Temporary Resident Visa
Most people are required to obtain a Temporary Resident Visa (TRV) prior to entering
Canada. You can check
here to find
out whether you are exempt from this requirement.
When attempting to enter Canada temporarily, you must convince a visa officer, either
in your home country or at a Canadian port of entry, that you will leave when your
visa expires. This is the test that all persons must meet, and in recent years,
it has become harder to do.
In recent years, it has become increasingly difficult for persons from visa-countries
to obtain a TRV, and the number of documents that one needs to provide support of
an application is growing. It used to be that you could simply send your friend
an invitation letter, and that would be sufficient to assure a successful application.
In the past, lawyers would have never recommended their services for such an application;
today, however, I would strongly recommend that if it is important for you or a
family member to visit, that you retain a lawyer to assist you. There are three
important reasons for this:
- One, lawyers know what kind of documents CIC is looking
for in an application.
- Two, if your application is refused, it will be increasingly
difficult for you to be approved in subsequent applications to visit Canada. The
last thing you want is bad immigration history. It's like a reputation. It tends
to stay with you a long time.
- Three, most people are unaware that the smallest criminal
conviction resulting from the most unimportant incident can make you inadmissible
to enter Canada for any reason.
Unless you are very savvy and know your way around
the system, you will require a lawyer to make persuasive submissions to the visa
office abroad.
It's important to keep in mind that for all immigration applications - temporary
or permanent - visa offices have office-specific forms that need to be filled out,
besides the regular ones that everyone needs to fill out. If you're determined to
do it on your own, you can access information and forms
here.