How will these changes affect you?

As far as getting your visa is concerned, probably not that much.

What you need to know: the Skilled Worker visa is a federal program.
Because Canada has two levels of governement (federal and provincial), you can also apply through a provincial program called the PNP (Provincial Nominee Program).

Since this program is run by the provinces themselves, federal quotas do no apply.

So it’s business as usual, then?

Not quite. With the Skilled Worker category becoming increasingly restrictive, chances are more and more applicants will go through the PNP to get their visa. And since BC is one of the most popular provinces for newcomers, this can only mean more competition and longer processing times.

So if you haven’t started the process yet, my advice is to get your visa application in sooner rather than later.

What about the Family Reunion category?

What you need to know: with these new quotas, bringing your parents to Canada could now take up to 13 years. 13 years!

Whether this will affect your long-term plans or not depends entirely on your personal circumstances.

Were you planning on having your parents come to Canada to look after your kids while you start your own business? Do you foresee your aging parents becoming dependent on you in the future?

If so, you may need to re-evaluate your immigration project, or at least adjust some of your plans so that your family life doesn’t suffer.

Were you aware of these cuts to some visa categories? Have they impacted your immigration plans at all? If you have any questions or remarks, please share them with us in the comments!

Emmanuelle

Was this post helpful? Do you need more personalized advice? Contact me to schedule a one-on-one consultation.

Baked throughout the month of January to celebrate the Epiphany, galette des rois is a delicious frangipane-filled puff pastry cake that hides a small porcelain trinket called a fève (literally: broad bean). The lucky guest who finds the trinket in his share becomes king or queen for a day.

The galette des rois is traditionally shared at home with relatives, at school with classmates, or even at the office with coworkers.

This year, the French expat association Français du Monde à Vancouver is bringing this age-old celebration to Vancouver, complete with storytelling, singalongs, children’s activities, and networking over coffee or tea for the grown-ups.

Join us on January 30 from 1:00pm to 5:00pm at Ecole Secondaire Jules-Verne (5445 Baillie St.) to share the galette des rois.

Admission is $5 (free for Français du Monde à Vancouver members and children under 12).

See you there!
Emmanuelle

Image credit: Pierre Touzel – FdM Vancouver

Every third Thursday of November, French nationals, francophiles and bons vivants all around the world gather to celebrate the release of the new vintage. In spite of a rapidly growing French contingent, Vancouver was lagging behind in the Beaujolais celebration department… until now.

Français du Monde à Vancouver is pleased to invite you to its Beaujolais Nouveau Party on Friday, November 19, 2010 from 8:00 pm to 1:00 am at W2 Storyeum in Gastown (151 W. Cordova).

This cabaret-style party will feature two artists who will sing French songs old and new, a DJ from 11:00 pm on, and of course a Beaujolais Nouveau bar.

Tickets on sale at the door ($10) – includes a complimentary glass of Beaujolais Nouveau for Français du Monde members (psst: membership is open to all, not just French citizens!)

Will I see you there? If you spot me in the crowd, please don’t hesitate to come introduce yourself – it’s always great to get a chance to meet in person.

Emmanuelle

Image by tamaki, via Flickr Creative Commons

The ADFE (Association of French Expats in Vancouver) is throwing a big Bastille Day party at the Rowing Club in Stanley Park.

Everyone is welcome, so come celebrate with us on July 14 – even if you didn’t support the French team during the World Cup ! (Truth be told, I didn’t either..)

Admission is $10 for members of the Association, and $15 for non-members.

For more details, please contact info@francevancouver.ca
ADFE Facebook page: “francais du monde a vancouver”

See you on the 14th!
Emmanuelle

This is going to be a lot of fun. It also means that I expect to be spending most of my waking time at the Olympic venue, and I will only a have a few hours a day to look after my business.

What does this mean for you?

I’ll try to make sure that there is little to no disruption to the usual blogging schedule, so that you get the expat tips and support you need, three times a week.
Ideally, I’ll have all my upcoming posts lined up by the end of next week – needless to say, there’s a lot of writing happening at the moment!
There will be a few guest posts too, so stay tuned for more details.

What if you have an expat support call in February?

If you already have scheduled calls with me in February, you don’t need to do anything – your calls will go ahead as scheduled.

If you haven’t booked your calls yet and were thinking of starting expat support in February, I cannot guarantee that I will be available at a day and time that’s convenient for you, but I’ll try my best to make it work. So if you really need support ASAP, drop me a line and we’ll see what we can do – and if you hear a lot of French spoken in the background during our call, you’ll know why

Is this how TCKs feel?

You know what’s funny? I just had my first informal meeting today with both the French and the Canadian coordinators, and never in all my years in Vancouver have I felt so strongly like a cultural hybrid.

During our meeting, I observed how the Canadian “can do attitude” and culture of consensus was interacting with the French respect for hierarchy and more direct style of communication. It was a fascinating dance.

The most interesting part is that, although I could clearly see these cultural traits at play, I wasn’t interested in judging them – I wasn’t tempted to side with the Canadian way of doing things, or the French way of doing things. I could see both sides of the issue, and the pros and cons of each approach.

It felt like being a neutral observer, and it also felt a little schizophrenic, as if my own cultural traits fell somewhere in between French and Canadian, but didn’t truly belong to either sphere.

Today, I think I experienced firsthand the way TCKs see the world.

I can tell February is going to be an interesting month…

Want to read the upcoming guest posts and get all the expat tips and resources published 3 times a week? Subscribe to this blog by clicking the orange RSS icon in the sidebar!

Emmanuelle

Images by Miss Barbaranov (top) and Ryan Chen (bottom), both via Flickr Creative Commons

WBSD update

If you are an expat blogger who’d like to take part in a fun online event, meet new bloggers, and get a bit of extra traffic in the process… then don’t delay – sign up for World Blog Surf Day!

You only have a week left – the deadline for signups is Oct. 24, and World Blog Surf Day itself is on Oct. 31.

The theme this time around is Holidays & Celebrations – a topic that I feel well prepared for, what with having spent all day today putting together my Halloween costume. (Yes, there will be pictures. No, I am not telling you what my costume is just yet – stay tuned!)

Shopping usually isn’t my cup of tea, but when it comes to outrageously silly costumes cultural integration and participation in the local celebrations, I do what I have to do. It’s all in the name of field research, you see

Did you say expat bloggers?

You may have noticed that I recently added a blogroll to the site. There, you will find the expat resources/general advice sites that I recommend, plus a handful of personal favourites that have little to do with life abroad, but are just too good to pass up.

While we’re on the subject, BootsnAll Travel just published a list of 15 of the best expat blogs out there. I regularly follow several of them, and if all 15 are the same high quality, we have some great writing and beautiful pictures to look forward to!

What are your must-read expat blogs, and what do you like best about them? I love discovering new-to-me blogs, so please share your favourites in the comments!

Subscribe via RSS or email to get new expat tips and resources, three times a week!

Emmanuelle

WBSD art by Beka (top) and picture by Kristina B (bottom), both via Flickr Creative Commons

Every now and then, I even take my own advice (you know what they say about the cobbler’s children!) and have a good, hard look at my plans for the future.

The results of the Grrreat Goal Review, Autumn 2009 edition?

A new look for the blog and the main site

In fact, the overhaul goes way beyond looks, but I am a little bit in love with the great design and sleek interface that the wonderful Men With Pens created for me. If you ever need help with your blog, ebook design or any kind of copywriting, I highly recommend the Men – they are super professional, reasonably priced, and funny to boot!

If you are reading the blog entries via RSS or email subscription, 1) thanks for subscribing, you rock! and 2) click here to have a look at the new design.

New services and products in the works

As of next month, I will be devoting less time to one-on-one sessions, in order to focus on creating a bunch of new stuff that I hope will make a difference in your life abroad.

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE one-on-one sessions. I love talking to you individually, finding out what makes you tick, what is holding you back, and putting our heads together to find ways to make your expat life better. It’s fun, it’s powerful, and we’re getting great results.

But there’s no denying that these sessions are a significant investment in time, energy and money. I know lots of expats who need support, but cannot see themselves investing in ongoing individual coaching. So it is my hope that through small-group sessions, 1-hour targeted consultations, and ebooks/workbooks, they will be able to get the help they need.

Next steps?

All right, now that I have publicly announced all of this… I’d better get writing! (<– in pompous management jargon, this is what is called building accountability and commitment. In other words, I told you I’d do all this just to ensure that I stop procrastinating and actually do it. Because if I don’t, you guys will laugh me off the internet, or something. Note that I – craftily – avoided committing to a timeline or a launch date. That’s the kind of trick you’re not allowed to use when I am coaching you, but hey, this is my blog so I’ll cheat if I want to! I wonder how much longer this parenthetical aside can go on. This is getting silly. OK, I’ll end it here.)

And on that note, I’m off to start cooking for our Canadian Thanksgiving, which is this weekend. In true expat fashion, we’re going to a potluck where none of the guests are originally from Canada, and we’re all bringing a dish from our birth country.

Our East Indian hosts are making lamb masala, my significant other is bringing his favourite South African wine and boerewors sausages, and I am putting together a spread of Provencal-style appetizers: cold cuts, grilled vegetables, tapenade, pissaladière and ratatouille.

Have a great weekend!

Emmanuelle

Images by jazzmasterson (top) and alasam (bottom), both via Flickr Creative Commons.

The 3rd edition is now underway – signups are open until October 24.

The theme this time around is Holidays & Celebrations. I cannot wait to see what fascinating celebrations our prolific group of bloggers will introduce us to on October 31!

If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you may remember that the theme last time was food – an inspiring subject if there ever was one! I don’t know what was most enjoyable: reading all those great posts (and getting hungry in the process!), or getting to know new-to-me blogs and fellow expat bloggers.

Sounds fun? See this post for more details or visit the official WBSD site.You can sign up here.

See you here on October 31!

Emmanuelle

Credit: WBSD art by Beka

If you are an expat blogger, you definitely want to join in the WBSD fun.

Image: NASA, Public Domain

Just think about it – on June 13, you get to:

- Post about a favourite expat topic, that is to say, food!
- Get a link to your blog from a fellow expat blogger and return the favour by linking to another expat blog,
- Get additional traffic as we all visit the other participants’ blogs and tweet about them,
- Meet awesome people living in exotic locales, and discover some great blogs.

And did I mention that the theme is food? One of my favouritest topics in the world!

Sign up and next steps

The logistics have changed a bit over the last month (WBSD is now hosted by Sher of Czech Off The Beaten Path), so here are the steps to follow if you want to sign up:

1. You can see all the details and sign up here

2. The deadline to sign up is Saturday, June 6 – that’s just around the corner, so make sure you get in and sign up today!

3. Wait for Sher to announce who links to whom

4. Publish your food-related blog post on Saturday, June 13 – don’t forget to link to the next blogger!

5. Have fun, browse, leave comments, make new friends.

I hope to see you around on June 13th!

Emmanuelle

For more details on this event, see my previous post or the WBSD Participant Information. Or leave a comment here and I will get back to you

So I suppose this is going to be the blogging equivalent of an “About Me” page. I’ll try to keep this short not make it too long. But mostly this is me thinking out loud about why I got into expat support to begin with.

In other words: Why should anyone listen to me?

Experiences, good and bad

The obvious answer is that I am an expatriate myself. I have been living abroad for a long time and I have gone through all the phases of expat life. Pre-departure jitters, wide-eyed wonder, culture shock, homesickness, integration, osmosis, reverse culture shock… you name it. No matter where in that cycle you find yourself, I have been there and I know how complex it can get.

Along the way, I made mistakes. I failed to acknowledge that my parents were aging and that my mother in particular needed support. I procrastinated on getting my finances organized in an efficient way. After arriving in Canada, I moved away from my career goals and wasted time in jobs that offered no opportunities for progression.

Looking back, there are many things that I would do differently today – and that’s what’s important. I learned from my mistakes, I found better ways to deal with the challenges of expat life and now I can pass that experience and that knowledge on to you. It also means that I am human, and far from perfect, and that therefore I do not expect you or anyone to be perfect either. Sometimes we’re afraid, or scattered, or lazy, or too shy. That’s OK – we’ll work on all of that together.

Loving the expat life

On the other hand, I also seem to have a knack for making life abroad really fulfilling and satisfying. I have been exposed to cultures as widely different as Sweden and Lebanon and I loved every minute of it. I have lived in huge metropolises, mid-size cities and small towns, and found ways to adjust even when the transition was challenging (larger cities definitely work better for me, provided that they have a lot of greenery and water. Small towns are more of a challenge for me).

Maybe it is because I grew up as a bi-cultural child in a Franco-Belgian family, or because I was raised in a very cosmopolitan area in the South of France, but I have always had a fascination with foreign cultures, languages and people who make their home abroad. Twenty-odd years later, the fascination is still there, coupled with a strong desire to give expats the tools they need to live their life abroad to the fullest.

Training and credentials

As for my professional background, I have a master’s degree in business management, and I spent 11 years in sales and market research management, for large corporations as well as smaller high-end companies. I am also an entrepreneur and the president of my incorporated company.
In short, I have a strong business background. If you need support with starting your own business, if you are trying to get promoted or if the office politics at work are driving you crazy, I have firsthand experience with all of that.

Of course, it is not like corporate jobs are the best preparation to support, coach and mentor, especially when it comes to dealing with the emotional side of things. So as soon as I decided that I would dedicate myself to working with fellow expats, I retrained as a personal coach with CTI. I was fully prepared to find the training a bit too woo-woo for my taste, but instead I left with a solid framework and some excellent, down-to-earth techniques that really work. Colour me impressed!

In addition to my formal training as a coach, my personal interests have led me to explore a wide range of self-growth, stress management and mindfulness tools and techniques. I have been practicing yoga for years, I have a strong interest in aromatherapy and I am currently exploring positive psychology.
All of this to say that when we work together, we are not just working on the intellectual level – depending on what you need, we can also do breathing exercises, visualisations or whatever is most useful to help you achieve the best results. There is quite a wide range of tools to choose from.

Here you go, that’s me in a nutshell. As always, if you have further questions, please do not hesitate to visit my website, send me an email or leave a comment here!

Emmanuelle