Hello, I recently received conflicting advice from different firms. One indicated that "incorporation in Canada for the purpose of self-empployment" is not do-able. Another indicated that it is. I want to incorporate with a resident Canadian who would be a 50% shareholder/director. I, as an Ameriican would be the other 50% owner. I would be doing the actual work. Would this arrangement preclude me from "being legal" or would I need to have a business plan and show that I would be hiring Canadians, etc. and would this be reviewed yearly to show compliance? The other question relates to pre-approval from the Labour Market. One firm indicated that getting pre-approval from the Labour Market is do-able in the event that I would abandon the incorporation and simply go with the "sponsor". Another firm said that LMO's are no longer able to be pre-approved. My work deals with a time sensitive issue and if I have to wait 20-45 days for an LMO it wouldn't be do-able from my end. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, --Andy

On this forum, you are providing incomplete and conflicting information, which will make it difficult for you to get a clear response.

Provisions specifically exist for issuance of a work permit for self-employment. However, such provisions are explicitly restrictive to the point of being discouraging. This is different from your original scenario of expansion of a foreign business into Canada, which is more viable - perhaps less so if you are the sole employee of the foreign business (new information provided here). It could also be worthwhile to consider provisions such as NAFTA Investor, depending on the value of your financial investment into the business and the extent of your direction and control of that business.

There is insufficient information to determine viability of a LMO application, other than that your prior post suggesting that you have a 50% stake would likely disqualify you.