Hello everybody, I hope you're doing good. In this video we're going to talk about a very interesting topic if you can actually convert the cad as tourist visa to the work permit. What are the particular conditions? What could be the steps? Is it easy or difficult? We'll talk all about that in this video. So many people have requested me to make this video. So here is the video and it is going to be very interesting. Hello everybody, I'm Shitanshi from Dreamer Broad and I regularly make videos to help you immigrate and settle abroad. So if you haven't subscribed to the channel yet, please consider subscribing. Okay, so first of all, let's try to explore this possibility. Is it even possible to convert your Canadian tourist visa to work permit? So the good news is that yes, it is indefinitely possible, but at the same time it's not easy to get it done. Because some of the steps that are involved in this process are difficult to do, but it is not impossible and it can be done. In fact, it should be taken as an opportunity to immigrate to Canada. So because of COVID, the government of Canada introduced a temporary public policy in August of 2020. It was valid until the February of 2022, but they've extended it now to February of 2023. This temporary policy actually makes it easier for people to convert their tourist visa to work permit. Now, what is the eligibility criteria? What are the steps involved? And why I said that this is a great opportunity for people to settle in Canada, but are difficult to want to get through. We'll talk all about that later in this video. But before that, let me tell you that even before this temporary public policy was introduced before the pandemic, it was still possible for people to convert the Canada tourist visa to work permit, but it introduced a step named as flag polling, which is not required because of this temporary public policy. Now, let's quickly discuss what's flag polling, because this is a concept that many people are not very familiar with. So basically, flag polling means that when a foreign national who is already in Canada actually leaves Canada and returns to Canada without crossing into the United States. So basically, you would go out of the Canadian border, but not enter US. So it does not matter if you actually have the US visa or not, but you still have to go out of the Canadian border and re-enter Canada. And why entering? You have to tell the officer that you intend to flag poll. They will ask you a series of questions. It would be a proper interview. You'll tell your intention that, okay, initially I did not intend to come to Canada or I didn't visit Canada to get a job, but I suddenly got this opportunity of getting a job. There are a bunch of documentation that need to be very proper. All of those things would be required and then you would re-enter Canada with your work permit. Of course, you need to have a valid visa or you should be in maintain status. Apart from that, it's not easy for everyone to actually answer all the questions of the interview and then there's a lot of rush on the US Canada border. So it is an added responsibility for the officers as well. So before this temporary policy was introduced, flag polling was actually required, which was actually the last step, but as I told you, flag polling is not required until this temporary public policy is in place until the February 28, 2023. All right. Now let's talk about this temporary public policy. So as I told you, this was introduced back in August of 2020 and now it has been extended till the end of February of 2023. So you still have few months and because it was introduced for COVID and now the restrictions are easing out. So I highly doubt if this would be extended even further after February 23. But what does this policy actually say? It allows all visitors who are in Canada with valid temporary resident status to apply inland for an employer specific work permit, regardless of when they arrived in Canada. So now here, when we say employer specific work permit, which means that you need to have a job offered in order to get this work permit, it won't be an open work permit. But we'll talk about the steps later on. First, let's talk about the eligibility requirements. So the criteria is that the foreign national is in Canada with valid temporary resident status as visitor. If you are at the maintain status at the time of a work permit application submission, that is also fine. You have submitted an employer specific work permit application using the form IMM5710. Then you must have remained in Canada with status since the application submission and your application should be submitted on or before February 28, 2023. Now here it sounds pretty simple, but of course getting that job offer is the trickiest part here that we're going to talk in the next section when we talk about the process. So basically it's an opportunity for all those people who have a visitor visa. Okay, now let's talk about the process, which is the trickiest part. So of course, the told you that you must have a temporary resident visa and you must be physically in Canada. If you have a visa and you're outside of Canada, you cannot apply for it. The tourist visa cannot be converted to the work permit. Of course, you didn't get the tourist visa from the intention of getting a job. You might have got it for any reason, but now you can start looking for jobs. Now, when I said that this complete process, this conversion of visa is actually possible, but it's not easy. It's because finding a job is not easy and not just any job, you have to convince your employer to issue you an LMA. What is an LMA letter? It's a labor market impact assessment. I made a detailed video on it. I'll provide the link in the description box below, but just to give you an idea, this letter basically states that they were not able to find any Canadian citizen or permit resident for that particular job. That's reason why they are hiring a foreign national. Once you have found such an employer, it's the employer's responsibility to request for that letter. Finding a job with an LMA letter is very difficult when you're sitting outside of Canada. Finding a job with an LMA letter is of course very difficult when you're outside of Canada, but it's slightly easier when you are inside of Canada because you can actually interact with the employer, you can go for the interviews, you can convince the employer that I am here and once I get the authorization, once I get the work permit, I'll be able to work, I'll be able to join immediately after that. Once you have crossed that hurdle, the next step is to apply for the work permit. As I told you earlier, flag polling is actually not required until this temporary public policy is in place, we can apply the work permit online. Okay, so that is the overall process of converting your temporary resident visa to the work permit while you're in Canada. Thanks a lot for watching this video. If you want any other specific video, please let me know in the comment section below. And if this video helped you, please click the thumbs up button and show some love in the comment section. Thanks a lot for watching this video.