Today we are going to talk about a very interesting topic, which are the famous FTAs; the Free Trade Agreements, in English; and which are the Free Trade Agreements with Canada and 5 Latin American countries, which are Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Peru and Panama: Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Peru and Panama. These five countries have an agreement with Canada, which allows certain people to apply for a work visa or a facilitated work permit, because the LMIA does not exist.

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What does this mean?

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It means, that instead of the boss asking Canada for permission to let them work, what you will do is, you will communicate to Canada that you will work here. 

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In this blog, we are going to focus on clarifying some myths or confusions about this program, because many people think that just because you are a citizen of one of these five countries, NAFTA already applies to you, and unfortunately the answer is that it does not.

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The FTA has certain criteria or requirements that we will begin to evaluate below Welcome!

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1) Migratory status: if you are from any of these five countries, you must be a Mexican or Chilean citizen (either because you were born there or because you obtained citizenship), that is, you must have a Mexican or Chilean passport. If you are a permanent resident it does not work.

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In the case of Peru, Colombia and Panama, you can be a permanent resident or a citizen, so if you are living permanently in the country, but not as a citizen, but as a permanent resident, you should know that the FTA applies to you from the beginning. 

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2) FTA Trades List: The second requirement is that you have a trade that you have studied or worked in and that is on the FTA trades list. 

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The FTAs of Colombia and Peru, for example, exclude: anyone working in health, education, social sciences and social services, i.e. the medical part. Also excluded are all professions related to cultural industries, such as: people working in bookstores, book publishing, broadcasting and performing, recreation, fitness, communications management, manufacturing, utilities, construction, lawyers, judges and notaries. If you are on this list, know that the FTA does not apply to you.

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If, on the other hand, you are a professional and your trade is not on this list, you do apply to the Colombian or Peruvian FTA. For technicians, it is different. For Colombia, there is a giant list that you can find in our YouTube video (minute 3:40) and if your technician is on this list, you will be covered by the FTA.

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In Mexico and Chile, the list through Mexico's NAFTA and Chile's FTA is a little smaller, because it only accepts professionals. Mexico's Trans-Pacific accepts technicians, and Panama accepts professionals only. 

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3) Experience under the NOC or Teer: the third element is that you have the experience or studies that the career asks for, because the FTA is also linked to what is called the NOC or Teer for each profession. 

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Let's do the following exercise to understand how NOCs or Teers operate in the following case:

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Let's suppose that you want to travel to Canada because you found a job offer as a systems engineer. You are an empirical computer scientist, you are Colombian, and up to this point you feel that you meet two of the requirements for the FTA to cover you. Now let's review the NOC or Teer, in this trade, and what it tells us, is that in order to be a computer scientist, it is required to have gone to college and get a professional degree. So sadly the third element is not being fulfilled, to work under the Employment Requirements of the profession that you would get to work in Canada. 

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That is why it is so important to review the NOC or the Teer, to corroborate that you meet the experience or those requirements that the system asks for, and the way to review them is basically: go to Google, type, for example, 'Carpenter NOC CIC', enter the NOC link and go down to the part that says: Employment Requirements, and there you will see the employability requirements that the NOC or Teer asks for.

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I hope that through this blog and the exercise we have just done, I have helped to clarify several confusions that arise on this subject. 

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If you wish to have your profiles evaluated by a regulated consultant, do not hesitate to contact us at info@immilandcanada.com. 

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With love, 

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Immiland 

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