Canada Child Tax Benefit

As a new Immigrant it would be to your interest to know that if you have children under 18, the Government of Canada may help you with the cost of raising them. This monthly, tax-free payment is called the Canada Child Tax Benefit, or CCTB.

The amount of this benefit is based on several factors, such as your family income, the number of children you have and their ages, and the province or territory you live in. When you apply, you must provide proof of your Canadian immigration status and proof of birth for any of your children born outside of Canada.

Requirements in Applying


1. file an Income Tax and Benefit Return each year.

2. For new Immigrants with stay not long enough to file a return; complete a separate form to declare your world income

You can get these forms and more information on the Canada Child Tax Benefit by calling the Canada Revenue Agency’s toll-free enquiry service at 1-800-387-1193 or by visiting the agency’s website.

The Canada Child tax Benifit or CCTB is just one of the many ways the government of Canada tries to help its subjects to have a better quality of life.

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Canada's World Renown Health Program

One of the most impressive benefits of becoming a Permanent Resident is receiving Health Insurance in Canada. All Canadian citizens and permanent residents are eligible for health insurance in Canada. Canada’s public health care system is funded through taxes that you pay and administered by the provinces and territories that you will decide to live in.



Public health insurance

Each province or Territory has a different coverage for your Health insurance. The medical care your province or territory offers might not be covered in other provinces and territories. That is why, When you travel, you should check the coverage of the Health insurance in your possession as well as the requirements of the place you are destined to go; you may require private health insurance.

As a Newly landed Permanent Resident in Canada you should apply for public health insurance as soon as possible

The application for Public health insurance card should be coursed through the provincial or territorial government of the place you decided to immigrate to.

You can get your application forms at a doctor’s office, a hospital, a pharmacy or an immigrant-serving organization. You can also get forms online from your province or territory’s ministry responsible for health.

What are your required documents to apply for Health Insurance?

When you apply for your health insurance card you will need to show some identification,like your birth certificate or passport, or your Confirmation of Permanent Residence (COPR - IMM 5292). You can also show your Permanent Resident Card.

What you will be receiving after you apply

In most provinces and territories, each individual or family member receives their very own Health card with a personal health identification number. In Manitoba, however, only adults receive health insurance cards. The adult card lists each family member’s name and personal identification number.

Your health insurance card will show your name, address, gender and birth date. It is very important that you must carry the card with you and present it at a hospital or clinic when you or someone in your family needs health services.

Health Card application processing Time

Depending on which province or territory you decided to make as your new home, it may be necessary for you to get a temporary Private Health Insurance, since the processing of your Public Health Insurance make take some time.

Private insurance companies are listed in the yellow pages of a telephone Directory, usually under Insurance. You must buy this private insurance within five days of arriving in your province or territory or insurance companies may not provide coverage for you.

Note: Refugee claimants who cannot afford private health insurance and refugee claimants living in provinces that have a three-month waiting period can receive emergency and essential health services at no cost. The cost for these services is covered by the Interim Federal Health Program.

Private health insurance

It is also important to know that private health insurance may have additional service coverage that may not be present under your province or territory’s health insurance plan. Such as dental costs, private hospital rooms, the cost of prescription drugs, dental care, ambulance services and prescription eyeglasses. Some employers may offer you the option to pay for extra health insurance from your pay cheque.

That is why you should make it a point to find a list of private health insurance companies.

Warning: Do not lose or share your card

Please do not share your health insurance card with anyone else. Your card is for your use only, if you do not heed this warning, you could lose the benefits it provides by letting other people use it. You could also face criminal charges and be removed from Canada. If you lose the card, you might have to pay a fee to replace it.

You may Visit a the website of your provincial or Territorial ministries of health care, to learn more about Health Care in Canada.

British Columbia
Alberta
Saskatchewan
Manitoba
Ontario
Quebec
New Brunswick
Nova Scotia
Prince Edward Island
Newfoundland and Labrador
Yukon
Northwest Territories
Nunavut

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Foreign Credential Referral Office

The Foreign Credentials Referral Office (FCRO) is part of Citizenship and Immigration Canada which was created to help foreign-trained workers succeed in Canada.

For the purpose of helping foreign-trained workers succeed in Canada, the FCRO provides information, path-finding and referral services so the the integration of this workers will not be difficult.

Remember that the approval of your permanent resident visa application and eventual entry in Canada does not guarantee you employment in your preferred profession or any other profession.

If you are planning to live and work in Canada, gathering information about living and working in Canada will help you prepare for employment in your chosen profession. The Foreign Credential Referral Office created a workbook specifically for this purpose.

Planning to work in Canada? An essential workbook for newcomers was created by FCRO for internationally trained individuals who are considering moving to Canada. It will help you learn how to put your skills, education and experience to work. The workbook is composed of 5 sections:

1. Living in Canada

The more you learn about Canada, the faster you will be able to adapt to the Canadian work environment. Taking the time to ask questions, to read and research, to watch videos on the Web or elsewhere, can all greatly help your transition from new immigrant to an established and comfortable member of Canadian society. This section is designed to help you learn more about life in Canada, and to guide you in taking a few essential steps as an immigrant.

2. Canada's Official Languages

Language skills are extremely important to your professional future in Canada. This section will help you learn more about Canada’s two official languages – English and French – as well as assess your language skills and identify opportunities for language training.

3. Finding a job in Canada

This section is designed to help you understand all you need to do to obtain work in Canada. It provides you with a series of essential steps that will help you learn how to find and get a job in your preferred profession. This process will take time, but completing each task below as thoroughly as possible will give you and your family members the best possible chance to succeed professionally in Canada.

4. Work Related Documents

This section of the workbook is designed to help you identify and locate documents that may be of importance to you in Canada before you come to Canada. It will also help you to assess the value, in Canada, of documents in your chosen field.

5. Education Academic Credentials

Education is an asset when searching for work in Canada, but your education may not automatically be recognized in Canada. Demonstrating your education and academic credentials is, therefore, important. Understanding educational equivalencies between your country of origin and Canada will also help you to understand the kinds of jobs you will be likely to obtain in Canada.

For more information about Foreign Credentials Referral Office, visit the official website at http://www.credentials.gc.ca.

For individuals who are working in regulated professions(Occupations that needs a license to be able to practice). You can have your credentials assessed even before you leave Canada, so that you may determine if your credentials is already sufficient to allow you to take the licensure examination in Canada.

The assessment may cost you money.

To find out which Canadian Government Agency is responsible in assessing your credentials you may visit the Alliance of Credential Evaluation Services of Canada.

Alliance Members:

Alberta, Saskatchewan, Northwest Territories
International Qualifications Assessment Service (IQAS)
http://www.employment.alberta.ca/cps/rde/xchg/hre/hs.xsl/4512.html

British Columbia
International Credential Evaluation Service (ICES)
http://www.bcit.ca/ices/

Manitoba
Academic Credentials Assessment Service (ACAS)
http://www2.immigratemanitoba.com/browse/work_in_manitoba/work-recognition-acas.html

Ontario
World Education Services-Canada (WES)
http://www.wes.org/ca/

Quebec
Centre d'expertise sur les formations acquises hors du Québec (CEFAHQ)
http://www.immigration-quebec.gouv.qc.ca/en/education/comparative-evaluation/

Other provinces and territories
For credential evaluation services in New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Nunavut or Yukon, you can contact any of the services listed above.

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What Is Show Money

The Show Money or the Proof of funds or the Settlement Funds is usually the biggest problem of an interested applicant for FSW Class.

Although the Show Money is not part of the applicants cost for his or her application for Permanent Residents Visa for Canada.



It is just that since the Government of Canada does not provide financial support to new skilled worker immigrants it is necessary for an applicant to provide proof th he has enough money to support himself and his dependents after he arrives in Canada.

An applicant must provide proof of his funds during the second stage of his application, or the time that he will need to send the full application package to the Visa office of his home country or currently legally residing. As proof the Canadian Embassy will require him that he provides a Bank Certificate showing the amount that was required of him.

Settlement funds is not just a show money. You must be able to satisfy the Visa Officer that the funds you will declare is unencumbered and that it is available for use on your initial settlement in Canada.

The amount of money you need to support your family is determined by the size of your family. These amounts are updated every year.

Settlement Fund Requirement Table

Number of Family Members	Funds Required (in Canadian dollars)
1	$10,833
2	$13,486
3	$16,580
4	$20,130
5	$22,831
6	$25,749
7 or more	$28,668

To establish that you have enough settlement funds, you need to provide the original bank certificate illustrating your deposit which shows the amount you need based on your family size. Since the objective is to convince the Visa Officer that the funds you declare is available for use, unencumbered and not just borrowed, it will help if will also submit bank statements, copy of bank passbooks and or Certificate of Time Deposits if these are available.

Although if you do not do not have a long banking transaction history showing the accumulation of your funds, this is not a cause for worry. What is important is that you be able to explain, if asked, where did your money came from.

Question: What if, for example, you sold one of your properties to come up with the required funds, then deposited the proceeds in a new bank account you have opened. Since it will appear that the account was just newly opened and you have made a one-time deposit of, say, P500,000.00. will this be a problem?

No. That is because you can simply explain where the money came from supported by the deed of sale of the property you sold.

Now, if you have real properties under your name, it is best that you also declare them in your Personal Net Worth Statement as well but for as long as you have enough funds, it is not necessary for you to have real properties.

So there's no need to ask your parents to transfer those land titles under your name.

Settlement fund requirement or show money is no longer required if you have an Arranged Employment Opinion (AEO). It is not easy to find an employer who is willing to process an AEO for but not impossible, I have clients who were able to get AEO's.

But you would have to exert a lot of effort to do this, the more applications you send, the better are the chances that you will find that 1 employer who will be willing to help you process your Arranged Employment.

A lot of applicants, think that they can not apply for the FSW Program because they think that they do not have this amount but, they are usually wrong, they come to us and with proper explanation, they would realize that they have this requirement after all.

So, how much money should you bring in Canada?

Find out how much it costs to live where you are planning to settle in Canada.

Bring as much money as possible to make moving and finding a home in Canada easier.

Important Note: Disclosure of funds

If you are carrying more than C$10,000, you must tell the Canadian official you will talk to when you arrive in Canada that you have this amount. If you do not tell an official, you may be fined or put in prison.

These funds could be in the form of:

* cash
* securities in bearer form (for example, stocks, bonds, debentures, treasury bills) or
* negotiable instruments in bearer form (for example, bankers’ drafts, cheques, travellers’ cheques or money orders).

If you have more questions about the show money, please give us a call.

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Show Money Or Settlement Funds for Canada

What is commonly known as Show Money for Canada is technically called Canada Settlement Fund.

I am writing another entry about this subject because I get a lot of inquiry about it from my last post Show Money in Canada.

As the regulation dictates, an applicant must be able to show proof that he or she will be able to provide for his personal needs (Food, Clothing, Shelter) for the first 6 months of his stay in Canada.

The proof of his Show Money of Settlement Fund should be in an amount of "Unencumbered Transferable and Available Funds".

Merrian Webster's online Dictionary defines Unencumbered as:

Main Entry: un·en·cum·bered

- free of encumbrance

Main Entry: en·cum·brance

1 : something that encumbers : impediment, burden
2 : a claim (as a mortgage) against property


Which means that Real properties is not included in the proof of Funds; Show Money or Settlement funds. You can present Real Properties as part of your Personal Net Worth Statement but the Visa officer assessing your application will not include it as part of your documentary proof.

The following are samples of documents that you can use for this requirement (you can use either one of or a combination of:


1. Cash - a Bank Certificate showing your required proof based on the Settlement Fund Requirement Table.

2. Cash - Bank Statement showing the amount you have in your account; the transaction details or a combination of several Bank Accounts

3. Termination Value of your current Insurance - If you have acquired Insurance like (Pension, Life, Flexi - Insurance and others), you should check the policy. In it you will find that, normally, after three years of continuous payments the Insurance company will pay back a portion of the money you have been paying them, if ever you decide to return the policy to them and no longer continue with the Insurance program. This is called your Insurance Termination Value. You can ask your Insurance agent for a Certification of the amount that you will get if ever you will return your plan. You can use this Certificate as part of your proof of Funds.

4. Retirement Plan - If you work in a Company that offers its employees a retirement Plan, and you are already eligible to receive the benefits of the program (early retirement plan for example)you can ask your Human Resource Department to issue a Certification, in your companies security papers (Official Letter head) that you are already eligible to receive the amount allotted to you (net of obligations-loans, cash advances and the like), at any time that you choose to retire. But since the Visa office of Canada is aware that not all companies offers this program to its employees, I would say it is safe to use this if your Company belongs to the Top 5000 corporation of your country.

5. Stocks and Bonds - You may also use Stocks and Bonds as part of your Show Money requirement, the amount that you can use for the value should be based on the published current Market Value of your Investment.

6. Government Service Insurance System (GSIS)Contributions - As a Gov't Employee, you are entitled to Retirement Plan, you can use a Certificate coming from your HR on the allotted retirement benefit and use this as part of your Show Money.

7. Pag - Ibig Fund - If you regularly contribute to the Gov't Pag - Ibig Fund. You can go to the Pag - Ibig Fund office and ask for the Certification of Total contributions made. This too can be used as your Illustration.

There are other ways to prove this, to learn more about the Show Money of Settlement Fund for Canada requirement you can also read my previous blog post - Show Money or you can visit the website of the Citizenship and Immigration Canada - cic.gc.ca.

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