It's funny but Christmas literally is my most favorite time of the year! I LOVE watching the snow fall, I love that it starts getting dark from 4pm, then the Christmas lights and decorations pop! I love playing my Christmas songs (so much the kid now runs under the table in protest when I start, lol). I have lots of Christmas activities lined up, including Naija 'kparakpor' this year (I'm not one to take pictures, but I'll try, lol). And the Naija parties, you don't even need to know who is throwing the party, just know the venue, lol.

Truthfully, Canadians can have really boring activities, but we are Nigerians, we bring our own fun

einsteino:



This is where I'd join in deriding Canada or "badmouthing", hopefully I don't get caned for airing my honest views. I could share some awesome Christmas abi Winter pics but fact is that all the fun starts and ends at it looking picturesque. The experience is often lacklustre if not outrightly boring, it can easily leave a Nigerian complaining or just realising its empty lol. Winter and its snow might look pretty but trust me when I say the true beauty is the summer sun, lol there isnt any sane person who loves Canadian winter. Anyways, I digress.


Our christmas at best has the vibe of a workers day public holiday in Naija.... It is even worse for our bros who are muslims, their salah here can easily get them feeling homesick & dejected. In my opinion, Canadian christmas is awfully quiet. It's a caucus kinda thing, mostly happens indoors with your family and close friends only, unlike naija where you can be a stranger and still catch the festive feeling even weeks before. This could be a good or bad thing, depending on your kind of person, and your networks here.

Personally I miss the pomp and liveliness of not just naija's christmas but any celeberation in Naija and with it's people. But then again, Naija comes with the chaos that caused me to run away to Canada. Hence when we complain, its often with a tongue in cheek.

Everything she said @mumoftwins2017. Honestly, it makes it much much easier starting the process from Nigeria.

Livy2018:
Let me step in here, I am also a lawyer writing the NCA in Calgary.

I got my NCA assessment last year Novmeber, before I landed in Calgary in July 2019. To answer your questions:
1. Depending on your NBA branch, for Lagos branch, the letter is addressed to NCA and handed over to you to send by courier yourself. Please note that when sending the letter, use NBA Lagos as the sender, not your name. I know of people whose letters were rejected because they sent the letter using their names. Ideally, the letter should not even be given to you, just like your transcripts, it should be confidential and sent directly by the issuing authority.

2. Law school transcripts will be sent directly to NCA, no interference. Reach out to your contact in Law school, you dont need to travel down.

3. Yes, please. Start the process before you leave Nigeria, so that you can start writing exams as soon as you land, if you choose to. I landed in July and wrote my 1st exam in August, then October and final ones in January. All reading materials can be gotten online and you can start studying before you, land if you have time. Besides, the support system back home is great, unlike here, once you land the rigors and challenges of settling in, looking for accommodation and job, documentations, drivers licence, kids school/daycare etc are not the same as teh ones we face back home.

All the best.

Amen! Thank you oga Salford!

I worked briefly as a collections agent. One of the questions we asked debtors was "how did you get into this trouble?". Usual response could be "I fell ill for 2 weeks" or "I lost my job a month ago" and I saw how majority of Canadians and even newly landed immigrants live from paycheck to paycheck, and it was scary! And it's soooooo easy to actually be in this state, when you have money/ credit being thrown at you left right and center from banks and other companies. No be to pay small small? Lol.

salford1:


In my short time here in Canada, I have seen marriages dissolved and broken homes because of the above i.e. biting more than you can chew. Drowning in debt till things starts falling apart all because of running other people's race.

The travails of licensed profession folks. God's favour to you in your licensing journey.

Thanks so much!

MumofTwins2017:


The kind of posts that warms my heart ❤️. All the best on your licensing journey. Will definitely contact you in due time.

Thanks . Truth is, my spouse helped a whole lot. You know in Nigeria, the norm is wife and helps take care of the home front, and the kids. Of course there are exceptions, but I was also in the normal category. But when we got in and I started preparing for the exams (I wrote 1st), he had to just take over a whole lot of stuff, including taking care of our daughter. I don't know if your husband came down with you, and I don't want to assume but truth is, you definitely need some form of help. Could be neighbours, friends, someone you trust, who could maybe take the kids for some Saturdays? I also read mostly when my daughter was asleep, got to work like an hour early (she's in daycare) and read till it was time for work.

At the risk of sounding motivational, it's all in your mind. If you decide to write no matter what, you will. It's just a period that'll pass quicker than you know it. "where there's a will, there's a way". Hope this helps

MapleBae2020:


Your story is inspiring. I am also a professional (not a lawyer though) who needs to take some exams before settling in to practice. How did you cater for your child while working and studying for exams? This seems to bother me a times. I have a 2 year old and older children and combining these three (children, work, study) kinda scares me

Sure

beges:

Can I pm you?

Of course I don't mind! Please do hit me up when you land. All the best, and thanks!

jjohndoe83:
Canadianwasp
My my! I'm so encouraged by your story. We're almost exactly in the same scenario. Wife and I are lawyers, still waiting for PR and hoping to land in Calgary. I will surely reach out and try to make your acquaintance. I hope you do not mind. Will not mind getting the NCA tips from you.

I wish you continuous prosperity.

Thank you Blackbuddy. Means alot

Blackbuddy:


Wishing you the best ahead.

Sooo, this might be quite a long read. Will try and make it short so it doesn't turn into a snoozefest, lol.

We (spouse, kid & I) landed in Edmonton October, 2018 and I want to say how it's been for us, hoping there might be some useful hints for those landing soon. Caveat: strictly my experience and my opinion

Landing and Settling in

Before leaving Nigeria, we weighed our bags and made sure we didn't go beyond the limit. We didn't take a lot of foodstuff because we figured 1. The food go still finish 2. We should be able to buy them or substitutes here. We also didn't take most of our clothes and shoes (big mistake, lol). Having all our bags just under the allotted weight did make checking in a breeze.

Before we landed, my spouse (X) reached out to a Nigerian group and we were fortunate to have a complete stranger (guardian angel, GA for short) not only pick us from the airport and take us into his home, but helped us in ensuring we were truly settled. It reinforced my belief in the power of "asking for help". GA insisted we not get an apartment before we landed and wanted us to see the areas for ourselves. When we got in, he advised that we got a place close to transit and grocery stores to make commuting and living generally easier. So we got an apartment in Clareview area. People say the place is rough but we're still here and have had no issues whatsoever. Commuting was/ is so easy we actually only just bought our car less than a month ago. Oh yeah, people said we couldn't survive the winter without a car, but we did. According to X, it was our "sufferhead" persistence and determination.

Job Search

X and I decided to have an open mind in our job search approach. In other words, we had to just get any work shaa because there was nothing to preserve, lol. So we planned to hit the ground running. GA however told us not to limit our job search approach and where we could work in. Granted we were coming from a regulated field which made transitioning kinda hard but we could still get something good. So he said, try Government of Alberta. Yeah well I felt “that sh*t ain’t happening without some Canadian experience”, but X felt different. So while I watched GOT for the 4th time under the guise of introducing GA to the awesomeness (*barfs*) of the show, X toiled away fine tuning his resume to apply for GOA jobs. Honestly I don’t know how many resumes that man has, lol.

We both got jobs in November. Survival jobs. And then in December, X got offered a job with GOA without any Canadian experience on his resume.
Me, I’m on my 4th job, I am not loyal, lol. But before I got this current job with the City, I learnt the art of really really tailoring your resume. There was a particular job I wanted sometime in May, which I applied for and never got a call back. After sending my resume a 2nd time in July, I knew I’d get the call, and I did but had to turn down the offer because yeah, I got this one. Long story short, Canadians no like to read. Go straight to the point, no big grammar, no long story. I didn’t use ATS. but if you study a job ad, you’d really know what exactly they’re looking for. Also, if you want to apply with the govt, better monitor the sites and try applying as soon as the ad hits the site. More often than not, the recruiters just take the 1st couple of hundred resumes and dump the rest.

Career

I’ve always been an impatient person. It works sometimes, (e.g applying for EE when we did), other times it doesn’t. Before we left Naija, I had determined I wasn’t gonna practise law. Yeah, X and I were lawyers back home. I had heard about business analysts making big money so I said I wanted to do that. No be to learn elicitation and agile methodology? So we both agreed X would face law lemme face this one. Luckily for me, GA was a senior business analyst and he agreed to even coach me for free! Not one to waste time, I quickly registered with IIBA the week we landed, got the BABOCK study guide and started reading for the exams. I bought a course off Udemy that also made the language make small sense. Then GA now took us to a Naija party and deliberately introduced X and I to the Naija lawyers doing extremely well. By the time I talked to the 3rd lawyer, chei I say my dear, you don enter one chance! By the end of December (and after spending my hard earned money☹) I told X, guy abeg I don change mind. That’s how I left “elicitating” and “iterating” to begin my lawyering journey. I learnt sometimes, don’t just follow the crowd. Know where your interests lie and speak to people in the fields you’re interested in before jumping ship or otherwise. As I’ve heard some awesome folks say on here, “Canada is yours to discover” �. I sha have the babock guide and some other small resources that might be of help to anyone who’s interested in the BA field
So I started the process with the NCA in January. My assessment didn’t come out until 3rd week in March, just before the registration for May exams closed. So in March, I prepared to write 2 exams in May. Wrote 1 in August (I tire to read), and the final 2 in October. I wrote the exams while working full time so it’s very very doable while working. Stressful, but doable. In studying for the exams, I used the textbooks borrowed from the law library and Liran’s notes. I found it quite difficult only reading the notes, but some people do it and still pass. Basically, know what works for you. I also read solo. Couldn’t study with X because [s]we end up arguing too much. Don’t marry a lawyer *sigh*[/s] we didn’t write the same exams at the same time. That being said, if you’re going through the NCA process, if you want, I can hep with resources and maybe tips?

Miscellaneous Stuff

Cut your cloth according to your size. The bills here don’t stop, anything can happen so emergency funds aren’t optional. No look Uche face. Run your own race. Don’t get pressured into biting more than you can chew, especially when it comes to making huge decisions, like buying a house.

Last last, we go all dey alright �

Hi, we submitted in person in Lagos because one of us had to be in Lagos at the time. You can however authorise any person, including dhl I believe, to submit on your behalf. It's in VFS' consent form which you will execute and forward along with your passport(s).

However, for pick up, it must either be in person or through vfs courier.

Fameli:
Hello please did you send your passport via DHL to vfs or went to vfs physically in Lagos or Abuja I am at that point and don’t know what to do.

Please advice. I will also like a guide if you sent via dhl

Thanks

Thank you.

Had to pay for vfs courier. Annoyingly, it's either you collect in person or pay their outrageous courier fees.

Saintp:


Congratulations.

How did you collect your passport since you live in PH? Did you go in person or sent courier?

Thank you mcstan! So you know, I am really rooting for you. You're one of the people I admire here

mcstan18:
Congratulations @CanadianWasp

Hi,
I really want to tell you that God has made everything beautiful in its time

aworldcitizen:
Hmm, It is well with me. Team London VO, AOR Jan 30th. I was 100% sure, my PPR will be out within 3 months. My IELTS score was perfect, no visa refusal, straight forward and well packaged application.

We got our IELTS at one sitting, ECA evaluation within 1 month because we both have masters from UK, POF gathered without much hassle, work reference straight forward.

This is truly a journey of patience. I have cried many times, prayed and rejoiced. Right now, I am standing strong and trying to go on with my life because at some point I was depressed.

Been a challenging year! Hubby and I lost our Jobs early this year. I was lucky to get one soon after. Hubby still struggling. All funds tied to POF which we cant touch. It was a struggle to pay school fees for our kids in April. Infact, we almost didn't send them to school because we were 100% sure of PPR and we even lacked the funds. House rent is due August 2018. We have started toasting the landlord to allow us pay monthly.

Let us all keep being strong, delay is not denial. It will end in praise for us all.

Congratulations to all PPR!

Thank you Teecann! Indeed it was God! And it shall end in praises for us all

TEECANN:


Congratulations. I can almost feel the smoothness of your application- beginning to the end! It must have been God coupled with your diligence.

Thank God it ended for you and your family in praises!

Go and flourish in your new home...we are coming behind!

Lol, thank you

futureenergy:


Congratulations to you and your family! You write so beautifully. No wonder you smashed IELTS one hand.

Lol, my bad, honestly didn't see that gsade can you please wait before declining?

Elfmannisback:

Na July 25 dey there so.

Hi, sorry I hadn't responded to your message.

How much time do you have left to submit your application?

Questions people should ask really, before Iphy's posts, did any lawyer complain about using wes and not receiving the professional points? Plus CIC website states what a law ECA should contain and one of it is a "bachelor of laws". Anyway, I honestly don't want to get into this debate. I'm hoping to get gcms notes of my friend. So if you have some time, you could wait before declining.

gsade:





Hello CanadianWasp, I just sent you a private e-mail. I will like to reach out to you by direct e-mail. I am kinda in a dilemma with WES and IQAS. I have ITA already but with a WES evaluation. I selected professional degree in my EE profile and got ITA on that basis. Without that, I would not have made the ITA cut-off point. Now, my deadline is July 25, 2018. Trying to decide if I should reject this ITA pending IQAS which can be a very long process depending on a lot of variables. I was wondering if I can learn more about your colleague/friend who used WES evaluation of LLB as bachelors and still got PR. It will really help me in reaching a firm and final decision.

Hi, sorry I hadn't responded to your message.

How much time do you have left to submit your application?

Questions people should ask really, before Iphy's posts, did any lawyer complain about using wes and not receiving the professional points? Plus CIC website states what a law ECA should contain and one of it is a "bachelor of laws". Anyway, I honestly don't want to get into this debate. I'm hoping to get gcms notes of my friend. So if you have some time, you could wait before declining.

gsade:





Hello CanadianWasp, I just sent you a private e-mail. I will like to reach out to you by direct e-mail. I am kinda in a dilemma with WES and IQAS. I have ITA already but with a WES evaluation. I selected professional degree in my EE profile and got ITA on that basis. Without that, I would not have made the ITA cut-off point. Now, my deadline is July 25, 2018. Trying to decide if I should reject this ITA pending IQAS which can be a very long process depending on a lot of variables. I was wondering if I can learn more about your colleague/friend who used WES evaluation of LLB as bachelors and still got PR. It will really help me in reaching a firm and final decision.

Thank you GliteringStar!!!

GlitteringStar:
Congratulations! @CanadianWasp

Thank you

ysteph:
Congratulations.

And one would think my sting doesn't tickle, lol.

Yes. Again, a deed of gift doesn't require notarization or supporting affidavit. The signatures of parties and witnesses are sufficient.

Tojued:
Congrats Canadianwasp (your name will forever make me giggle) and thanks for so many details.

Please repeat : you used gift deed without notarising or supporting with affidavit? Just signature of donor, donee and witnesses?

Thank you learned colleague

Ethelia:


Great!! Congratulations!

Lol I was a very silent follower. Not even registered. I used the general sample format you generously provided on the thread. Yes, you're awesome like that

Newmum0615:
Congratulations. A wonderful something. Glad I was able to help.

Funny how I don't remember most of my NOC 'clients'. Somebody will say Newmum did this and that and I will be like 'Jesu! When o?'

Thank you!

JesusBabyyy:
Big Congratulations to you!

Hi all,

Long post alert!

Wanted to post this for a long while but when Vfs/Accra say wait, you wait, lol.

So I got copr. My timeline:

ITA: March 26, 2018
AOR: April 8 ( dated April 9)
Med Passed: April 18
IP1: April 18
IP2: May 17
PPR: May 18 (dated May 17)
Passports submitted: May 22
Approved: June 12
PUM: June 20

I want to state details of my application process because I benefited a great deal from the details posted by others and I'm hoping someone may benefit from mine

PRE- ITA

ECA: I stumbled on Iphy's posts for lawyers so I used IQAS for my llb. Paid in July 2017. Learnt from a friend afterwards that she and a couple of others used WES for only their llb and still claimed professional degree and got ppr. Painful especially as I had to wait until March 7, 2018 before I obtained my ECA. (Please I didn't say use WES o, please go with your guts ).

IELTS: March 3. lsrw: 8.5,8,8.5,7. Cochtrane's tips was everything! Honestly when you use mini-ielts.com (found out it's the shorter version of ieltsonlinetests.com), the ielts proper doesn't appear so daunting. Also went through ieltsliz.com. I found her soothing and easiest to flow with and understand particularly for reading and listening. Barely practised writing (oversabi and see finish, lol) but I wish I did. I'd recommend practising, (especially writing) on the actual exam sheets and in actual exam conditions. My spouse did and got lsrw: 9,8,9,8 .

Post ITA

PCC: No travel history and Inspector Moshood to the rescue! I live in PH so he scanned the form for spouse and I. Filled and affixed thumbprints and couriered to him. Paid 10k for both and PCC was ready in less than 3 hours. Had it delivered to us.

POF: Used a gift deed for 75% of the funds. Deed wasn't notarised or stamped (trust me, in Nigeria, you do not need to notarize or have a Commissioner for Oaths stamp an original deed...any deed. Stamping/ notarization doesn't make it any more or less valid . Except the deed isn't actually a deed but a letter or an affidavit). I provided 6 months statement for the account that the funds was paid into even though the account was pretty much dormant. For the balance 25%, I got a letter in the format Yimiton shared for money market fund. First bank sha decided to add their own jara by including my statement of unit holding. Didn't want that because a chunk of the funds was invested a day after ITA. I guess that didn't matter for me, lol. So I uploaded the deed of gift, teller showing transfer, 6 months bank statement (dated April 4) and letter from fbn quest attaching my investment statement. Preceding these was a simple table of content showing those documents as well as a screenshot of exchange rate on xe.com on the day of submission. Infact, I had a table of content for documents exceeding 3 in a placeholder.

Reference Letter: Yep, NOC mama delivered! Obtained from 2 employers. Didn't even have to change Newmum's format. Used it exactly as she provided. Also helped that my noc was pretty straightforward. I also used only "To whom it may concern", no ircc address, no time, lol.

Change of Name: Submitted affidavit and newspaper publication. Marriage certificate was already in the marriage certificate place holder so I didn't think it was necessary to include it in the change of name placeholder.

LOE: I honestly didn't want to explain anything. But out of curiosity, I clicked on the loe placeholder to see what would pop up (yeah I know, I'm a dumbass, lol) and for some reason, the payment page refused to come up despite having uploaded all the required documents. I kept logging out and logging back in but whossai. I just jejely wrote a short letter "to whom it may concern" and explained why I didn't get bank letter in the required format (maybe this helped, I dunno ). Payment page came up after uploading in that placeholder.

Post PPR

VFS: Spouse and I debated over sending or not sending with the family forms. I was for the former and he, the latter. Even though we filled it eventually, we ended up not submitting our passports with the forms because really, our family composition didn't change. We also didn't include any note in our application to state this.

I guess that's about it. Special thanks to this amazing forum. I read some of part 1, read part 2 1 and half times, followed part three to the end and been following part 4 from the beginning. The wealth of information *sigh* . Sad to see how many people don't realise page 0 is the actual goldmine. Do you know what it means to sift through seas of information looking for something peculiar to your situation? Meanwhile this has been made sooooooo easy to find on page 0? Yes, I have to add, Glitteringstar and Choctrane, you're amazing! Thank you! And really thank you to everyone mentioned in my post and other active contributors on this invaluable thread.

I want to also add though, while getting info from here, please don't forget the CIC website. That's the immigration bible .

May our desires on this journey, come to pass .

The letter shows your entire investment. Ideally, it should be accompanied with the statement of unit holdings.

Cersei:


Someone please help ooo

A professional degree as specified by ircc has same points with a masters degree.
The evaluation report does not have to expressly state that the degree is compared to a professional degree in law. Please see a screenshot of what CIC says regarding what the evaluation report should contain.

In any event, I'm not trying to be misleading. If you are more comfortable using IQAS, by all means go for it. But a lot of people who weren't aware of the difference in the report have gone on to use WES. What happens to them? To reevaluate with IQAS because of the difference in terminology? I think not. Again, please see excerpt from CIC regarding this.

veritas3:


Hope you know there's a difference between a professional degree and a three/four year bachelors degree and the points being claimed is not for Masters but for a First Professional Degree.

The Canadian immigration body has charged the different evaluating bodies with the task of seeing how our degree compares to theirs and when the body clearly states four years and not First professional degree that brings about conflict and you will not be with the assessing officer(s) to justify whatever.

.

Fyi, no one has confirmed submitting wes evaluation for only llb and gotten points reduced to a bachelors by the VO

Tojued:


Please leave them to be speaking grammar if they insist on learning the hard way. Me not a lawyer this was one of the first principles I learnt on the the thread. Lawyer= WES bad, IQAS good. Confirmed with proof and folks have shared their experiences here.

Explanation from WES, not IRCC. Anyway, I'm not speaking from my experience but the experience of others so really, what do I know other than that and my personal opinion regarding the subject

koonlay5:


We reviewed your evaluation report and confirmed that it is correct. We would like to emphasize that WES evaluations are advisory opinions and not binding upon any institution or organization.

Sincerely,

Director of Evaluations[/i]

As pointed out earlier, WES does not have a good evaluation for our Law

Koonlay's points were reduced because he evaluated 2 certificates

ysteph:
So CanadianWasp and pcachuks didn't read koonlay's post just few pages back and they're arguing that law is professional degree irrespective of how WES evaluates it? FYI, Koonlay stated how his points were reduced but lucky it was still up to the cut off.
I believe enough has been said here about Law degree and IQAS. Whoever wants to send his law degree to WES should silently do so. Don't tell us and don't come here to argue about it. Thank you.