Read it.
Use it.
Focused guides for the questions that need more than a quick answer. Each includes a worksheet to prepare your next conversation.
Guides for your next decision.
Build a TN employer evidence brief before drafting the letter
Read & prepare Applicant planningKeep an L-1A new-office record from approval to extension
Read & prepare Applicant planningCompare the E-2 evidence for a startup and a business purchase
Read & prepare U.S. destination planningCanadian RN planning for New York State
Read & prepare U.S. destination planningCanadian RN planning for California
Read & prepareSeven decisions, answered before you prepare.
Build a scientific-responsibility map for the chemistry assignment
Connect each proposed scientific decision to the person responsible for it. A Stony Plain applicant’s laboratory documents should explain the professional role, not merely demonstrate that a product is being tested.
Write down the instability or composition issue the chemist is asked to resolve. Identify what the applicant designs, evaluates and concludes. Then distinguish sampling, production and administrative work assigned to the same person. A truthful mixed-duty description is more useful than omitting tasks because they do not fit the preferred title.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Start with the analytical question
- Select evidence that attributes the decisions
- Complete the separate qualifying facts
Separate evidence of citizenship from evidence of Canadian residence
A Stony Plain household may have a Canadian permanent-resident card, an older foreign passport and a pending replacement document. Identify citizenship actually held before assuming that the easiest document to obtain determines TN eligibility.
Canadian permanent residence alone does not meet TN’s Canadian-or-Mexican citizenship condition. Conversely, an applicant who already holds Mexican citizenship should have that fact assessed rather than being told to wait for Canadian citizenship automatically. A pending citizenship grant and an existing citizenship with a missing proof document are different situations.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Record present nationality accurately
- Choose the process from the real circumstances
- Keep the professional assessment moving
Reconcile cancellation rights before treating escrow as committed capital
A Stony Plain buyer should understand what each party can still change after the deposit. The account’s label is less informative than the signed release and return provisions.
List the operative documents with their executed dates: the purchase agreement and every amendment, the escrow or trust instructions, any financing commitment, and any side letter. Then find the conflicts between them, because escrow terms and purchase terms are frequently drafted by different people and do not always agree on who may cancel, what triggers release, and who is entitled to instruct the escrow holder. Ask the transaction lawyer and the escrow holder to state in writing the conditions on release and the circumstances in which funds return to the buyer — that is far more useful than lifting the most favourable clause into an immigration summary. Keep superseded drafts rather than discarding them, so the history of what was actually committed, and when, remains legible if the sequence is later questioned.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Compare the operative agreements
- Trace the qualifying financial risk
- Test the enterprise and the investor
Match new-office premises to the actual reporting operation
A Stony Plain group’s new U.S. reporting operation may involve shared-service staff and work performed from several locations. Explain the actual physical premises and operating model instead of assuming that a remote-work policy removes the premises requirement.
Two things need establishing at the outset: how long the U.S. entity has been trading, and whether the structure behind it qualifies. New-office treatment applies where a qualifying U.S. organization has been doing business for under a year, and a recent lease or a recent registration is evidence about paperwork rather than about business activity. On structure, a qualifying corporate link is required — parent, branch, subsidiary or affiliate — with business genuinely carried on in the United States and in at least one country outside it. The employee needs a continuous full-time qualifying year abroad with the group, within the three-year window before the petition is filed. Any of managerial, executive or specialized-knowledge work qualifies for that year; the American role is the one that must fit the classification sought. American days are excluded from the count, although short business visits nonetheless leave continuity intact.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Identify the organization and its history
- Show how the proposed premises support the work
- Apply the appropriate category-specific showing
Compare corporate affiliation with the nationality of a treaty employer
A Stony Plain specialist may be offered work after an acquisition or by another business with the same investors. Identify the employer and actual ownership facts before assuming that L-1 and E-2 employee routes ask the same structural question.
Settle who the employer is before comparing routes. An L-1 transfer requires a qualifying relationship between the entity abroad and the U.S. entity — parent, branch, subsidiary or affiliate — with both actively doing business, in the United States and in at least one other country. It also requires twelve unbroken months of full-time qualifying employment abroad with a related entity, within the preceding three-year period. The year is built abroad: U.S. days do not add to it, though short trips do not end it. Managerial, executive and specialized-knowledge employment all count toward the year abroad, but the U.S. assignment must match the category applied for. Where an acquisition has taken place, the date affiliation became effective is a legal fact evidenced by the closing documents, not by a press release, and employment with a company before it joined the group does not automatically count toward the qualifying year.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Establish the transfer facts
- Evaluate an E-2 employee proposal separately
- Identify when the proposal is investment instead
Coordinate a later family arrival without borrowing the principal’s dates
A Stony Plain household may want the principal to begin an assignment while the spouse and child finish commitments in Canada. Make a person-by-person plan rather than assuming that one approval determines every later arrival.
Eligible temporary dependents generally include a spouse and unmarried children under 21. TD allows study while maintained but not employment; qualifying E and L spouses may work incident to valid status with appropriate evidence, while children do not receive that spouse authorization. School enrolment does not extend status, and immigrant CSPA does not extend temporary dependent eligibility.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Record the category and activity for each person
- Prepare for the actual arrival
- Keep immigrant travel rules distinct
Distinguish a family-funded investment from the government gift
A Stony Plain applicant may use family funds for either route, but the recipient and legal purpose remain different. A parental gift to the applicant is not itself the Gold Card government gift or a completed EB-5 investment.
Identify the actual funding agreement and lawful source, then follow the capital to the enterprise. Current EB-5 capital is US$1,050,000, or US$800,000 for a qualifying targeted employment area or infrastructure project; statutory adjustments begin January 1, 2027, so use the amount for the filing. Establish lawful at-risk capital, at least ten qualifying permanent full-time jobs per investor under the applicable direct or regional-center method, and managerial or policy-formulation participation. Direct positions require at least 35 hours weekly; contractors, nonimmigrants and the investor, spouse, sons or daughters are excluded from qualifying employees. Gifted or borrowed capital needs lawful-source evidence and a good-faith arrangement that does not circumvent restrictions on permissible capital sources. Contractual repayment rights and guaranteed rates of return are excluded. An option exercisable solely at the enterprise’s discretion has a narrow exception: its exercise requires petition withdrawal unless sustainment and the other statutory requirements have been fulfilled.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Trace the EB-5 contribution
- Identify the instructed government payment
- Keep the family and residence stages separate