My boyfriend and I started talking about moving to Canada at the end of 2012. We decided to move during summer (way easier in this country, I think!!) 2013, so we saved money for a few months and flew in July 2013 to Montreal. We already knew we wanted to settle in Ottawa but we took our time and visited Montréal, Quebec, Toronto, Saguenay, Tadoussac, even spent a week on an island in the Georgian Bay (at Max’s distant relative).

After that went the serious time of finding an employer in Ottawa. I had 3 interviews (unsuccessful because I had no visa) but Max got a job offer.

On October 1st, 2013, we were back in France, well decided to wait and apply for the Working-Holiday Visa (WHV, known in French as the PVT, Permis Vacances-Travail). We took interim jobs and learned as much as we could about the immigration process to Canada. (I think this is when I discovered Zhu’s blog).

In November, we went to the “Forum Emploi: Destination Canada” and waited in line for the Canada Embassy in Paris, where they had a booth. This is where we learnt that with Max’s job offer, we didn’t need a LMO (Labour Market Opinion, which I explained in this article.

In mid-December, we obtained our work permit for a year (closed for Max with the Employer that had made him the offer, and open for me to work for any Employer, except with young children and in hospitals).

When we came back to Ottawa on February 6th, 2014. Max started working a few days after our arrival. I applied at a job agency that found me an administrative job for which I applied after and stayed in this job for the rest of our stay, so two years and half.

As there was no end date on Max’s job offer, we could put any end date we wanted (I guess). We first put a year, so until the end of February 2015. But when we decided it was too early to move on and wanted to stay a little bit longer, we applied for a work permit extension. Max got his as easily as the first one but I got mine first refused. We had to make our relationship look more serious. So we sign a common-spouse contract with a notary signature and I asked all close friends (French and Canadian) and family members to write down a personal statement that proves we were actually together. I even made a photo album representing our long-term relationship, included factures and bank statements that lived together in Vienna. It came back positive, so I got my work permit extension in January 2014! That was very close!!

And this is our story! I have shortened up very sweet for you, so if you have any questions, please feel free to contact me !