I am looking to move with my family to Edmonton from Ireland through the Skilled Worker Program. We submitted our application in march 2004 to the Embasy in London UK.

I have a BA in Management of Info. Systems and my wife has a City and ?Guilds in Interior Design. We would be bringing in excess of $170K CDN with us from the proceeds of the sale of our house in Ireland.

We cannot belive how long the process is taking to obtain a permit. We received a copy of our CAIPS Report in January and this showed that no progress has been made with regard to our application. There is a BFD of Nov 30 of this year, which I can only hope is when the application will be completly processed.

While this is ongoing, we have decided to come over to Canada and see if we can try and find companies that might sponsor one of us for a temporary work permit until our permanent application is complete. So far we have had limited success as most companies do not realise that there is no extra expense on their behalf to employing foreign nationals on a temporary permit.

If anyone has any advice about speeding up to processing time of an application, companies that look to employ foreign nationals, anything, we wold greatly appreciate any information.

In my experience, the best thing that you can do is be able to advise an employer as to what it would take to employ you as a foreign worker in Canada. Most employers, especially those that are smaller, do not have an awareness of these requirements and may be adverse to engaging the process primarily for this reason.

I am not aware of any company that specifically looks for foreign workers, but if your skills are required, any employer would be willing to consider employing you.