People & Places
Why wait: Go for it!
Why wait until you retire to emigrate when you can head out to Canada much, much sooner? Thats the conclusion Claire and Müfit Bolgil reached
But as Claire explains, but there's still plenty of waiting to do...
Our emigration story started in 2000 in a pub in Surrey, when we heard from some friends that they were going to be emigrating to Canada. My husband, Müfit, and I had never been to Canada but it was definitely on the list of places we had to visit, and as we drove home that evening we talked about how great it would be to be in our friends' shoes. It didn't occur to us then to even look into the possibilities of emigrating, as that was something that other people did. We did however, decide that perhaps when we retired we would consider Canada; bearing in mind that Müfit had just hit 30, and I was only 25, retirement was a very long way off though!
Our friends Pete and Marilyn successfully emigrated to a town near Belleville in Ontario. Pete's father was Canadian so their application was quite straightforward compared to the rigmarole we were later to go through. In May 2002 we flew out to Ontario and stayed with Pete and Marilyn for a week and explored on our own in the second week. By the time we arrived home we'd already decided that waiting until retirement age was stupid and that we wanted to go out there much sooner to enjoy Canadian life and to spend the rest of our lives there. Not wishing to rush into it, we told family and friends of our decision to wait for a couple of years before applying as the timing really wasn't right for us. Müfit had only recently started his own IT consultancy, and we had plans to start a family. We thought it would be nice to have at least one child born here for the grandparents to enjoy, if nothing else!
At this time, we looked at the Canadian High Commission (CHC) website and did a self assessment. We discovered that unless Müfit had arranged employment we only had 71 of the required 75 points. We didn't consider this a problem though and thought we would cross that bridge when we came to it. So we stayed put, but are now very much regretting that decision. Our mistake was in assuming that the emigration process doesn't take all that long! 'What a joke' I'm sure readers of Emigrate Canada would say! The problem is that in an attempt to make Canada accessible to more people they lowered the points pass mark to 67, as we found out from Pete and Marilyn during a visit there in September 2003. This was good news for us because it meant that we didn't have to worry about meeting the higher pass mark with arranged employment Müfit was particularly happy because he didn't relish the idea of having to work for somebody else, and his hope was that he could continue to work self employed. But we still weren't ready to emigrate and stupidly held off applying for longer. However, the CHC was suddenly inundated with applications and it was at this point that the backlog really began to increase.
Our next mistake was that we didn't keep up to speed with what was going on. If we had researched into processing times back in late 2003 we probably would have applied then, but we left it almost another year before we started the application process. We also hadn't anticipated just how lengthy the application process would be and how difficult parts of it would be. One of the main difficulties we had was in finding the correct source of information when it came to completing the forms. A lot of the 'guides' seemed to be quite ambiguous if you looked at something on the Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) website and then looked at the same thing on the CHC London website you were often faced with differences. Usually we would just end up going with one interpretation or the other and hoping it was right.
Another difficulty was the very time consuming process of obtaining work references. Because Müfit had been an IT contractor he had worked for many different companies, some of which were no longer trading. And it wasn't just references that were required, we also had to try to get hold of contracts as rather annoyingly when we last moved house we threw out a load of old paperwork thinking it would never be needed! D'oh! I think the part that annoyed Müfit the most was that because he wasn't born in an English speaking country, he had to prove his English language proficiency! As you may have guessed, Müfit is not an English name. He was born in Turkey and came to boarding school in England at the age of ten. Although when he came here he knew very little English, he learnt very quickly. I, as I'm sure would everybody who met him, believe that he is more proficient in the English language now than most of us natives and if it weren't for his odd name you wouldn't know any difference! But, being the stubborn thing that he is he wouldn't take a language test (which probably would have been the easier option in the long run), so had to write a letter saying how great at communicating in English he is, and he also got a close friend to write a declaration as well.
After all the delays, our completed application finally arrived at the CHC on 28th February 2005 and we were pleasantly surprised to receive our acknowledgement card within just a few weeks; which we took to be a good sign. In our minds we had initially thought we might have been out in Canada by spring 2006, but with having got the application in so late we realised that it was more likely to be spring 2007. This became an ongoing joke with family and friends because whenever we were asked about when we would be going, the answer was always 'two years'!! Our chosen emigration destination had always been Ontario and in June 2005 we went out there again to have a better look at the area we would like to settle in. We're not big city lovers, so had discounted Toronto and its suburbs and although we loved Ottawa we thought the best location would be east of Toronto on Lake Ontario. We found a lovely town called Cobourg, which we both felt at home in. The benefit was that it was close (in Canadian terms) to Pete and Marilyn and both Toronto and Ottawa were within relatively easy reach.
So we waited and twiddled our thumbs lots, and researched living in Cobourg. We had come to terms with the fact that we had another year to wait, so we made the effort not to put our lives on hold and got on with life as usual. So we waited and twiddled our thumbs lots, and researched living in Cobourg. We had come to terms with the fact that we had another year to wait, so we made the effort not to put our lives on hold and got on with life as usual. In March this year we had a week away in Wales (we'd decided to try to see as much of Britain as we could before leaving it behind). Whilst there we had a conversation about the differences in weather between Ontario and Alberta, and within a few minutes we changed our decision of nearly four years and decided that we wanted to go to Alberta instead! Our decision wasn't just based on the weather, though; Müfit had been reading up and found that Alberta has a booming economy, very low unemployment, no provincial sales tax and potentially hundreds of jobs available. Add to this the thought of living at the foot of the Rockies, and Ontario drifted to the back of our minds! The only downsides were that we wouldn't be able to see Pete and Marilyn regularly and that it was further for everyone to come out and see us.
So now we wanted to find out everything we could about Alberta, but without an Internet connection it was difficult! Instead we talked about plans of buying land and building log cabins to rent out to tourists. We thought about all the aspects of this, even down to the furniture! This would be my business whilst Müfit would still do IT. Well, we can dream! In April we re-subscribed to Emigrate Canada. We had let our subscription lapse which was a bit silly considering all the important news we were missing out on. The April edition arrived and what struck us immediately was all the talk about the increased processing times. To our horror it looked as though what we had expected to be a two-year wait would be at least three years, and probably longer. Very despondent, we talked about it and decided that we just couldn't wait until 2008, so the search was on for a new and quicker way in.
The log cabins would have to wait and Müfit would have to find a job that was the only way. If he could get a job offer and a temporary work permit we could be out there before the end of the year. Suddenly it was all go again with the research looking at how we go about finding a job, and what's involved in getting the temporary work permit. We discovered that there are certain IT jobs which are in very high demand and that the CIC and Service Canada have a facilitated process for hiring IT specialists in these positions. What this means is that once you have a job offer you don't have to go through Service Canada for confirmation, you can apply directly to the CHC for a temporary work permit. This would considerably speed up the process. There are seven job descriptions under this programme, and looking at the experience required, Müfit could easily fit at least one of these, but he doesn't meet the educational requirements because they require an IT qualification, which he doesn't have. Müfit does have a degree in Psychology, plus A levels and O Levels and over ten years experience working in IT but surprisingly this wouldn't be adequate to be accepted on the facilitated processing programme. So, that was a bit of a let down but then when we thought about it we realised that due to business commitments Müfit couldn't really start looking for a job until July anyway, so on to plan number 462! We're just hoping that when the time comes his lack of IT qualifications won't cause any problems.
As I write this we're just biding our time really, waiting until July when we'll spring into action, again! This time, though, we'll make sure that we make full use of our time and do as much research as possible. We're obviously hoping that Müfit will be able to find a job relatively quickly and that it's approved by Service Canada and the temporary work permit granted. Hopefully that job would be fairly long term so that it's long enough to keep us out there until our skilled worker permanent residence application is processed.
The drawback of doing it this way is that we're tempting fate we will have to sell our house here in order to finance everything, get all our belongings shipped out, buy a car etc, but I think if we've learnt anything from this whole experience it is to seize the moment and go for it!
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