Working holiday visa got activated (without us knowing?!)
I got my LoI in late April and wanted to activate it in March 2027. We had already booked a three week trip through Canada before even getting the LoI. This year should be just travelling (tourist) and next year should be for work. However, when arriving at Vancouver, the guy at the pass control told us, that our work permit has been activated🧐 he told us to go to immigrations. The lady at immigrations told us that the mistake was on us and that she will post a note on our profile but can NOT guarantee that it will be possible for us to activate our working holiday visa next year?!
- What could we have done to prevent this from happening? Even in the ArriveCAN App we said that this trip is for personal reasons, not for work
- Will it be possible for us to activate our work permit next year? What do you think?
- What should we do next? Should we write a message to IEC explaining the situation and trying to find out if we still can activate it next year or is this unnecessary work as they won‘t tell me anything?
As we will have to quit our job to use the working holiday visa, we want to be extra safe. If it‘s not safe anymore, it endangers our whole plans!
Thank you so much for your help!