How to Immigrate to Canada and Obtain a Second Passport, Chat With Brandon Miller

Yasi: Welcome to the Fast Track podcast.

Brandon Miller: Thank you so much for having me.

Yasi: Maybe, would you like to tell the audience a little bit about yourself, your background, and what we’re going to talk about today?

Brandon Miller: Awesome. So my name is Brandon, I’m based in Toronto, Canada. I’ve been helping people come to Canada and find a safe, secure second home here for about 10 years.

I’ve done that both on the legal representation side and in a way that I help newcomers settle in. Prior to that, I lived overseas for about 15 years. I spent about most of my time in Asia and the Middle East. Yeah, so I always like to say that I was out kind of seeing the world now and bringing the world to me here in Canada, which is fantastic.

Yasi: Interesting. Where have you lived in Asia and the Middle East?

Brandon Miller: So, I was in Korea for a little while. I was there for about four and a half years. I spent eight years in the Philippines. I spent a little bit of time in and out, mostly in Hong Kong. And then, in the Middle East, I was in Kuwait. But I’ve traveled all over, both for business and pleasure, throughout the Middle East and Asian regions predominantly.

Yasi: Well, it sounds very exciting because I really liked this topic about being able to travel to different countries or being able to live in different countries. And now, your immigration lawyer, I have lots of questions for you on behalf of our audience. And what do you do as an immigration law expert?

Brandon Miller: Yeah. So normally, what we do is we are your representative. So we will actually prepare the file from start to finish, we’ll work with the government and deal with any of the questions or concerns that they have on the file. So you’re not even speaking to the government. And then, on top of that, yeah, what I like to say is that we actually will be your guide in the journey that you’re going on, the immigration journey. And, you know, a lot of what I say to my team or new people on my team is I’ll say, listen, you know, a lot of people that are like, oh, like I’m paying you to fill out forms. And I’m like, well, you have no idea really what I do because that’s only one facet of it. And the biggest facet is that a lot of people, they don’t understand what’s going to happen next. And I call it like the black box of this bureaucratic immigration department. So, once you send in your file, you don’t actually know what’s going to happen to it. So I’m here to tell you like, oh yeah, this is fine, this is what’s going to happen, this is the next step.

And then if we get a request, I’m like, that’s not right, why are they asking this? What can we do? Because again, the immigration department is not your friend. And again, they don’t want to say no to you, but they can’t say yes to you if there’s something that’s wrong with the file.

So if there’s something that’s a little out of whack, we like to get ahead of it and deal with that so we can understand it. A lot of times, it just takes providing more context or information. That’s generally what I do.

Yasi: And what are the main purpose that people are looking to immigrate?

Brandon Miller: So normally, there’s a number of different purposes depending on the person and where they’re coming from.

Normally, but here are some of the more popular ones: Canadian education healthcare, so free education, for instance, up to 12 and obviously subsidized, we have some pretty good schools here. So that’s one of the things. The healthcare is a huge benefit to a lot of people.

I don’t know if you have any Americans that are listening, but we’re dealing with a lot more Americans these days. And we hear that a lot from that side of the border. You know, some of the other stuff, retirement benefits, the social benefits, we’ve got really great systems here for that. We hear a lot of things about the environment, for instance, Recently I had a lady, it was absolutely fascinating.

It was the first time I heard it. She was from China, and she said to me, she was deciding between Australia and Canada. I’m always very curious about people. And I said to her, well, why did you choose Canada? And she’s like, you know, I kinda think that Canada is going to have a lot more water in 75 years.

And I was like, that’s interesting. That’s a really long-term view. And it was something it brought to bear-like, yeah, she was talking about the environment, that was about probably four or five years ago, but I’m starting to hear that a lot more too. And people are seeing that now.

We’re seeing these huge storms start to happen, we’re seeing, you know, water shortages in different areas and rising sea levels and things like this. And I think if people are taking a longer-term view, not only for themselves but maybe what is the world going to look like for your kids or your grandkids having a second home or a second passport, is that option? It might be something that would be interesting. I know just going along like I’ve talked about the US and China there. In some countries, a lot of people will look at a second passport as a tool. They’ll look at it as something that they can use for business. They’ll look at it as something where, you know, they might use it as a travel tool because they need to travel to different countries. So they’ll have it like that.

Or they might be looking at it as kind of like, oh, it’s my backup just in case. In the Western world, a lot of people don’t really think like that, and that thinking is not there. However, I would say in the last five or six years, a lot more people are starting to think like that.

So I always like to educate people on some of the benefits of having a second passport, and that’s certainly one of them, you know, there’s a few other things that I like to mention. There’s, you know, very multicultural society in Canada. Diversity is actually embraced to a large extent.

So I’m pretty happy about that. And then there’s another thing that actually only recently came to my attention about a year and a half, two years ago. And it sounds really crazy, but it’s like, you know, you can actually extend your life living here. And I’ll give you an example. I was looking at the average lifespan.

The average lifespan in Canada is about 82 and a half to 83. Now I know it’s not the top. I think the top was Japan. And then some of the Northern European, like Scandinavian countries, actually rate very high. But Canada’s quite up there, but if you start comparing countries, say like India or the Philippines, you’re looking at 68 and a half is the mean age, which is pretty interesting because, you know, that’s 14 years of life.

And I think that you know, there’s a lot of different things that can play into that. We know that stress, and we know that pollution, for instance, cleaner environments and all of these things might be contributing factors. I don’t know if that was a bit of a long-winded answer there for you. I apologize, but hopefully, that provided some context.

Yasi: And also for individuals, each person has his own regions, but in general, you talk about the quality of life, the accessibility to education, health care, and environmental issues as well. And what are the top, most popular countries for people to immigrate to?

Brandon Miller: So the USA. Generally, it’s China, India, Philippines, generally jockey for the top three spots, but we’re seeing a lot of people that are in the Middle East. So the UAE, for instance, and all the different areas, mostly ex-pats that are in those areas. So a lot of people, I’ll use the example of you know, the Indian accountant, right?

So there’s a lot of like Indian accountants, and sorry if there are Indian accountants listening, I’m not singling you. But what I’m trying to say is that you know, that an accountant will go the work in Dubai and then, you know, as part of them being in Dubai as an ex-pat, they’re exposed to a pretty comfortable life.

But it’s actually only as good as when you’re working there. A lot of people will look at Canada for longevity in terms of being able to have a permanent residence option and actually a passport. And again, generally looking for long-term for the children, so that’s a big one. I started off with the US there cause I know that you have a lot of listeners from the US, but we’re seeing that as well, it’s not the biggest source country, and I don’t think it’s going to be the biggest, but I think it’s actually going to be a lot more significant than it has been. Generally, there were about 10,000 to 15,000 people that would immigrate a year, but those numbers have been going up. There was an article I read it was in CNN there, and again, I’m not quoting, but you know, somebody had said one of the guys in there was talking about immigration and Canada, and there was a 700% increase about a year ago.

We saw exactly that as well. Like, I’ve seen huge increases, and it’s not only tied to election time. But what we’ve seen after 2020 is that actually there was a bump, and it was a sustained bump, and people were taking action, which was different than, say, 2016.

Yasi: And you also mentioned the Philippines. Are people interested in immigrating to the Philippines from other countries?

Brandon Miller: Coming from the Philippines to Canada? Yeah, we’ve got lots of Filipinos. The Filipino ex-pat population in Canada is now quite significant. It has been for years, but it is actually rating definitely in the top five anytime that you go for sure.

Yasi: Okay, now I understand you mean the top five countries where people are from immigrate to Canada.

Brandon Miller: Yeah. Immigrating to Canada. Yeah. I actually immigrated to the Philippines when I was there for eight years. So I’ve done that whole process. A lot of Filipinos are coming here, like a lot. So it’s quite significant.

Yasi: Is it easy? How do people do that? What are the common ways to immigrate to Canada?

Brandon Miller: So it really is a personalized approach that we take and that everybody should take. And what I mean by that is that most people, unless you’re married or unless you’re, you know, falling under some sort of protected person or refugee type area, then you’re going to come through an economic pathway.

An economic pathway means that you’re basically doing it on your own steam, as I like to say. So, you know, generally, you might come as a worker and then transition into permanent residence and then become a citizen. Or you might come as a student and then study for a year and then work for a year and then do permanent residence and then become a citizen.

You might be able to apply directly from overseas if you’re able to do that, under something called the federal skilled worker program, then you’d be like direct to PR and then a citizen. But really, what happens is when you look at the economic programs, most of them are done through a system.

It’s an application system called the express entry system. It’s a points-based system. That’s been based on age, it’s based on education, language skill, and work experience. We’re looking for people who are between the ages of 20 to 29. You know, if you’re between the ages of 20 to 29, have a university degree, have excellent English or French skills and have one year of skilled work experience, and skilled work experience can be anything from, you know, a cook or a chef for instance, or an admin assistant, like a secretary or something along those lines.

That’s actually skilled work experience, a tradesperson, all of these different things. There’s a wide range of types of jobs that can qualify for that. But if you’re in that kind of demographic or have those that skillset, you have a pretty good chance of coming directly to Canada and just filing the application, which is a really good way to go.

The benefit here is that you can actually come directly, get everything, get your permanent residence, and within three years have your passport. And then you’re done, finished in through the system. And again, it’s different for everybody. If you’re a little older, for instance, or you have significant financial capital, you can come, you can start a business, and then you can employ yourself under that business.

And then you can immigrate that way. So that’s another option, but that’s it.

Yasi: You mentioned that people who fulfill these criteria have a very decent chance. Like a lot of people can fulfill those criteria in the world, and then not every single person can get a visa in Canada. What are the odds? How does it add its points to their profile?

Brandon Miller: So that’s a really good question. What I said is very general, but it’s also very personalized. So, how it works is that you’ve put into a pool, and we take the top points, right? So you can increase your points. So for instance, a good way and what we’re seeing a lot of is people are coming here, and they’re studying for a year, they’re doing like a one-year post-graduate study. And so then they get points for Canadian education, which is extra 15 points. And then if they’re single and they work in Canada for a year, they get extra 40 points.

If you’re in that demographic that I just mentioned, and then you add those two things in it, it’s very difficult for you to screw that up, points-wise, you are going to get an invitation to stay in Canada and get your PR. It’s inevitable unless you really work to screw that one up.

Yasi: Average university graduate between the 20 to 29, in another country outside of Canada and they speak fluent English, and they’ll apply for master degree or like MBA in Canada, and they start it there, and then they find a job, stay and work for a year, and they can be invited to join as a PR?

Brandon Miller: I would feel safe saying that you would have to work to screw that up.

That would be very difficult to screw up. Your points would be so high at that point that no matter what the history of that system and the history of the points, which has been about six to seven years, that would put you in like the top percentage of any time there was a draw you would be invited.

Yasi: All right. I see. And how easy it is to find a job in Canada as a foreigner and then get a working permit?

Two scenarios They are coming out of Canada, and then the other one is studied in Canada, graduated there, and then find a job there.

Brandon Miller: The first one, I would say, is nearly impossible. And then if you’re overseas and you’re looking for a job, unless you’re highly specialized unless you’re in IT and in a very specialized role, then yes, you can do that, but I’d like to paint it this way. Think about this: as an employer, unless I really need you, I’m going to hire you. I’m going to spend all of this money and pay Brandon just to get the authorization to hire you because we have to go through a process where we look at the Canadian job market to make sure that, you know, bringing in this foreign worker is not taking away a job from a Canadian.

That’s a very long and grueling process on purpose. I get emails all day long, Sir I need a job in Canada, get me a job, can I have a job? I give the courtesy of responding, but I’m like, you’re not going to get a job, because think about it- I’m going to go through as an employer, spend all this money, bring somebody here that I’ve never met, never seen their work experience or their quality. And then who knows what happens. So that scenario is highly unlikely. And on top of that, there are so many people that are doing that. And I would also like to interject something else because it’s also one of the easiest ways for somebody to be tricked or scammed or something along with that because I see it all the time where people are like, oh, I’ve gotten this, and I’m like, yeah, that’s fake because I know what the document looks like, and I see it.

And I’m like, yeah, no, that’s, you’ve just paid somebody who’s taking your money. And that’s the easiest one. If somebody’s offering you a job and asking you to pay for it immediately right there, that is illegal here. And that’s it. But that’s what everybody does. So, not to be dark on that, but it’s also kind of my public service announcement to your listeners do not pay anybody for a job because it doesn’t work out it’s illegal.

And even if it was a legit job that you actually arrived at and you paid for, you could have misrepresentation ramifications later on. So the person that you paid the money to is gone with your money, but you’re holding all the liability now.

The second scenario that you talked about, which was the student looking for the job- fantastic. That is something that you can do. Now, it is challenging for people who are unprepared, okay? And I’ll say that again- it’s challenging for people who are unprepared. Some people will struggle with that, but it’s the people that are unprepared. This is why I’ve built my whole system around the immigration success system, where I have different things for different categories of people and what they should be doing at different times.

So I’ll give you an example. As a student, a lot of times, what happens with students is, say, our school year starts in September. They will arrive in September. And then what happens is they’re like, Yay, I’m in Canada, woohoo, look at me, I’m hanging out, taking some selfies, we’ll go to the CN tower, yay, fun. Okay, fantastic. Do all that. However, you’re going to graduate. If it’s on a one-year certificate, you’re going to graduate in May. Okay. You have some disadvantages, right? You’re going to be graduating with not only all the other international students, but you’re going to be graduating with all the local students.

The local students will have a network here already. They might’ve worked a summer job, they might have an employer, they might have all of these different things, and you’re going to have to get started and build your network and see about understanding what the job is and being able to get that so that you can connect.

As a student, when you come here, you can work for 20 hours a week. While you’re here, that’s a good time to go find a job that would qualify you to work in that job. And then also look at jobs that will lead to full-time employment afterward. Another example is, is being strategic in the program that you choose.

A lot of times, if you look at a post-graduate program at the college level, what you’ll find is that it’s cheaper for the international tuition, right? It’s a lot cheaper than university. So that’s the first thing. And the second thing that you’ll find is is that a lot of them have worker internship opportunities, sometimes also paid, so you’re actually going to school and you’re getting paid, and it will lead to a job for you later if you’re smart about it.

What I do with my clients and the people that work with me, I’m like, okay, great, celebrate your win, you’re in Canada, awesome, welcome. Now let’s get started on the second phase. So when all the other students are sleeping and doing all their stuff and hanging out and, you know, blah, blah, blah, my clients and the people that are working with me or are already planning the next step. I look at it very simply, you have to have a plan, right? Where you put that together, and you do all of that upfront, you know exactly what you’re going to do prior to even coming here or even filing your first application.

You have to do that, then you have to execute the plan, and then you have to settle in, right? And that’s part of the three things that I have in my system: planning, execution, and settlement. A lot of times when people come here, they don’t think about their settlement. They don’t think about what their plan is.

They don’t think about where they’re going to be, they don’t think about what type of job they’re going to have and, and they don’t design their life around what they want, which is something that I actually preach a lot. Anyways, I’m going to stop there, I think I answered your question and did a few other things there, but did that answer the question?

Yasi: Yes. I have a follow-up question. I know in some countries that getting one job is one thing, right? Getting a visa is another thing. And is it like this in Canada? If someone already gets a job from a company, would the person get a visa automatically or not so easily?

Brandon Miller: If it’s a worker coming in here or a student?

Yasi: Anyway, if the person already receives a job, offer from a company in Canada.

Brandon Miller: So if they received a job offer, there are different types of job offers, I’ll give you a basic one. So a basic one is an LMIA, which means they have to go through the process to be able to do that, or is it LMIA exempt, which means that you don’t actually have to go through that. If it’s LMIA exempt, that’s usually something that’s like an intercompany transfer.

For instance, where you’re working for a company overseas, you know, say in France, and then they have a branch office here. If you worked for that company one year within the last three, and you were in a managerial role, and you were coming here to do something like train workers or whatever, then you don’t require an LMIA.

You can actually come with the proper paperwork to show up at the border. Now I’m being very general in that. Does that shed a bit more light? Like it’s easy to do. If you have that going through the LMIA process with somebody that you’ve never met, it’s very rare. I’ve never done that. I’ve been doing this for over ten years, and I’ve never done that.

Like the, usually what happens is the workers, or the employers will come to me. They’ll say, Hey, I want to hire this person. Now on that note, I want to say one other thing because this is important, and I should bring this up. There’s another program called the international experience class, which is a working holiday for young professionals.

So for instance, in a lot of countries, Spain, for instance, you can come here, and you can get an open work permit for one year under the working holiday. And then you can get another one for another year under the young professionals. Ireland, for instance, you can get a two-year work permit. The UK, the same thing; Australia, you can do that. And there’s unlimited number of things. Like, I believe I haven’t looked at the numbers recently because the program is actually just recently opened up. But for Ireland, there are 15,000 work permits there that you can just go get an open work permit, plan yourself out, and just. Same with the UK, right?

And lots of countries in Europe for that. So there’s another opportunity for people that are generally under 35 that want to come and get an open work permit and work.

Yasi: And for students who started in Canada and graduated and found a job in the local companies, would that be easier for the companies to get a visa for them?

Brandon Miller: They would get an open work permit, a post-graduate open work permit. So once you go to school here, if you go to school for a one-year program, you’ll get a one-year open work permit. So you can go work anywhere you want and work as much as you want in any place that you want. If you study for two years, then you’ll get a three-year open work permit, and that’s how you get your experience. There are no conditions placed on you, and you can work and do whatever you want — just the same as me.

Yasi: What happens after this one-year and three open work permit period?

Brandon Miller: Well, that’s where the strategy comes in. You need to be able to get a job in skilled work.

This is the biggest problem with students, they get into a job, and they don’t understand what they’re doing. And they think that it’s skilled work when in actual fact it’s not, they haven’t planned it out. And then what they’ve done is they’ve wasted their time.

If you’re only coming for a one-year program, then you’re up against a clock because if you need that 40 points, for instance, you really have to be very smart and strategic in terms of when you’re going to apply and when you’re going to get that, and there are different ways to extend it out, like little, I don’t want to say loopholes, but legal loopholes where you can actually play some of the processing times of the system and be able to get, you know, extra time on that. But you have to be smart about that a hundred percent. It just boils down to planning, and that’s it like, that’s it, as long as people have their solid plan, and they understand where their end goal is and how they’re going to actually get there, you’re, you’re going to be successful.

That’s what I’ve seen over the years. No secret in anything in life, really.

Yasi: Yeah. Planning and aware of what’s your goal and then have a strategy and a plan executed.

Brandon Miller: That’s it, yeah. If you want to go and become a doctor, well, what’s the plan? Well, I gotta do this, and then I’ve got to go to med school, and then I gotta do my residency, and I got up like anything in life is a plan.

And immigration is exactly the same. And it’s really surprising to me that there’s a good chunk of people that they get on the internet, and they’re like, oh, look, it’s all on the government website. And I’m like, no, it’s not. Like there’s so many things, and people don’t plan all the different things about.

And part of why I’ve put that in my system with the settlement side is that what people don’t understand is what are you going to do when you’re here? Prior to me helping people with illegal work, I help newcomers in Canada settle for two years. And it was amazing to me how many people showed up with no plan whatsoever.

They were like, yay, we’re in Canada, it’s awesome. And I’m like, okay, what are you going to do? It can go bad if you have no plan. Like I’ve seen families uprooted and they can’t find a job, and they think, oh, it’s going to be easy cause it was easy for my friend. And I’m like, no, it’s not, you’ve got to have that plan.

So there’s a lot of things that you can do prior to coming here. Like for instance, if you’re in a regulated profession, why not get all your credentials done while you’re sitting in your home country. And you can send that in. As a nurse, for instance, you can actually in Ontario, send everything in, get your stuff sorted out so that your credential will be recognized up until the point of your PR.

And then, as soon as you get your PR, you can finalize it and start working as a nurse. As opposed to arriving here and saying, oh man, I need this document. And then calling your sister up in your country and having to sign this form and get your sister to get a document. And you know what I mean?

Yasi: Yes, yes.

Brandon Miller: So do it all in advance.

Yasi: Oh, so they can also learn the language in advance. If they plan to study in Canada or French speaking region, they can already prepare and take some hundred percent language lessons. So if any of our audience wants to get a second passport in Canada or think about study or working in Canada, how can they reach out?

Brandon Miller: So, my website is mysecondpassport.ca. They can go check that out, but for your listeners, if they want to reach out directly to me, my email is brandon@mysecondpassport.ca. And I have a book, it’s called the second passport, it talks about my system, and it talks about all the different planning stages.

And if they just reach out and say that they heard this podcast on your show, I would be more than happy to send them an electronic copy of the book. You know, it’s available on Amazon if you want a hard copy, but again, I’m just happy that people would read it. So, just reach out and know you’re not going to be speaking to my assistant, I’m not going to put you in some funnel and email you or whatever. Just say, Hey, you know, my name is such-and-such, I heard you, I’m interested in learning some more, can you send me a copy of your ebook? And I would love to do that. So brandon@mysecondpassport.ca, just send me an email, and I’ll send you a free copy of it.

Yasi: Lovely. So audience, if you are interested, all the information will be in the show notes, reach out to Brandon, read his book, and thank you so much for being here, Brandon.

Brandon Miller: Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.