least the Americans to come in. And I think it’s also with Australia and the UK, that they can come in and practice without having to go through all of the different hoops.
Carlie: Or retrain or anything like that.
Deanne: Exactly, yep.
Carlie: What about in the trades? If you’re an American who’s an electrician or a builder, are you going to find your visa application process pretty smooth?
Deanne: With those ones, we usually see that you’re going to need a job offer first. So, if you do get the job offer, depending on the province, you might have to do a test to get your Red Seal. Usually if you’ve passed that test in your home country, in the United States, it’s very simple for you to pass that test in Canada. And it’s not a long in depth process to go through. Sometimes you can move over in your trade and actually start working without the qualification being required. You might just need that qualification once it’s time to apply for the actual permanent residency.
Carlie: Okay, and in terms of application timelines, how long should you expect to wait as an American applying to move to Canada?
Deanne: So this is where it’s really beneficial for Americans. If they are getting a work or a study permit, there is no wait period. They can apply on entry at the border. So they just need to get their required paperwork together and they just show up and present it to the officer and they can actually be issued with that permit at the border. If we’re looking at something like permanent residency, if it’s going through Express Entry, it’s probably about a 6 to 9 month process, as long as your points are actually high enough to be selected. Other programs can be much longer. They could be 15 months or over. For Americans that are maybe married to a Canadian, or they’re common law with a Canadian, those applications are usually about a 12 month process.
Carlie: Can you explain to me the work permit versus permanent residency? How long do you get to stay if you’re getting a work permit at the border, or a student visa at the border?
Deanne: Yeah. So the student visa…it’ll typically be issued for the full duration of your program. So if you’re coming in to do a bachelor’s degree, then it would be valid for the four years of your degree. If you’re coming in with a work permit, it depends what type of work permit, but on average, you’re going to get about two years on a work permit. And then while you’re in Canada on that work permit, you’re typically going to be looking at applying for permanent residency from within Canada.
Carlie: Okay, so the main thing is get that work permit, then once you’re there, work on the next permission, which is the permanent residency.
Deanne: Exactly, because the work permit and the study permit, those have expiry dates. The permanent residency, as long as you’re meeting your residency requirements, then they just keep renewing it until you’re ready to apply for your citizenship.
Carlie: So, to get a work permit, that’s where you need a job offer?
Deanne: So, this can be a bit complicated. In general, yes. You’re going to need a job offer before you can get a work permit. American citizens of a certain age can try to apply through a recognized organization to get an IEC permit for Canada. So, this would be like a working holiday, essentially. Canada and the US don’t have an agreement in place like we do with Australia or the UK where you can get a working holiday. But some of the recognized organizations can set them up for American citizens.
So some of…usually between 18 and 30 years old, they can try to get one of those. If there’s American citizens that maybe have more than one nationality, they might want to check if their other nationality is on the list of countries that we do have working holiday agreements with, because that’s a really good way to come into Canada. And you don’t need a job offer!
Carlie: Yeah, as you mentioned earlier, youth is on your side when it comes to easier access to Canada, isn’t it?
Deanne: Yeah, it’s a very ageist system. Honestly, it is!
Carlie: We’re still valuable when we’re pushing 40!
Deanne: I know. And usually I always tell the older applicants that they have the good work experience. You know, the younger applicants we see, it might be deemed as skilled, but it’s not nearly as, like, beneficial to Canada as some of the older applicants, if I can put it that way. So, it doesn’t always make sense to me why we’re so ageist with our immigration program, but I don’t make the rules.
Carlie: Speaking of ageism, you mentioned that there’s no such thing as a retirement visa for Canada. So for American retirees, or those close to retirement, who are looking at Canada, how can they move to Canada? What are their options?
Deanne: Yeah, if they’re looking at retiring, it’s…we just have six month visit visas that they can do if they want to spend their time, you know, split between Canada and the US, they can look at doing that. If they have children or grandchildren that are Canadian citizens or permanent residents, they can get something called a super visa that lets them stay for up to five years at a time.
Also, Canadian citizens or permanent residents can sponsor their parents or grandparents for permanent residency. So if they do have that connection, they can look at that option. But if they don’t have that type of connection, they’re not going to be able to come and just live full time in Canada. If they’re a recent retiree and they have enough money and they’re willing to live in Quebec, they could always look at the Quebec Investor Program. That would be the only other option for them.
Carlie: I was going to ask if Canada has some kind of citizenship or residency by investment program. I know they’re not highly regarded by the authorities here in Europe, but they do exist for some European countries, for example. So, can you buy your way into Canada?
Deanne: In Quebec, you can! So, that’s why I say if you’re willing to live in Quebec for a specific period of time, then that would be the only way to do it. But you’d also have to brush up on your French because there is a speaking French language component to it. You have to be at a bit intermediate level in spoken French, but not, you know, the reading or the writing. But to me, speaking is always the most difficult part of the French language!
Carlie: 100%! So, to apply as an American to Canada, depending on the province, you don’t necessarily need any level of French.
Deanne: Exactly. So, if we were looking at something like Express Entry, or work permits, you don’t need French. Quebec is the French speaking province of Canada, so everything there is French first language, English second language. Some of the bigger cities you could probably get by with English. But if you’re going to live there permanently, you would definitely want to learn French.
When I go to Montreal, it’s a few hours away from Ottawa, I still feel out of place not speaking any French there, even though it’s a few hours away from Ontario, which is English speaking. Some parts of New Brunswick are quite French speaking as well. But the rest of Canada, if you don’t know French, you’ll get by. It might be an asset in certain situations, but it’s definitely something that you don’t really need outside of those areas.
Carlie: Is there a particular city of Canada where Americans tend to move to specifically?
Deanne: Toronto and Vancouver seem to be the most popular. Nova Scotia is actually increasing quite a bit with people I’ve been speaking to, but those are usually the ones that are looking at retirement. Toronto and Vancouver are just our largest hubs, and I think they’re just more well known. Americans don’t tend to know a lot about Canada and the different areas, but if they ever see something in a movie or hear about us, it’s usually Vancouver and Toronto. Also, the weather just tends to be better in those areas, so they don’t want to be stuck with a lot of snow and ice and cold winters, they look at those areas as well.
Carlie: Oh, I’ve heard that your winters get insanely cold and the snow levels are just beyond anything I’ve seen in my life.
Deanne: It really depends which part of the country. I grew up in Vancouver and, you know, snow was like, “oh my God, we actually got snow this winter!” It was rare. And now in Ontario, you know, the snow is coming. But the last few years it’s been coming later and later and less and less. So it’s definitely getting milder than it originally was. The local ski hills are opening later and shorter season, and it’s definitely sad to see.
Carlie: Deanne, I recall in my chat with Rory on moving to Canada, that there are specific job roles in demand and other jobs that are just not really needed in Canada. If you’re an American looking at Canada, what sort of professions are going to give you lower points?
Deanne: So again, it’s case by case. Sometimes you will find an employer is always looking for someone, but the ones that we saw sort of got oversaturated in the market because they were targeted in previous years, we’ve seen things like marketing, finance, lawyers, those were more difficult to transition over into Canada in terms of getting a job offer.
Anything really outside of healthcare, STEM, transportation, agriculture, and trades right now, there’s just not as much of a demand. Even some of the IT positions, we’ve seen layoffs happening. So, more like your software developers, we are seeing people actually losing their jobs in those fields. But again, it’s…different markets are oversaturated. So some of the smaller provinces or cities might still have a demand for that.
So I would always recommend people to look at…there’s a really good tool on the job bank that I can provide you the link, that people can type in their occupation and I’ll actually tell them by province how the demand and the outlook is looking for the next few years. Is it there’s no job prospects or there’s actually going to be a boom for that field? So I always recommend people take a look at that because some of these fields, like this year, we’re targeting health care and STEM and agriculture, but in a few years time, maybe we’ll have filled those quotas and then it turns over to the next batch of targeting. So you always just want to monitor that site.
Carlie: And when you say there’s quotas for fields like healthcare and STEM, that’s not by nationality, it’s just by immigration total, right? So Americans would be pulled in with every other nationality in terms of how many of certain professions Canada’s accepting?
Deanne: Yeah, exactly. So with Canada, we don’t say, “we’re going to take X amount of immigrants from this country or that country.” It’s just, you enter the system, and if you meet the requirements that we’re looking for, we will pick you. It doesn’t matter which kind of passport you’re holding.
Carlie: So it means there isn’t a cap on the number of Americans that Canada might accept every year?
Deanne: No, so there’s definitely not a cap if they qualify, that’s that. So we do see Americans are usually in the top 10 countries of nationality for immigrants each year. So that’s not something new that we’re seeing because of an election. That’s usually pretty constant.
Carlie: I have a question about remote jobs. Because I could see this as being a very logical hack for a lot of Americans. “What if I work remotely for my company in the States and I just decide to move to Canada and keep working for that company in the USA?” Is that an option?
Deanne: So we get this kind of question all the time. Canada started to advertise this digital nomad visa, which I couldn’t quite understand what they were trying to do with it, because essentially it’s your normal visit visa. So if you want to…I think they were trying to target the digital nomads, but they weren’t giving anything extra to them.
So you can always come into Canada for six months as a visitor and you can do your remote job while hanging out in the country, that’s fine. If you’re in the country, you can always try to apply for an extension, which is called a visitor record so that you can stay longer while you’re doing your remote work, but it’s not anything that’s going to lead to permanent residency. You’re still just a visitor and you wouldn’t be able to buy property in certain areas with that kind of visa either. So that’s just something to keep in mind.
Carlie: When does the six months reset? Is it like, do you have to do, like, a visa run back to the States, spend a week back in America, then you can come for another six months to Canada? Is that how it works?
Deanne: So technically, legally, it’s six in every twelve months. So it doesn’t reset in January, it’s just it’s twelve months from the day you entered. They don’t always stamp American passports, so obviously there are people that are able to run back for a week and then come back into Canada without getting caught, but legally that’s not the way to do it. You’re actually better to stay in the country and apply for that visitor record, because if you’ve got the finances and the proof of your remote work, the odds are pretty good that you would just get the extension.
Carlie: Okay, and I guess especially if you’re shooting for long term living in Canada, you probably want to go about it the proper way from the beginning.
Deanne: Exactly, you don’t want to have any kind of black mark on your record that’s going to maybe hinder you from re-entry for a year or two.
Carlie: Deanne, I guess in terms of maybe societal, cultural factors that Americans might overlook when they decide life will be better in Canada, a big one would be the job front and how easy it might be to get a job from what we’ve talked about. Is there anything else that Americans kind of take for granted when they think, “I’ll just move to Canada?”
Deanne: Cost of living, honestly. It’s more expensive up in Canada than it is in the States. It’s everything from, you know, groceries, houses, cars, clothing, tax rates. Your day to day, it’s cheaper in the United States, so they have to factor in that their cost of living is likely going to go up once they come to Canada. I would encourage them, whichever province they’re interested in, to look maybe at the provincial and the federal tax rates and just do an assessment, you know, of are they going to be earning less and spending more? Are they going to be earning more and spending less and just take that into consideration before looking at making the move.
Carlie: How easy is it for US citizens to transition from permanent residence to becoming Canadian citizens?
Deanne: That’s a good question. So once they have their permanent residency, and they can accumulate the equivalent of three years of time in Canada in a five year period. So they are allowed to travel. It’s cumulative, not consecutive. But once they’ve reached the three year mark, then they can actually apply for their Canadian citizenship. And Canada allows dual citizenship.
Carlie: Deanne, for Americans who have been listening to this and have decided, “Canada is where I want to go.” Where is the best place for them to start?
Deanne: They would probably want to start with some kind of a free assessment, because there’s so many different programs, it’s really hard to navigate sometimes. The biggest complaint I get from people is that Canada Immigration’s official website is just…it’s too broad. They can’t find anything on there. So I would usually start with a free assessment and they can get pointed in the right direction. Is it going to be a work permit? Is it going to be maybe a working holiday? Is it going to be Express Entry? So I can provide you with a link, it’s a free assessment they can do and sort of get steered in that proper direction.
Carlie: And I mean, obviously, you’re a bit biased here, but do you always advise people work with an immigration consultant through the application process? Or is it possible to go it alone?
Deanne: I actually tell people they don’t need an immigration consultant all the time. I’m very honest with them. It really depends on their case. Some are so straightforward that, you know, we just say, “this is what you need to do. This is the application. It should be pretty simple.” It gets more complicated maybe where there’s medical issues or they have a criminal record of some kind or maybe it’s going to be this really long pathway of work permit, provincial nominations, permanent residency, where you have three different applications.
So they definitely do not need to use an immigration consultant or lawyer. It’s really just case by case. So again, they could look at what program they qualify for. I always encourage them to take a look at it. And if they’re feeling overwhelmed, then that’s usually when they’re going to want to reach out and get some help.
Carlie: Well, Deanne, thank you so much for your time today talking all things that US citizens need to know if they’re looking to leave America for Canada.
Deanne: Yeah. Thank you for talking with me today.
Carlie: That’s it for this episode. Are you an American who has made the move to Canada? Maybe you applied for a visa and weren’t successful, or maybe you decided a different country was the right one for you. Share your experiences with us in the comments on our YouTube channel, just search for Expat Focus. Remember to subscribe and rate us, we love your reviews. And I’ll catch you next time.
The link to look at job outlooks in Canada: https://www.jobbank.gc.ca/trend-analysis/search-job-outlooks
For a free immigration assessment, visit https://canadaabroad.com/assessment/