Open Work Permit for Vulnerable Workers

This is the single most common misunderstanding we see, and the fear it creates is what keeps people in jobs they should have left.

• Not working for the employer named on your permit is not a status violation. A closed work permit authorises you to work for that one employer. If you stop, you have simply stopped using the authorisation. Your temporary resident status continues until the permit expires. You are lawfully in Canada.
• What you cannot do is work for anyone else. That is the real limit. You may remain in Canada, but until you hold a permit that allows it, working for a different employer is the breach, not leaving the first one.
• That gap is the space in which you act. It is when you apply for the vulnerable worker open work permit if it applies to you, and those applications are processed quickly and without your employer being told.
• You can also change to another status you qualify for. A study permit, a different work permit, or visitor status, applied for before your current permit expires.
• If the permit does expire, you are not finished. You have ninety days to apply to restore your status. You may not work or study while restoration is pending, and it cannot itself be restored, so the ninety days is the whole of your margin.

One caution that runs the other way, if you are thinking of switching to a study permit. A study permit does not protect you simply by being valid. You have to actively pursue your studies. Under IRCC’s compliance guidance, a student who stops studying has 150 days to resume studies, change to another status, or leave Canada. Past that, you are treated as being out of status even though the permit on paper still shows two years left. A valid document and valid status are not the same thing.