Rejection to Approval: Start-up Founder Capitalizes on Business Opportunities in Canada

Our client, a thriving transportation company, inquired about business expansion to Canada. In particular, the company contacted us to assist with the transfer of one of its senior executives to its newly established office in Canada. She was appointed to lead the establishment and growth of their Canadian subsidiary. The company has allocated between CAD $250,000 to CAD $350,000 of capital to fund the first year of Canadian operations.

The facts of the case were:

• The parent company is an established transportation provider in Vietnam, focusing on passenger transportation in major cities of the country;
• The parent company generates close to CAD $3 million in yearly gross revenue;
• The Canadian company intended to offer waste removal services in the Greater Toronto Area;
• The senior executive is a majority shareholder of the parent company and was appointed to act as the CEO of the Canadian subsidiary;
• She has over a decade of experience managing teams and business operations in the transportation industry.

After careful consideration of our client’s business interests, our business immigration lawyers proposed to pursue the Intra-Company Transfer program.

In this case, the immigration Officer refused our client’s application on the following grounds:

You have not satisfied me that you have realistic plans to undertake the proposed business in Canada or that said business was created for any reason other than to facilitate procuring a work permit for Canada.

The GCMS notes further revealed that the Officer had reached this conclusion based on 3 findings:

• The applicant did not have the relevant educational background;
• The business in Canada was very new and had no employees; and
• The key documents, like a business plan and employment records, were not provided.

In our objection letter, our lawyers addressed each and every concern that the Visa Officer had with this application. Namely, concerning issue No 1: lack of education, our lawyers have stated that the operational guidelines do not explicitly require executive or senior managerial employees to have any post-secondary education or formal training. Instead, they simply require that applicants fall within the Executive or Senior Managerial category and hold executive or senior managerial responsibilities and duties.

For issue No 2: newly established business in Canada, our lawyers argued that the Officer seems to have misunderstood the start-up nature of the business and then discussed the legal test applicable to the newly established companies in Canada and how this particular company met the requirements of the program.

For issue No 3: lack of evidence and absence of the business plan, our team pointed out that all the “missing” documents, including a 44-page business plan, had been provided with the original application, and the Officer had either overlooked the evidence, or it was inadvertently misplaced. The applicant was not to blame for this oversight on the Officer’s part.

Lastly, we pointed out that it was unfair for the Officer to make veiled credibility findings against our client without giving our client a chance to provide her responses to the Officer’s concerns.

We are thrilled to report that the defense strategy developed by our lawyers for this application resulted in a positive outcome for our client, who is now on her way to Canada!