The International Experience Canada (IEC) Process

International Experience Canada (IEC) is a program available to UK (and other countries) residents aged between 18-30, allowing you to get a one year work visa. There are 5,350 places available and last year they didn’t all go until May, about 6 months after the applications opened. This year was the only year the whole application process was done online, so was expected to have some bumps in the process. The process was done in two stages:

Stage 1 – IEC Application to determine program eligibility and sending of payment

Stage 2 – CIC Application to determine whether you get issued your visa or not

The program was expected to open in December, then January. January came and the website changed to say it would be opening soon. IEC finally announced the opening of the first round of the visas on Valentines Day at about 5pm. I was still at work when I saw the email to say it was open. I rushed out of work at 5.30, made a frantic phone calls to Kyle telling him to log on and fill in all our details (then another one to make sure he was doing it right!). I’ve never rushed so much to make sure I got my bus and the next train so I was home as early as I could then ran from the train station to make sure we’d reserve our place in the first round. I even forgot to get a valentines day card (soz Kyle!). We submitted both our applications by about 7, luckily as by 8pm the first 1,000 places were filled. The next two quotas filled just as quick, so we really were luckily to get our place in the first.

Dear Visa…. Where Are You?!

So, it’s been 37 days since I submitted my CIC application for the IEC work visa. Haven’t heard a peep out of them, not a single reply to any of my messages. I wouldn’t mind, as they do have up to 6 weeks to process the CIC part of the application, but so many people who submitted way after me (and a lot of others) have already got their LOI/POE. At least Kyle is one of the ones who has is and I couldn’t have been happier to see his sitting in his account. I had almost given up hope on a working ski season in Canada, as he had driving offences I really thought it would be declined… but I was wrong. Never been so happy to be wrong haha.

We won’t be heading until October/November, so we’re not in a rush to get my visa but the uncertainty of not knowing what’s going on is killing me! Yes, I might not have family or partner in Canada that I need to get my work visa to be able to go over, like a lot of people I’ve been speaking to are. But, there is a lot riding on this for us and a hell of a lot of things for us to do:

The Story So Far

Hello! Welcome to Our North America Travel Adventure 🙂

First off we is me (Laura) and my fiance Kyle who are soon to be moving to Canada for an adventure that is new to us both.

We have always enjoyed a holiday or two and going to new places, but we’ve always craved going away for a little longer. The backpacking travelling thing had never really appealed to us and there are different places that appeal to us both, so planning a trip would be a bit of a nightmare! So, we quickly scraped the idea of travelling. We had always talked about doing a ski season, but neither of us really wanted to do one in Europe and be a chalet couple and work stupidly long hours. So, what was the other alternative? You guessed it…. Canada!

We’d talked about doing a ski season in Canada a long time ago, but decided against it with Kyle being in a stable job and me deciding I wanted to get a grown up job straight after uni. However, an offer of a career break for Kyle and me thinking why the hell not – we decided to go for it!