Moving to a new country can be stressful, and the right help can ease part of the pain, making the migration as smooth as possible. It is especially important for those moving to Canada, where the current upheaval of operational systems in the Immigration Department led to a massive backlog and placed intake of new permanent residency applications on hold.

In the bigger picture, the situation has also adversely affected Canadian employers that rely on foreign workers to mitigate labor shortages. As immigration officials are still coming to terms with a new modus operandi, work permits can take over a year to be issued, and companies across various industries are left stranded and struck down by stifled growth due to low productivity.

Highly-knowledgeable of the issues that employers and expatriate workers undergo, Martine Varekamp-Bos, a Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultant started Immigration Care. An immigrant herself, having moved to Canada twice, Varekamp-Bos decided to enter immigration services to employ foreign workers at her dairy farm, and then make their stay comfortable as possible.
“Part of the journey for my entry into immigration services is to allow foreign workers, employers and individual applicants have a steadfast and worry-free environment while in the process of receiving a work-permit or visa,” says Varekamp-Bos.

Specializing in employment based immigration, Varekamp- Bos helps Canadian employers fill vacancies and ensures few or zero delays in processing applications. The migration consultancy works with a prospective employee and the Canadian employer to handle the paperwork trail from LMIA applications, or identification of LMIA exemptions to work permits. Immigration Care also assists individual applicants attain permanent residency visas, allowing foreign workers to bring their families with them.

To help applicants immigrate successfully,Immigration Care starts by understanding their situation. With team members that have been and continue to be subject to personal visa processing operations, Immigration Care is prepared to overcome hurdles and remove the uncertainty that applicants experience. All immigration visas and permits come with an expiry date, and Immigration Care keeps track of the deadlines and recommends solutions to temporary foreign workers for extension or permanent residency.

For one manufacturing firm, based in Alberta, partnering with Immigration Care has helped them grow from 40 to 400 employees over the last decade, with foreign workers making up a larger portion of the staff. An active relationship since 2010, many of the immigrants still work at the manufacturing facility, and Immigration Care offers continued support, ensuring workforce stability, and encouraging the employer to focus on growth.

Immigration Care stays on top of the changes to migration applicant rules and regulations. An active part of the lobbying committee of the Canadian Association of Professional Immigrant Consultants, Varekamp-Bos recently worked with a group of pro-bono consultants to help stranded Ukrainians seek refuge in Canada.

“We make sure to stand at the forefront of the changes that are happening around immigration legislation and application processing, and this awareness sets us apart so we act on changes or updates, on behalf of our clients, quickly,” says Varekamp- Bos.
In addition to staying up-to-date with new laws that applicants may have to follow, Immigration Care communicates with employers and individual clients throughout the migration process. Well-connected with colleagues and professional representative groups across the Canadian immigration space, the consultancy explains the progress of applications and the next steps to be considered.

Immigration Care also collaborates and maintains healthy and productive relationships with other immigration-related businesses. For instance, CRT Legal, a consortium of immigration lawyers works closely with Varekamp-Bos, and shares staff and expertise, supporting a joint effort to bring expatriate applications to the front of the processing line.

On a personal front, Martine Varekamp-Bos is a recognized personality, and considered a game- changer in the immigration industry. She is a Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultant, and presents theories at various national conferences, and offers advice to employer groups and associations on effectively working with the Immigration Department.

From an individual applicant perspective, Varekamp- Bos helps find potential methods for them to stay in Canada, either through visa extensions or permanent residency. For one individual who was facing imminent removal from Canada, Immigration Care worked around the clock to ensure that the client was given every option to present a case and Immigration Care’s tenacious effort resulted in the applicant being allowed to stay in Canada. He holds a steady job, is now married and has 2 beautiful children.

Most recently, Immigration Care partnered with a greenhouse to bring in 40 foreign workers, and assured that all the processes fell into place, and no permits were refused. A major accomplishment in terms of the number of applicants and all the pandemic-related travel restrictions that were in place at that time, Immigration Care was able to ensure that every immigrant arrived in the expected timeframe. A part of the journey that excites the consultancy and its employees is receiving images and messages of families being reunited after many years.