Luck on My Side: From Café Work to Permanent Residence

A girl who was aiming to immigrate started working at the café where I worked, and while we were talking about ourselves, she said, “Maybe you could apply for immigration through the PNP?” That is what got me looking into it. Honestly, I gave it a try thinking it would just let me extend my stay a little. When I decided to apply, my working holiday visa was one month away from expiring.

I had already used JP Canada when I first came to Vancouver on a working holiday, and a colleague at the café also told me about them, so I went for a consultation.

I took IELTS, gathered documents, obtained a work permit and had a medical exam. In my case, I met my current husband during the immigration process and we married partway through, so I was also asked to submit his documents and have him take a medical exam. If I had not asked for a representative to handle my application, I think I would have had no idea what to do after getting married. Because a lot of time had passed since my first medical exam, I took a second one, and two weeks later I got the result that my permanent residence was approved.

Taking IELTS was really tough. When I decided to apply for immigration, my working holiday visa was already one month from expiring. When I found out I had to take IELTS, the test date was just one week away, and the results came two weeks after that. In other words, the results would come out two days before my working holiday visa expired, so if I could not get the required score, I would have to go straight back to Japan. I had only one chance. Of course, that was the first time I had even heard the word IELTS, so I had never studied for it, and for one week I did nothing but work through past writing and reading questions.

Having Ms. Shiraishi, a very experienced and obviously highly capable (lol) consultant, in charge of my case gave me peace of mind. Also, when I mentioned that I could not take time off work to drop off my documents, someone from Visa JP Canada actually came all the way to the café where I worked to pick them up, which I really appreciated.

And when I studied desperately and got an IELTS result above the requirement, Ms. Shiraishi and Yagi, who were handling my case, hugged me and celebrated with me. That made me so happy. I had been so desperate (lol).

Luckily, my husband was able to get permanent residence together with me, so we plan to take our time thinking about what we want to do as a couple.

In my case, I decided to apply for immigration right before my visa expired, and during the process the café that had supported my work permit went bankrupt, I had to go back to Japan, and then I got married. There were quite a few big hurdles, but I kept saying, “I believe in my luck.” I think believing in yourself is what matters.