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Background

The applicant had worked for two and a half years at a small property management company in Calgary, reporting to an office in a commercial building. The Alberta Advantage Immigration Program (AAIP) application was already under assessment.

The problem: three addresses

The employment contract gave the work location as that commercial office. The LMIA recorded the work location as a shareholder’s residence (address A). The business licence and WCB registration were later recorded at a second shareholder’s residence (address B).

AAIP wrote to the employer, noting that a business operating out of a residence may not meet the requirement for commercial premises, and asked for an explanation of the relationship between the three addresses within seven days, together with the occupancy agreements covering the period since the applicant was hired, twelve months of payment records, photographs of the interior and exterior of the office, and photographs of the company signage.

Why this is not a paperwork detail

The Government of Alberta’s job offer and employer requirements state that the employer must have a place of doing business in Alberta where employees can report to work regularly as needed and where work assignments are issued. They also state that employees who work in a place of employment that is not zoned for commercial or industrial operations, such as a home-based business, are not eligible to apply.

A residential registered address therefore goes to an eligibility requirement itself, not to the format of a document.

What made this case difficult

The difficulty was not in writing a letter of explanation. It was in making records created by different offices, at different times, across two and a half years, point to one set of facts that was both true and capable of verification.

How it was handled

• Setting out, on a timeline, what each of the three addresses was actually used for at each stage;
• Building the record around the real place of work, with continuous evidence of day-to-day operations and evidence from the site itself;
• Checking, item by item, which registrations needed to be corrected with the relevant authorities or explained.

The absence of a standard document list does not mean documents can be produced for the occasion. What carried this case was a complete chain of evidence: genuine, continuous, and mutually corroborating.

Outcome

The applicant received the provincial nomination on the day the additional documents were due.

What applicants and employers should take from it

A mismatch between the employer’s registered address, the work location on the LMIA and the address in the employment contract is not a minor issue. These should be checked against each other before an AAIP application is filed. Where an employer has relocated, is registered at a residential address, or uses premises provided by a related company, the facts and the supporting evidence should be established first, and the filing approach decided after that.

Case details have been anonymised to protect client privacy. The outcome of one case does not mean another application will receive the same result; each case depends on the policy in force at the time and on the documents actually filed.