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ADHD notes:

• You can apply online at www.whpcanada.org.au
• You need to have an Australian passport valid for the length of your planned visa period, preferably with three years or more of validity on it, be between 18 and 30 inclusive, and be medically and criminally admissible into Canada.
• You will have to go through an online interview process where you’ll answer a series of questions.  This doesn’t take very long. At the end of the interview you print off the sheet it gives you.
• Send the print out, a photocopy of your passport picture page, two pictures of yourself (taken to their requirements), the Program Participation Fee (currently $150, checked 22 Sept 2011), a Police Certificate, plus any extra documents it asks you for, to the address given.
• Wait for around 4 weeks and they’ll email a letter to you, which you then present at the border when entering Canada.

So, you’ve decided you want to go and work in that Canada place, eh? You’ve made the decision that you want to leave the comfortable existence you have at home and venture to the other hemisphere, where the animals are strange and the weather sometimes stranger.

You’ve made the right choice!  Canada is a fantastic place, in particular British Columbia, a province (state) as varied as you can find.  In Vancouver they say that at some stages of the year you can go skiing in the morning on the mountains near the city, then rollerblade around Stanley Park bathed in sun in the afternoon.

Application Process

To work in Canada you’ll need a work permit.  This will enable you to work anywhere in Canada for up to two years, and you can actually get them as many times in a row (concurrently) as you want, until you reach the age of 30. The website you need to check out is www.whpcanada.org.au, and what it says here is that you can get the visa as long as you:

• Be an Australian Citizen and hold an Australian Passport that is valid for the whole period in which you are intending to stay in Canada.  So even if you are only thinking about staying in Canada for a year, you’ll still need your passport to be valid for two years or more.  The WHP site recommends that your passport must be valid for 3 years or longer, just to be safe.
•  Be in between 18 and 30 years old inclusive, so you can apply as soon as you’ve had your 18^th birthday, and right up until your 30^th birthday.  This means that you can theoretically work in Canada using this permit until they day prior to your 33rd birthday if you are on the ball, but you probably don’t want to cut it that fine. Apply a month or two prior to your 31^st birthday and you should be able to work in Canada for that extra period.
• Be medically and criminally admissible to Canada under their immigration and refugee protection act.  So basically as long as you haven’t got a criminal record beyond your average speeding tickets you should be okay. As they say here, two or more summary offences (essentially if you’ve had to go to court for something twice or more and lost your case), then your chances of getting in are pretty slim.
• Have the equivalent of C$4,000 to help cover your expenses at the start of your stay in Canada (show an atm receipt or bank statement to prove this).
• Be prepared to take out health care insurance for the whole time you'll be staying in Canada. The current policy is that you have to have the whole two years of your stay covered by travel insurance that will pay for your repatriation if you get sick.
• Pay the participation fee, currently A$150 (As of 30 Nov, 2011).

So as long as you satisfy those requirements, you are fine to move on to the next step, which is an online interview. You access the interview by entering in your email address here, then following the link in the email.

The online interview basically asks you all your information (full name, where you live, how old you are etc) takes you through a set of questions where they ask if you have a criminal record, then a series of questions about that if you answer yes. 

If you don’t answer yes to any of the criminality questions, then they’ll ask you a series of questions about your history and where you have been recently.  Provided you answer these correctly then the next screen automatically sends a pre-filled application form to the email address you entered.

Sending in your WHP application

You should then print out that form, put it together with

·         The Program Participation Fee, which was $150 at the time of writing (you can find out information on how they want it here – an Australia Post money order or a Bank Cheque works best, DON’T send a personal cheque!),

·          A clear colour photocopy of your passport picture page (don’t send your actual passport!), and

·         Two photographs to their specifications. We found it best if we printed out the photo specifications page and took it to a professional to take the pictures – that way it’ll be right first time, and it should only cost around $10 to $15.  Small insurance to make sure your application doesn’t bounce!

A Police Certificate from the Australian Federal Police (recommended) or local state police authority. Follow their advice on how to get the document here.

ATraffic History Report, which you can get from your local State Transport/Traffic branch. 

·         Any other documents that you were asked to get during the interview, and you can get more info on how to get them here.

So for $150 plus the price of postage, and make sure you send it using Express or something that is registered so you can make sure it got there, you are now on your way to getting a Canadian Working Permit. Stoked!  They say to make sure that you don’t bug them for at least four weeks, but we’ve found that they usually turn up from within a week to a few weeks. If you need to bug them, you can find their details here.

 That list again, in the order they would like your application assembled:

1. Barcoded page you printed out from your application (unstapled!)
   (staple this next lot together)
2. fee
3. International Experience Canada - Working Holiday Program (IEC-WHP) form page1
4. International Experience Canada - Working Holiday Program (IEC-WHP) form page2, SIGNED and dated, with 2 passport photos stapled on the appropriate boxes
5. Photocopy of passport photo page
6. Police certificate
7. Traffic history certificate
8. Any other documentation requested
9. Citizenship and Immigration Canada form IMM1295 pages 1 to 4

Success!

After your application has been processed and if you are successful (let us know if you aren’t, so we can work out what they don’t allow you in for – you can do it anonymously in the forum if you want), then you’ll simply get an email to the address you gave the website at the start of the process. This email will contain an attachment that is your Letter of Introduction. Print this fella out and stick it somewhere safe until you arrive at customs in Canada.

Congratulations, you’ve completed the first step towards working in Canada like all the other cool kids over here!

The next suggested articles to read are arriving in Canada, and what to bring with you.

Please discuss this article in the CanAussie Forum

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