LMIA and Work Permits in Canada

The provincial or territorial wage threshold splits every application in two. Above it the position is high-wage, below it low-wage, and the two streams have different caps, different advertising and different consequences.

The threshold is a median, so the same job at the same salary can be high-wage in one province and low-wage in another. Employers who set the wage before checking the threshold routinely land in the low-wage stream by a few hundred dollars and inherit the 10 per cent cap and the eight week advertising with it.

The wage offered also has to be at least what comparable Canadians at that workplace are paid, or the prevailing rate for the occupation, whichever is higher. Commission and other compensation cannot be counted toward it.

The International Mobility Program covers permits issued without an assessment, and the exemptions in it are wider than most employers assume. An intra-company transferee moving to a Canadian affiliate, a professional covered by a free trade agreement, and a person whose work is of significant benefit to Canada are all in it.

The right sequence is to test the exemptions first and reach for an assessment only if none fits. Doing it the other way round costs three to four months and a thousand dollars a position before anybody asks whether it was necessary.

The exemption has to actually fit the facts. An intra-company transfer needs a real qualifying relationship between the two companies and a role that is genuinely managerial, executive or specialised knowledge. Officers read these carefully, because the category is the one most often stretched.

Not on its own, but it builds the thing that does. The Canadian Experience Class asks for at least one year of skilled work in Canada, or 1,560 hours, inside the three years before you apply, in Training, Education, Experience and Responsibilities category 0, 1, 2 or 3, and gained while you were authorised to work. A permit is how that year gets earned.

The gap people fall into is the one between the permit expiring and the permanent residence application being decided. A bridging open work permit closes it. It is available to applicants already in Canada under the Canadian Experience Class among others, and it needs valid status and a valid work permit, or maintained status as a worker, or eligibility to restore status.

Which means the sequence matters more than any single application. The occupation code on the permit is the one that will be read for the experience later, so an occupation described loosely now is a problem two years away rather than today.

The obligations continue after the worker arrives. The wage, the occupation and the working conditions have to match what was assessed, and an employer can be inspected on any of it.

Consequences run from a warning to an administrative monetary penalty to a ban from the programme, and the employer's name and the finding are published. For a business that hires regularly, the ban is the part that matters.

If the worker leaves, tell Employment and Social Development Canada and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada in writing. Employers who simply stop thinking about a departed worker are the ones an inspection finds.