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♪ We got the star hotel ♪ Two destinations, one loyalty card. Visit yamaha.com/palms to discover more. (upbeat music) - Welcome to Radical Personal Finance, a show dedicated to providing you with the knowledge, skills, insight, and encouragement you need to live a rich and meaningful life now, while building a plan for financial freedom in 10 years or less.

My name is Joshua Sheets, I am your host, and today on the show, we're gonna talk about how to move to Canada. We're coming up, as I record this, on May 2020, we're coming up on a new election season in the United States. One of the things that you will always hear during an election season in the United States is, well, if so-and-so gets elected, whoever so-and-so happens to be, that's it, I'm moving to Canada.

And my question that I often ask people in response to that is simply, how? How are you gonna move to Canada? Because it's not necessarily quite so easy as just simply going there, if you intend to stay there. And so my guest on today's show, I'm gonna bring on Brandon Miller.

Brandon runs a firm called Maple Immigration Services. Brandon, welcome to Radical Personal Finance. - Thanks, Joshua. - So I'm so glad you are here, because in today's show, we're gonna talk about, specifically, we're gonna talk about immigrating to Canada. We're gonna discuss, basically, why Canada, we're gonna talk about how to do it, and what I wanna do is make this show a real resource for people to help them to see how they can move to Canada, if at some point in time that they would want to.

Now, Brandon's recently written a book called "Second Passport, Your Guide to a Secure Alternative Home for You and Your Family Just in Case," and he runs a firm specializing in this. And Brandon, how long now have you, how long have you run an immigration firm helping people move to Canada?

- I've been doing it for about 10 years, so we're coming up on that. I've been in private practice for about eight. But prior to that, I've been given a unique perspective because I was working to actually help people get settled into Canada prior to moving. - Really? - Yeah, yeah.

- So that's another firm. You were helping people make the process of actually moving. - Yeah, so a lot of times, and I'm sure we're gonna discuss this, but a lot of times, people don't focus on, they focus only on the immigration portion of it. So I've always taken more of a holistic approach to it, and that's actually the settlement side.

And so I actually got a really unique perspective prior to just helping people up to the point of actually coming as an immigrant here, but I actually get them to think ahead of what that's gonna look like when they actually arrive because a lot of people don't actually think about that, and some people struggle if they don't have a plan or they don't have direction.

- So let's begin with this question. If you're gonna talk about why Canada, with your clients, why do people want to move to Canada? - Mm-hmm. So there's a number of different reasons. I'll give you a few, but normally what I see, if I was just to give you kind of the elevator pitch answer on that, there's two reasons.

If people are in an area where they have, maybe their security is not actually, it's questionable, and they have kids, 99% of the time, it's gonna be, "I wanna move to Canada "because I want a better life for my kids." If they're younger, what they're doing is they're looking ahead for opportunity, and normally people are just saying, "You know what?

"I can go there, I can move, I can have a nice, secure place, "I can get rewarded for my skill set, "and I can live a nice, peaceful life." So I've actually been lucky because I, prior to coming back to Canada, I actually lived overseas for 15-plus years and traveled, and I've seen a number of different places.

Everybody's the same, right? We all want just a nice, secure place to have a family, to settle down, to do our stuff. Again, so those are the two basic reasons, but there could be the security thing, which I already kind of touched on, financial, which we touched on, health, health is a huge factor.

We have, you know, I want to say free healthcare, because we do. So we have a healthcare system where we believe in Canada that if you need care, you're going to get it. So especially in the times that we're living in right now, I'm especially thankful for that. And even so, depending on where you're looking in terms of life expectancy, that healthcare has a compounding effect later on.

You know, many months back, I was sitting in, I'm going to the gym, trying to lose a few pounds, and there was a thing that came up on the screen, and it was talking about how Canada rates pretty high in terms of life expectancy. You know, some areas of the world, say India, the Philippines, which I deal with a lot, they have life expectancies of 68 and a half years when we're running at 82.

So, you know, 14 years of life is one option. Taxation, you know, we're a resource-based economy. It's funny, I had somebody, I put this in the book, actually, because somebody had brought this up to me, and she was looking at whether to go to Australia or whether to come to Canada.

And she said, "I want to come to Canada." And she said the reason that she wanted to do that, now, she was originally from China, she said, "I'm very concerned about resources." And she says, you know, "Canada's got lots of water, and Australia doesn't have as much water, so what's it going to look like in 50 years?" And I was like, "That's a really interesting way of looking at it." So I've heard a lot of different items on that, and it really depends where people are at in terms of their thinking, and I think basically there's security.

And again, I'm sure we could speak about that for an hour, you know, considering what the world looks like these days in terms of that. But really, you know, you can bring it back to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, like that safety, security right there. That's a big driver for people to look at greener pastures, as I hear.

All right. Question, one of the things-- and I think about this in terms of there's a big difference in the world regarding people who are from, say, the United States or from Great Britain versus somebody who's from a country like, I don't know, Pakistan or Afghanistan. There's a very different approach to that immigration perspective.

For example, for somebody from Afghanistan or from Iraq or from Pakistan, where they have almost no global travel freedom, they have almost no ability to move around the world, they're kind of stuck. They don't really have a passport that gives them visa-free access where they want to go. It's very hard for them to immigrate to other places.

I think if I were living in Pakistan or Afghanistan or Iraq, someplace like that where it was so restricted, one of the very first things that I would be focused on is to just move somewhere where I can start to process towards citizenship. We'll talk about citizenship in a moment.

But that's a really big advantage for somebody in those circumstances. However, when I think about someone from the United States or somebody from Germany, they already have a very strong passport, but yet still Canada can provide some interesting options. I do agree with your assessment of that lady who is talking about resources.

I think that access to fresh water is going to certainly be more and more important in the coming century. Who knows what things look like, but fresh water is never a bad thing. Canada has such a massive geography. It's absolutely huge, and yet it has a tenth of the population of the United States.

All of the population of Canada is basically all along the southern border. When you go to central and northern Canada, it's just completely empty. You've got forests. You've got rivers everywhere. You've got just tremendous space. Even for Americans, I think having a backup plan, a really good backup plan, is just having the ability to go to Canada and keeping a cabin in Canada or a second home.

For Americans, there's such a massive degree of cultural compatibility that when I'm in Canada, I feel totally at home because there's a very-- although there are important cultural distinctions, the cultures are very, very close. I want to ask you a question, though, about something that you wrote in your book.

You said that Canada has a large number of reciprocal working arrangements that allow people to come to Canada. Then also you said elsewhere that Canada has options that allow people to focus on just simply using their Canadian status to go to other places. Can you talk about some of the arrangements that Canada has with other countries that help Canadians to travel to other places?

Awesome. Yeah, worker mobility is a really, really big thing. Just to kind of go back a little bit, I think, man, you really are hitting it right on the head, like impressively. A lot of people like that freedom to be able to travel. Again, as an American or Canadian, we don't really feel this as much, but somebody who has to apply for a visa and constantly under that scrutiny, it's not fun.

But I'm thankful that I have the ability to travel pretty much anywhere visa-free. But the other thing that I'm thankful of, too, is that I'm also able to work and be mobile in a number of different ways. So some of the bigger agreements, I'll talk from the North American perspective.

NAFTA previously, which is the USMCA now, those worker mobility provisions are still going to exist. Now, I deal with a lot of people that are in the United States right now, but they are not citizens and they might be on an H-1B. And a lot of people that were helping to come to Canada now, and this is one thing that I think people really need to think about, is they're putting their efforts in and they're staying, but they don't have a long-term status.

And that's something that always hangs over their head. So a lot of times I'll be talking to people and they'll say, "You know, I've got this great career down here," etc., etc. But what they can do is they can actually come to Canada and we can talk about becoming a citizen and different things like that.

But as soon as they're a citizen, if they want to travel back to the US, they can do that. And again, it'll be on a temporary basis, but it'll be on a more-- when you're using some of the provisions under the NAFTA or the USMCA, that allows them to actually go back and work in that same level of job, but transition back, but have a more secure status with that.

Some of the other agreements, TPP from a North American perspective, that was in the news. I know that America opted out of that. And, you know, again, probably another conversation for a long time. But we are still part of that. There's worker provisions there. We have worker provisions with Colombia, Chile, Korea.

And most notably is something called CETA, which is the Canadian European Trade Agreement. So all of these trade agreements, if you actually start delving into them, they all have worker mobility provisions. So trade is not only goods, and that's how we think of it all the time, like we're slapping tariffs on and we're making money off goods.

But there's also trade in terms of worker capital or expertise capital or specialized knowledge. So if you're in an area where, you know, you have skills that are in demand, you can actually pretty freely move. I'll give you some other examples, too. You know, I've had clients where, you know, say they're an Indian citizen and they're working in the Middle East.

They will be working in the Middle East. They'll have a great job. They'll immigrate to Canada. They'll do their stuff here. They'll get their Canadian passport, and then they can return to that job in the Middle East, and they'll be doing the exact same job, exact same company, but their salary will go up based purely on the fact that they have a Canadian passport.

Now, I don't think that that's totally proper. However, these things do exist in the world, and there are certain advantages to that. So, again, worker mobility is a huge one that we deal with. Yeah, there's a number of different agreements. And it really -- one of the things that I stress is that it's more of a personalized approach for that.

So, you know, if people understand what their, you know -- how can I put it? Like, you know, if anybody who's specialized and in demand, if they have that, there's a way to move them around and move agile workforces around like that. I agree. I think also just one of the Facebook commenters, Martin, on the live stream, he says, "Some might talk about the Canadian worldwide reputation." I think that's definitely true, is that I have found it convenient at times to allow people to think that I'm Canadian when traveling the world.

It's one of those things where it's not a bad reputation to have when you're traveling, a little bit different than being an American. It's funny. It's funny. And I don't talk about this a lot. I have a very good friend of mine. He's from Tallahassee. And we were in Bangkok.

And we were heading -- we had just finished a vacation. And we were down at the islands. We did some diving and stuff. And we were taking the taxi back to the airport. And the taxi driver, you know, said, "Where are you from?" And before I said anything, he's like, "Oh, we're from Canada." And I looked at him, right?

And I was like, "Yeah." And then we started -- and the guy is like, "Oh, Canada." And we started talking. And I said to him -- I said to him after we got out of the taxi, I was like, you know, "Hey, man, why did you say that?" And he says, "You know what?" He's like, "I've learned being around you and other people that you get a way different reception when you say you're Canadian." And, again, I don't -- that's not an idea that I like to promote because, you know, it's just not -- yeah.

But there is a reality to that. And, you know, I believe you should be proud of who you are and all of that stuff too. But strangely enough, the world works in mysterious ways. But I've seen that time and time again. So, yeah, Martin, I would agree with you on that.

So let's talk about -- because I agree, and one of the reasons why I brought you on, I've talked quite a bit on Radical Personal Finance about expatriation. I've expatriated from the United States. And one of the things that I talk about to people is simply the value of having backup options, the value of having a second passport.

And I think that for Americans, which is a bulk of my audience, for any international listener, there are a lot of benefits to pursuing the path towards Canadian residency, also the path towards Canadian citizenship. And Canada has some unique benefits even for Americans, even for people who aren't looking to necessarily renounce their citizenship, but they're just looking to have a backup plan.

One of the things that is really challenging for Americans is frequently Americans really want to have the option to -- if they're going to ever renounce their citizenship, they want to have a "good citizenship." They want to have something that is equivalent to the passport, the travel document that they're accustomed to with their American passport.

Well, Canada checks the boxes. I think if people are also looking for a backup plan, for example, an economy that they can work for. Perhaps, although the Canadian and the American economies are certainly very closely linked, it's very possible that if the American economy is not doing well, somebody can go to Canada and work to get a job in Canada or start a business in Canada.

In addition, because the Canadian pathway to citizenship is relatively short, can potentially be as short as three years of residence, which I'll talk about in a minute, there are ways that you could leverage this process to help yourself as an American have a backup plan. And if you're looking for a place that, hey, if everything goes bad, I'm going to bug out to a place where it's lightly populated, Canada ticks the boxes.

And if you've got a Canadian passport, they got to let you in. So I want to talk about the requirements of what's required to actually get residency in Canada. And in addition to move towards citizenship, because I think most people underestimate the challenge of that. You hear during a political season, you hear people say, you know what, I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to move to Canada if problems come out.

Well, yeah, you can go for six months, but after six months, they're going to boot you out. So let's pretend that I'm upset with the results of the next election and I want to move to Canada. What do I do? Like, how does that process actually work? OK, so I'm going to take this from from an American perspective, as that's most of your audience.

And I think it's really I'm smiling because when you say about the election season, there's a lot of people that will say, yeah, I want to move to Canada. But they're they're very uninformed about it. And I think like what you've just opened up here is a great little segment.

A lot of a lot of times and you'll remember the last election cycle, a lot of people, they actually there was a news news story that it actually had broken. The website had crashed because so many people were searching how to come to Canada. There is this misnomer, like, let's be honest, Canada and the US, we are we are very closely linked in all respects.

I think culturally, just in thinking and a lot of different ways. So, you know, it is a logical jump for somebody to come here. And it's not it's not as much of a what's the word I'm looking. It's not a big stretch. Right. It's you know, you can still watch you know, you can still watch all your TV shows and get all your all your stuff that you need and you're close enough to home.

The other thing that I wanted to say is that you mentioned the economy as well. We are. And again, you would be more more of an expert on this. But the the economy like in Canada, we're a little bit more conservative. And when we kind of hit, you know, downturns, it's not as it's not as it's not as radical.

It's not it's not a huge jump. And taxation wise, if you're moving, if you're moving out or going somewhere, we're not taxed on our worldwide income per se when we're a non-resident. We have the ability to become a non-resident so that, you know, we just fill out a form with the CRA.

We don't have to pay taxes. And I think that's one of the biggest differences because Americans are taxable on worldwide income. So how easy is it to get here? So it could be it could be very easy, depending on a number of different factors. So the way immigration works is, is we have different pathways.

We have the economic pathway. We have the family pathway. We have the humanitarian sort of refugee pathways. And then we have, you know, temporary programs that lead into those different programs. So I'm only going to deal with the economic pathways. And generally what happens is, is we have a system where you're rated on your education.

You're rated on your language ability, which presumably, you know, should be doing OK with. For Americans, you should be doing OK. Right. Yeah. Yeah. But but I will tell you that some of my clients, usually my my clients from the UK or Ireland, they generally they generally do the worst.

And and the reason is, is because there's this misnomer that they have. They speak English. So I'm going to do fine in the English test. That's kind of like me. You know, I've been driving for 30 years. Right. So hopping in a car and doing a driving instructor like, you know, my hands aren't at ten and two and doing all the stuff I'm actually, you know, I've got some bad habits.

So you do have to study. And I tell my clients that all the time. But so we look at the language, we look at the age. We don't want to bring in older people enter a direct pathway. Now, there are options if you are a little older to be able to do that.

And I could speak about those later. But those generally have to do with, you know, buying a business or in our investments. And they're very nominal as well. But normally we're looking for younger people because, you know, we have to keep this economy going and people have to keep working.

We got the baby boomers coming through as well. So we have to we have to take care of them. We look for educated people. We want somebody with, you know, a university degree or some college or a trade. So if you're a trades person, a carpenter, plumber, electrician, some some sort of skilled trades, you know, so many opportunities.

And then we're also looking at. So we're looking at education. We're looking at language and we're looking at age. Those are the main those are the main criteria. And then after that, we have a scoring system that allows you to go through. After that, what we do is we do draws and those draws happen, you know, prior to prior to the covid.

They were happening usually on a Wednesday every two weeks. And we were inviting eight thousand or so just under eight thousand, give or take people a month to come. What that means is, is then you would file your application. It's basically I want to come to Canada. Put your hand up, say let's go.

And then you would file your application and then you would come as a permanent resident. So coming as a permanent resident is how can I put it? It's very beneficial and it's not comparing it with the American like green card. It's not as onerous. And what I mean by that is, is that we have a system where you have to you have to be here two out of five years on a sliding scale.

So technically you can come in, you can land and then you can leave for two, three years. Right. And then you can show up again and complete your two years. And those are done in a sliding block. And then you could go away for another three years, et cetera, et cetera.

Or you could come here, you could stay. And after about three years, you can apply for citizenship. And then once you've got a passport, then you can come and go as you please. The other thing, again, speaking again, I was using the American example there. Having two passports because that's what you started off with, having two passports, you can have a dual nationality.

Having that as a backup, technically with the US and Canadian passport, you can generally travel. And they're about the same in terms of getting to the different countries and the time that you're allotted. However, there's other benefits. Some people will look at it as an educational means for education.

So, you know, I become a Canadian citizen, my kids can or a permanent resident even. My kids can go to university here and it's a pretty comparable, good education system that we have here in post-secondary. You know, they can go to school here and it's not going to go into debt, you know, and be forever paying that off.

You know, because there's lots of lots of ways that we we offset that. That's one thing. The health care, the health care backup. A lot of people will look at that and say, listen, you know, if something really happens, at least I know that I have somewhere to go and that I'm going to get the care and I'm not going to bankrupt myself getting it.

So those are some things that we hear a lot as well. But in terms of getting the residency, you would file the application, then you would get your permanent residency and then you can choose or not you want that citizenship or not. So my understanding also is and try to go and put your headphones in or something.

I'm getting some feedback from your end. But my understanding of this process is that once you achieve residency, as you said, Canada does have a time required for residency as far as how much time you actually do have to be on the ground. And that is a mark against Canada as an option compared, for example, to some other places like Mexico.

Once you're a permanent resident in Mexico, there's no there's no residence, no on the ground requirements. You don't have to be there for a certain amount of time. But but it's not onerous. Right. It's two years out of every five. And so it's my understanding that those two years out of every five can be either two years consecutive out of every five.

Correct. Or it could be it's a total amount of time. So let's say that would be two fifths of every year, which would be what, three, three months or so. Right. So you can do it either every year or if you haven't been to Canada in a few years, you've got to go back and spend two years.

But one one big attraction to Canada is as the law is right now, it is indeed a three year pathway to citizenship. And unlike a lot of places in the world that so have a so-called fast pathway to citizenship, unlike a lot of places, you actually have in Canada a pretty decent, pretty reasonable system of of bureaucracy that functions fairly well.

And so it actually is more likely to be about three years to citizenship. Has that been your experience about how long? Let's say that I moved to Canada today. I've got my permanent residency process done. I've been approved. I moved to Canada today. And my goal is I'm going to be here and become a citizen as fast as possible.

About how long would it be between the time that I actually arrive on the ground, which, of course, to take time to do the process of residency for the time I arrive on the ground to the point where I have a little blue passport. What would you guess normally?

Four years. So you would have to wait because you need your tax returns and everything. Those are one of the types of documents and you need three of those. And then after that, what would happen is, is that you would make the application. But we're seeing those prior to Covid because they've actually they're just trying to figure out what they're doing with that, I believe, because obviously they can't do the citizenship ceremonies.

But I've seen people go through in as little as five to six months. And again, you mentioned you mentioned something very important in terms of a functioning bureaucracy. We I you know, I'm I'm the first one to criticize Immigration Department if if they're not doing, you know, not doing their job.

But I got to say recently over the last couple of years, it's it like fantastic. Like they're really it's really we've seen that we've seen a really good change in a lot of different areas. So there's still some areas that need some work, but it is totally a functioning bureaucracy.

They are moving people through the backlogs are finished. If we were having this conversation 10 years ago, you know, it was it could have been up to a seven seven year wait for citizenship. But they've they've cleaned that out. You know, it's it's fast, efficient. And I've had clients that would go in and literally you file your application and then you would have to do a citizen test.

They give you a little guide and you have to look a little bit about the history and all of the other stuff. And then after you do that, you write your citizenship test and then you would actually they were literally saying to people, hey, do you want to come in tomorrow and do your citizenship swear in ceremony?

So they were making it very quick. And that used to be like upwards of a year. And that's the processing times that they're generally touting. But we do see people get through that, through that, through that a lot quicker. So in your book, you have a section on inadmissibility, the people who can't come.

Who are the people who will not who will fail at getting Canadian residency? Who are the people who just aren't going to get in? That's a really good question, man. So generally what we're looking at is is if there's a serious criminality and that's defined under Section 36 of the Act, what the.

So, OK, this is actually this is a big that's a big answer. So generally there's this misnomer and we'll see it all the time at the border. A lot of times, like, for instance, December, not last year, the year before. So December 2018, the law, the law had changed and updated.

So having like a DUI was actually made you criminally inadmissible. And a lot of people are like, whoa, whoa, whoa. And the the border officials here in Canada now with what's going on, a lot of the systems are actually very hooked together with Canada and the US. So they can actually pull up, pull up your record right at the thing.

So, you know, again, don't lie to the border officer because they have the information right at their screen if they want to look it up. What was happening is a lot of people didn't understand this and they were coming in and they were like, but it was just a DUI and it was this.

And, you know, and, you know, it was very strange. So what happens is, is that we have a process. It's called a TRP, which is a temporary resident permit. So if they if they don't have serious criminality, which is basically having multiple offenses, you know, that are very serious in nature, then then they can it can be dealt with.

But if there is a string of offenses, then it becomes a bit of an issue. You know, now that's not to say that it can't be dealt with. Generally, you know, if somebody has like, you know, they have one DUI we had and where it gets tricky, for instance, is we had I had something a few years back and, you know, she had just one DUI and it was, you know, she she didn't have a chain of behavior.

However, it was very touchy for her because she was had a transfer with a very notable tech company to Canada and she had to turn down the transfer. And then she contacted us because she didn't want to go into her HR department and say, I got I got a DUI.

I, you know, so she couldn't go. So she actually went over to another city on the East Coast in the US and then she came to Canada later, but she wanted to clear it up. So we we deal with a lot of those. But again, if you know, I'm kind of smiling because a colleague of mine dealt with somebody who had he was seriously in a miscible.

He used to work for organized crime and used to kill people. And he was convicted for that. And she was actually able to make a case that, you know, he was in his 70s to make a case for him to come to Canada and be able to get around the admissibility.

So I'm like, look, if you can get a hit man sorted out within admissibility, there are ways to do it. And there are exceptions. However, you know, generally, if you have anything or any type of record on that, that's something that you need to be aware of. And it's also something that you can deal with.

And it's also something that you should not deal with on your own because you have to equate the laws. There's a process to do that. The offense has to be equated to the Canadian law. And that's where, again, the DUI, it's not a big, you know, it's not a big thing.

It was it was funny. I had a client from Texas. We were talking to a consultation and, you know, he was like, do you I had a DUI? And he's like, do you? I was like, come on. It's kind of like, you know, everybody gets DUI here and there from where I'm at.

And I was just like, yeah, no. But I've never forgotten that. It was he was he was he was certainly an interesting fellow. But, yeah, I know we, you know, we deal with that stuff all the time. You also in the book talk about medical inadmissibility, that when you are going to apply for a visa, you're required to undergo a medical review.

I think that's important. And also financial inadmissibility. Those are the two categories you cover in the book. But I think those are important because I think one valuable one valuable reason to consider pursuing a second citizenship in a country like Canada that has a socialized medical system or like many countries in the EU is it's kind of like a decent last ditch plan.

If for some reason you're living in some in the Bahamas or something and you need medical care and you're out of money, if you're a Canadian citizen, you can move you can move home and you can go ahead and re-register in the system and receive care. And so but you can't but you have to have all that set up beforehand.

You can't wait until you need it. You have to have that set up before beforehand. Kind of like insurance. Right. You know, and that's exactly where a lot of people like, you know, again, when I was I've traveled, I've lived in Asia, I've lived in the Middle East and I've lived all over.

But I always knew that, like, I have a Canadian passport and I can just get on a plane and go and kind of deal with what I need to deal with. The medical system is huge, you know, and yeah, that's you know, that that level of security and that level of comfort.

And again, the medical touching on what you said about the financial intermissibility and the medical. So we have a test. It's basically excessive demand. So a lot of times, you know, what we're looking at is and, you know, there's calculations that need to be done and I'm not going to get into them because it's just drilling too, too deep into it.

But for for medical intermissibility, what that looks looks at how much money actually be if you had a condition because you have to do a medical. How much money would be what it take to care for that condition? And will it put an excessive demand on the system that we have here?

So that's what they look at. And it's very surprising, like, for instance, HIV, for instance, is not something that would be excessive demand. And previous, you know, it was and there was some case law that was put together. But people can actually are surprised because they they have conditions and they think that, oh, this is you know, this is not going to happen.

And I, you know, I have clients that are concerned about things like that. And I'm like, no, like, it's totally it's totally within the realms of a reasonable demand on the on the medical system. Right. Financial. Oh, sorry. Financial intermissibility is only at the time of actually coming here because you need to have settlement funds to be able to come.

So we have something called a low income cut off, which is basically, you know, a calculation that's used. And the calculation says, you know, say for a family of four, you have to have, you know, about 20, I think it's 22 and change now. Yeah. Twenty two thousand and change.

That's what you need to show. And that's twenty two thousand Canadian, by the way. So I think that's probably about what, sixteen thousand, seventeen thousand US. And if you're single, it's it's it's up about 13, 14 now. This these things change all the time, depending on that. So, you know, eight, eight thousand, nine thousand, probably about nine thousand bucks US.

And that allows you to you know, you just have to show that you have that money for your settlement because they want to know that you can come in and get started. So that's what that's for. One of the things I want to pivot just briefly through some of the questions of just how long everything takes and how how much it costs to start.

When I've studied the Canadian immigration systems, although I think if you have enough money, you can get generally get into almost any country in the world. You know, the United States has probably one of the hardest and one of the worst functioning immigration systems in the world. But yet, if you have enough money, you can buy yourself a residency visa through the entrepreneur.

Was it EB2? I don't remember the name. EB5. EB5, right? EB5. Which is, do you know, is about what, half a million dollars, something like that in terms of the cost? I know I'm not expecting you to be an expert on the US system, but. No, I actually I know that I know that I know the EB5 program actually quite well, well, reasonably well.

But what the EB5 program was, it was half a million if you were in an area that needed like it was regional development area. So they were looking at different areas that were kind of depressed economically and they were saying if you had a business, it was five hundred thousand or it was a million dollars if you were a million dollars if you were moving into an area outside of that.

Those have gone up to eight hundred thousand, I believe. I haven't dealt with it in a number of years. But, yeah, you could actually that that actually was was an OK system. I wish we had something similar to that in Canada. And again, I don't say that because a lot of people are like, oh, you're buying your way in.

But I also recognize the fact that people, you know, should be rewarded. You know, there's different types of capital that you bring to a country. Some of it is is economic capital and some of it is, you know, working capital, like in terms of your skills and other other things are, you know, family capital, like, you know, family reunification, things like that.

But sorry, I jumped in on you there, Joshua. I'm sorry. No, I agree. And so the point is that you can if you have enough assets, you can get into almost any almost any country over time. The question is just simply how much. But age is a big deal in most of the Canadian programs, age and education.

And so I've encouraged I've had a number of consulting clients that I've encouraged to pursue Canadian residency and pursue citizenship. And I've said to them, listen, you got to at least get the residency now while you're young enough to qualify, because if you start getting to be 50 years old and you've got an average, you know, just an average income, an average situation, you're 50 years old.

The Canadian government doesn't want you. That's different, though. If you're 28 years old, you've got a master's degree. Well, they'll they'll bring you in and you can go ahead and start the process of towards citizenship. So you need to go when you're young, because the Canadian system is, I think, a really thoughtful, intelligent system.

They want young people. They want educated people who are healthy and who are financially protected. And so talk about just just just share with us about that, because that's that's the that's the point I want to drive home is that if you're young and you're thinking about this stuff, you've got to do it when you're young.

So strangely enough, I just did a consultation this morning and there were two of them in there and I want to be careful to protect their their stuff. But the one the the primary person that was doing the consultation, she's she's 28. She's got a Ph.D. and she's got experience.

She's got excellent English. And quite frankly, I'm you know, as I said to her, I said, when I do my consultations, people are I you know, I give as I give. All the information so that they walk away happy and they have all their stuff and they have a clear pathway.

Yes or no. But I also said to her, I said, you know, I've got to tell you something. I also like to size up my clients because I like to see who they are. And I said to her, I said, look, you're you're my perfect client because she's engaged and she's looking ahead.

Now, the reason I say that is is because she's 28. She's got a Ph.D. She's got excellent English and she's got three years of work experience. So I did her points. I just said to her, as long as you hit your English scores, you can come and you've got another year and a half to do that.

Now, conversely, the other person that was there, same everything except the age. He was 42. His he would he would not be able to come, which so everything's the same. But again, what what the government's trying to do is because we have a lower birth rate right now and we have all of these systems, we have the Canadian pension plan.

We have the drug plan. We have the medical system and we've got the baby boomers that are moving through the system and going up. We really need a younger population to be able to come in. So age is a huge driver. And I will tell you, you know, I make it a point when I'm speaking to somebody.

I never try to sell them on it. People are ready when they're ready to go. But I will tell them because I've seen this over the years and it's it's it's disheartening is people. They will make a decision about whether they are now and they're not thinking ahead. And then they'll come back in about two or three years.

Hey, remember me? We talked. And I'm like, yeah, I remember you. It ain't going to happen. You you've you've lost too many points. You're not going to make it. The immigration system has changed so many things. There's there's one other factor in terms of those those numbers. There's also the numbers that are handed down by parliament every year.

They do they do a plan and they slice off all the different programs and different governments have different priorities. So they'll say, OK, we're going to let 300 people in this year. Right. And back when Syria was falling apart, Canada really stepped up and we brought in 50,000 people.

You know, and those 50,000 people, you're taking a chunk out of that pie. So they're going to have to take it from somewhere. So they generally will take it, say, out of an economic category. So those numbers, they they change and they swell depending on the government, depending on the priorities, depending on what's going on in the world.

And they also you as a person are looked at as well in terms of what your scores are going to be. And depending on how many people are putting their hands up and saying, I want to come to Canada, those scores can can fluctuate quite a bit. So, for instance, I've been able to get people.

I'm just going to give you an arbitrary score. Four hundred and three was one of my lowest that I was able to get somebody in on. And that was many years back at the beginning of the system, because he was actually invited under a provincial program, which gave him another 600 points.

So now. Because we're in interesting times, but up until about a month ago, you needed about 470 and the scores have been climbing like this. That's going to dip again because now we have this big pause with with the English scores and things like that. But I guess the point is, is that what I tell people is that if you have that opportunity, you need to you need to take it.

And that's what I told this this lady this morning or girl lady. You know, I said to her, I was like, look, you've got it. And, you know, not trying to pressure her. I just tell her I'm like, you've got a year because once you turn after twenty nine, your scores go down.

The other two, if I can just say one thing very quickly, and this is one of the. Seeing recently and it should be of particular interest to. And come in, they can study, even if they already have a degree, they can take a one year project management certificate. We see a lot of people doing and then what will happen is, is they'll get extra points for that.

And then after that, they'll get a one year work permit if they go to school for one year. And if you go to school for two years or more, then you get a three year work permit. There's also points allotted for Canadian work experience. And the reasoning behind that is, is because the government wants to the biggest problem for for the government here.

And they spend a lot of money on settlement services. So if they can actually have some students get educated. Through their own steam, finding their own job, the government rewards people for that because they want to see that they're not spending the money. Poetry doctorate, right? I'm sure that's really great on a number of different things, but try getting that person who may have language skills or different things where they have to integrate into the into the job market.

The government really doesn't want to put money into those services and they want to see people do it on their own steam. The good thing about Americans is that Americans are the only people that can come have their application put together, show up at the border and apply for that.

That's the only thing that's the only country that can do that in Canada. Otherwise, you have to go through the system and apply through the Canadian consulate in L.A. is where they process those mostly. Interesting. Yeah, I think it's it's there's a real value in it and a lot of people should pursue it.

One of the comments just came in on Facebook during the live stream recording here from Verum says I need I need to move to the United States. How to move to the United States. Obviously, that's not the topic of our conversation here. We're talking about moving to Canada, but I'll tell you, Canadians have the easiest access to the United States of any nationality in the world, that there are a number of nations that are known as ESTA countries.

And just forgive me, Brandon, I need to educate Americans because Americans generally don't understand how hard it is to get to the United States. Just it's a brutal system. So almost every country, every nationality in the world has to apply for a visa to the United States and the visa process system to visit the United States.

It is really, really tough. It is expensive. If you don't if you're not approved for a visa, it's expensive and they don't return your money. I don't know. I remember these tax fees, but something like one hundred and fifty somewhere between one hundred and fifty and two hundred dollars for someone to apply for a visa.

So if I'm in Nigeria and I go to the U.S. embassy to apply for a to apply for a visa to the United States, it's very expensive. And I may or may not be approved. Just depends on what consular officer I get on a certain day. Now, there are a number of nationalities that are known as ESTA countries and the ESTA countries can apply for a travel authorization, an electronic system of travel authorization where let's say that I'm from Great Britain.

Well, I can't just show up at the U.S. border without having notified the U.S. government that I'm coming. But I can go online and I can fill out the ESTA authorization and assuming that there's no pre-known about problems, that'll probably be fine. And I'll be allowed into the country with that ESTA authorization and my passport.

But Canadians are even better. Canadians are the only only nationality in the world that can simply show up at the U.S. border without any previous travel authorization and be admitted into the country, assuming that everything goes fine with their their entry documents and be admitted into the country very simply.

So it's very helpful. But that so that a Canadian passport does give you special privileges into the American just to travel into the United States. Now, I don't know how that relates to immigration, but I've got to imagine that there are some ways where it can be easier to be approved in the U.S.

system as a Canadian immigrant to the United States than as, say, a Nigerian. But I don't know that for a fact. So it is a the Canadian option is really, really useful. Brandon, are you with me? I'm with you. Can you hear me? Yep. Sounds good. All right. So to wrap it up, tell me, go over.

Let's pretend I came to you today and I said, Brandon, all right, I'd like to start the process of pursuing Canadian residency. I think I'm qualified about how long does that process usually run and about how much does that process cost for an average person who wants to immigrate to Canada?

So generally what happens is, is that there's going to be a little bit of time where you're going to have to prepare and get that. So you're going to about two to two to three months on a really good day to be able to prepare to get your stuff in place to be able to do that just to mount the application.

After that, if you're going through an economic program, eight to ten months is what the suggested processing times are. So technically, if you've got your stuff together and everything's there. You can be in and landed in a year. In terms of application fees. So application fee. Five days ago, previously, it was about we have an RPRF or permanent residence fee.

The 550 that was about 1040 previously. Now it's gone up to about fifteen hundred dollars Canadian. You know, some of the other stuff like the fees for a dependent child. It was one hundred and fifty dollars. Now it's two hundred and twenty five Canadian. So, again, there are. What's the word I'm looking for?

You know, it's quite reasonable when you when you actually think about that. We have a fee when we process. You know, we have a professional fee and those those depend on the the program that you're applying for. And what it what it really depends on what we do is we don't do hourly billings, for instance.

We you know, we do a consultation, we look at it and then we can pretty much know how long it's going to take and how much time it's going to be. So, yeah, we do flat flat fee billing because that's in everybody's best interest. But other than that, it's it's it's a pretty, pretty straightforward process.

And if you're motivated, you can you can have that inside of a year, which is pretty admirable. How much are your fees, Brandon? About how much are your fees? My fees can range anywhere from twenty five hundred to, you know, again, if I'm doing if I'm doing a business case, we're up in about the thirty thirty thousand range.

But that's for setting up companies and doing all of that. Normally, people are about two to two to four thousand is generally where most people. But if you're coming in and you're doing an investment type, you know, there's a lot of different professionals that need to be engaged. There's companies that need to be set up.

There's a whole whole bunch of other work. But normally two to two to two to four thousand dollars, somewhere in there. OK, cool. Well, I think it's it's definitely a great option. I think that most people should many people should consider it. And I think that in general, Canada has a lot to offer, really a lot of people, but has a lot to offer people from lower status countries, countries with fewer travel privileges, with more difficult work environments.

It also has a lot to offer for higher status countries. And if you're going to do it, one of the best ways to do it is when you're young. I'm not going to in this interview, I'm not going to dump over Canada, but I have to concede that I am a tax planner.

And one of the nice things is I often recommend to Canadians that they use the United States as a tax haven of choice. I think the United States makes a lot of sense for Canadians as a tax haven to go the other way. But one of the best situations for Americans to be in is to be dual citizens of Canada and of the United States, because then you can take and choose from each country what each country is best at.

And so you can have access to the Canadian system. You can have access to the Canadian health care system, if that's important to you. You can have a little cabin in northern Alberta if you want to. If you want to have a place away from everyone. But you have the best of both worlds as a dual citizen.

And that's the kind of thing that can be done early in your life. And then you can choose to stay in Canada. You can choose to go to the United States. You can choose to go anywhere. And so it's really a great option that a lot of people should do.

I guess, Brandon, the only question I really haven't talked to you about is DIYers versus working with a consultant. I've read a number of books on Canadian immigration that talk about how easy it is to do it yourself. How easy it is to do the whole system yourself. You can do it all on the website.

But of course, you have a business consulting with people doing this. So what are your thoughts on somebody who's sitting there trying to say, "Well, is it worth anywhere from $2,000 to $4,000 for me to hire somebody, or should I do it yourself?" How do you guide somebody through that decision?

Man, I love your questions. You're just hitting all the really great questions. And just for everybody's reference, this is not pre-planned. Joshua, thank you for that. That's the best. So that's the number one thing, and I spend so much of my time trying to let people know that. One of the things that I can hear is, "Oh, it's all on the internet.

I can figure it out." Or, "My friend told me this. What do you think of that?" I just kind of shake my head. The reason is because there are so many intricacies. What is on the website is not the law. And if you read the fine print, the Immigration Department will turn around and say, "Well, the website's just there for informational purposes.

That's not actually IRPA, Immigration Refugee Protection Act." Saying that it's all online, it's not. You get something called a UCI number. So UCI stands for a unique client identifier. And once you get that number, that number will follow you for all of your immigration career until all your information will be erased after nine years after your last interaction.

So if you file an application and you don't want that information to go back in there, what's going to happen is that you've got nine years. And a lot of people, they have this idea that, "Oh, you know, the Immigration Department is asking me for information. I have a consultation tomorrow with a guy who called me up and said, 'Hey, I got this request on my file.

What should I do?'" And I'm like, "Did you respond to that yet?" And he's like, "Nope." I'm like, "Please don't. Please let me speak to you." Because that to me is a huge warning sign. And the biggest issue that people don't understand is that information goes on there. And depending on what you say, you might think that it's totally, "Oh, it's no big deal.

I'm trying to show how honest and complying I am." And I have a friend who now works as a consultant, and she was a visa officer for 20 years. And she always used to say, "You've got to be careful because as a visa officer, we would always give them enough rope and they'll hang themselves." And a lot of times people don't understand that, is that, you know, like the DUI, that makes you criminally inadmissible.

And then you have to go through a whole process. But if you file that prior, you can get around all of that. And this is the thing. There's so many intricacies for that, and a lot of people don't know that. And sometimes what will happen is people will make these mistakes and they can't come back from them.

You know, I tell the story a lot about there was a girl from the Philippines, and it was right – it was just after Christmas time. And we were open between Christmas and New Year's, and she had to come in because she had an issue. And she had been in Canada for six years.

She did some stuff that – she filed her own stuff, and she didn't understand what she was doing. And she could have sorted it all out. But I literally – my office is on the second floor. I literally walked her down the stairs because she was shaking so bad.

I didn't want to see her fall down the stairs and hurt herself because she was – her whole life just evaporated. So, I tell people, I'm like, look, it is – sure, it's all on the internet, right? But it's not. There are internal guidelines. There are memos. There's all these different things.

There's procedural guides. There's case law. There's all of these things that have to factor into it. And the number one thing that I always tell people because a lot of people will say to me, they'll say, oh, I'm paying you all this money and you're just filling out forms.

And I'm like, if you think that you're paying me to fill out forms, you have no idea what I do. And what I do is is that I sit down and I talk about this. You have to have a plan. Then you have to implement it. And then you have to follow it up and make sure that you can execute on it.

And what people don't know is they'll go and they'll say, oh, it's easy. I just got to fill out this stuff on the internet. But when they're sitting there at night and it's keeping them up at night and they don't know what to do and then they get on the internet and then they look at all these forums and they don't know.

This is what I get paid for is they can actually pick up the phone or they can send me an email and say, hey, what about this? And I'm like, listen, this is fine. This is all that's happening. This is how we're going to deal with it. And that's it.

And that's what they're paying for when they use my service is that I know the pathway already. You're going to fill out, say, an express entry application. You're going to fill it out here. But you don't know what step two and three is going to look like. I'm already here.

I'm already planning what's going to happen over here. And I do that right at the beginning so that I know the work experience that needs to go in and all of the other stuff. And, again, I think that's the one difference that people need to take into account. Sure, you could do it yourself.

I always use the example of the nurse, right? Like, yeah, I can get on the internet and figure out how to stitch myself up, but I prefer to go to a hospital and let an expert do it, right? It's the same thing with your immigration application. And this is where I see a lot of people actually run into a lot of issues because they filed something they haven't understood.

And to undo that mistake, if I can undo it, it becomes more costly. And if I can't, then I'm like, yeah, you're kind of -- you're done. So that's it. Okay. Well, great. So, Brandon, your website is mapleimmigration.ca. And you've recently written a book called "Second Passport," your guide to a secure alternative home for you and your family just in case.

I've got a pre-advanced copy, and I've shown that on the screen here during the interview to a few people. But tell my listeners who are interested in connecting with you what they should do, where they should go, and how they should connect with you. Okay. So, obviously, if you're using Facebook, Facebook, we've got the Maple Immigration Facebook page, or they can connect through us through the website.

If they're interested in a copy of the book, I think I mentioned this to you, Joshua, if people want to reach out and comment, they can do that. I'd be more than happy to send that along to your listeners as well. We're going to be putting up a website that should be up in the next week or so to be able to let people get copies of that.

And, yeah, it will be on Amazon and all the different stuff there. So, yeah, pretty exciting, man. Great. Awesome. Well, Brandon, thank you much for coming on. I really appreciate it. And I hope that many of my listeners will take advantage of the opportunity to pursue what is available with potentially expatriating to Canada or pursuing a career in Canada.

Or expatriating to Canada or potentially moving to Canada or bringing in Canada in their overall plan. So, thank you for coming on. Awesome. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. My pleasure. A couple of closing comments here as I wrap up today's show. I want to emphasize to you that, even as Brandon said, time is of the essence with this stuff.

It really matters how soon you start and when you do it. It's very important if you're going to pursue some sort of immigration thing that you do it soon. Laws are always changing. Immigration programs are always adjusting. And you don't know what the law is going to be from now on.

I've worked with a number of clients over the years. And I've talked to them about the value of establishing another place to live. I've talked to them about some of the options. I've talked about Canada. I've talked about Mexico. I've talked about places in Europe. I've talked about places in the Americas.

I mean, there are options all around the world. Canada is not the only place to move to. And Canada is not even necessarily the right place to move to unless it's right for you. And there are distinct advantages to Canada. There are also distinct disadvantages to Canada. But if you're interested in Canada or any country in the world, if you're interested, you need to move quickly and start putting that plan in place.

Even as Brandon talked about with some of the stories of clients who come to him and said, "Okay, I'm going to do this." Then they don't do it. Well, years later, you wind up regretting it. And so a lot of times, get it done early. Now, here's what that actually means in terms of any immigration process.

The thing that you would have to do if you were going to pursue Canada as an option for you and your family, the thing that you would have to do soon is qualify for a residency permit. Once you have a permanent residency permit, there are some temporary options that a guy like Brandon can talk to you about.

But once you have a permanent residency permit, then you wind up putting yourself in a situation where you can then move forward and come back to Canada anytime you want. So let's say that you're 22 years old and you get yourself a Canadian permanent residency permit. You go through the process.

You got your residency card. And you just show up for a few months every year. You're there at least two years out of five. You can keep that residency permit alive until you're 50 as long as you maintain those requirements and the government doesn't change it. You can keep that residency permit alive until you're 50 years old.

And then you could come back to Canada and become a citizen. Now, that would, of course, probably be a little bit inefficient. With the way the Canadian law is structured, the most efficient option would clearly be go there, live there for three years, establish the three-year residency requirement. We didn't talk about it in the interview, but Canada's residency requirement is to be there for three years out of a total of five years before you apply for citizenship.

So you take three times 365. That's the number out of the five-year period to apply for citizenship. So you can go there for nine months a year and then apply for citizenship after five years. Or you can be there for three years continually and apply for citizenship at that point in time.

But go to Canada. Get the Canadian citizenship. And then you could always leave Canada. And then you've got that call option that any time for the rest of your life, if you want to move to Canada, you can always do that. And this should be the same any time you go somewhere.

I'm horrified sometimes when I hear someone say, "Well, I've been living in insert country X, and I've been here for seven years, but I never bothered to get around to file the papers or get a passport." Get a passport while you're there. You never know when you might want to go back and do that.

And so the key is you've got to move early, and then that prepares you for a good plan B down the road. Canada has a lot of advantages. Canada also has some disadvantages. It's not right for everyone, obviously. I'm sure Brandon would be the first to say that it's not right for everyone.

But it is a program that is worth your considering. So if you're interested in establishing a second passport, you are an English speaker. You're interested in an advanced economy. You're interested in a fairly democratic system. You're interested in a high-quality passport. You like the Canadian society. You might like Canadian politics.

You can deal with some cold weather. You can't really get away from the cold weather, although there are a few sunspots in Canada. Then the Canadian immigration option might help you. So reach out to Canada. Sorry, reach out to Canada. Reach out to Brandon. His website is mapleimmigration.ca. Reach out to him.

He'll give you a copy of his book, which is a good starting point to it. And who knows? Canada might be right for you. Thank you for listening to today's show. Make sure you subscribe. If you've not subscribed, wherever you're watching this particular episode or wherever you're listening to it, make sure you subscribe.

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