Episode 59 – Authorization to Work Without a Work Permit, with Cristina Guida

Cristina Guida is a senior associate lawyer with Green and Spiegel LLP in Toronto. She can be found on Twitter @crisguida_gands.

We discuss authorization to work in Canada without a work permit, including business visitors, students, perfroming artists, maintained status, the global skills strategy and other categories. We also discuss what Canada’s immigration department continues to be “work.”


Episode 58 – Myths About Canadian Immigration Law, with Marina Sedai

Marina Sedai is an immigration lawyer and the past National Chair of the Canadian Bar Association Immigration Section, a role that she served in from 2018 – 2019, and is also a past provincial char of the CBABC Immigration Law Section. She can be found on Twitter @MarinaSedai.

We discuss various myths about Canadian immigration law, including:

  • Refugees get more financial help than pensioners.
  • Foreign nationals immigrate and then bring their whole extended family over.
  • If including your spouse or common-law partner on your permanent resident application is inconvenient or unhelpful to your immigration process then you can exclude them and later sponsor them.
  • Volunteering isn’t work.
  • If my kid is born in Canada then my H&C application is guaranteed to succeed.

Episode 57 – Mandamus Applications, with Adrienne Smith

We discuss how mandamus applications work. Adrienne Smith is a Partner at Battista Smith Migration Law Group (update: now with https://www.smithimmigrationgroup.com/)

2:00 Does filing mandamus applications annoy Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada? 

5:30 Has there been a change in the frequency with which mandamus applications are considered? 

13:30 During COVID-19 is there a difference in filing a mandamus application between online and paper applications? 

18:00 What is a mandamus application? 

26:00 What is the legal test for a mandamus application? 

49:00 During COVID-19 when a visa office is largely close