I've been an airline pilot for 15 year now, but I'm new to Canada. All airlines in their job ads mention "be able to obtain TC security pass within
six weeks". Would anyone tell me what it takes in reality. Any advise is appreciated.

Good Luck, your lucky to get a renewed pass in 6 weeks. TC has some new checks that came in in the last 6 months.

rigpiggy wrote:Good Luck, your lucky to get a renewed pass in 6 weeks. TC has some new checks that came in in the last 6 months.

You can't use your temp pass??

In my case, I was in Australia for 3 years out of 5 years. and It wook them 10 weeks to prosess my pass.

And if you were in non english speaking country at any time within 5 years, then good luck. They are going to need you to provide documents from the country ie. certificate of employment and they will pull your yellow pass away until they can give you the red pass. And it will take some time. so, if you are in this case, Get all the documents before apply. they they can't pull your pass because fo this reason.

Took me over 2 months to get my full pass and I havn't even left the country. Iv seen guys from work that are Canadian citizens that have worked in the states for maybe a year or 2 and when they came back to canada it took over 6 months to get a pass

I was moving every 6 months or so for float gigs didn't keep a year round address took five months to get my red. They said it's because they had to tcheck with local police in every jurasdiction I had resided. The funny part was it was a dinky little ton of less than 200 that held it up I finally phoned a buddy the sgt. there and said what the hell.

Thanks to all of you, guys. Of course I'll try to prepare as much as I can.
But what kind of docs might they ask?

They ask for every address that you've lived at for the past 5 years. If your from outside of canada they ask where your port of entry was or if u were born here; where your parents port of entry was. They will check with any law agency in places that you have lived before for a criminal backround check. Stuff like that. It doesnt have to be all filled out on the spot. If you dont know some of the info you can take it home and research some of the stuff.
Hope that helps.

and keep a copy of your app a friend filled his renewal out and got an address/date different and screwed it up

Link to application form

http://www.tc.gc.ca/pdf/25-0356.pdf

Thanks for application form!
And all you've told is a good help as well.
Now I feel much better when I got some info on the matter.
Good luck to all of you!

About moving make note if you are like me and still file your income tax and all other goverment papers at another address, that is the address the goverment thinks you live at. I moved within GVRD several times, but never bothered changing address from my parents for most stuff. So I filled out my parents address. Took me two weeks to get a pass.

I was just about to say that.
If you do not tell them how do they know were to look.

Besides WTF with all of this WE know is BULL....

The end of the story - had to provide every peace of evidence regarding my 5 year history,
TC contacted every foreign employer I worked for to get the confirmation.
Finally I got the red pass after six months.

this pass.. do you need to have a current employer in order to apply for one? Or can I just apply for one without being hired yet? I just recently moved back home here in Canada from the US. I was away for 10 years working there with a security pass there of course which took me 2 weeks to get.. and i'm not sure how it works here in Canada.

Thanks

Yes, you need to have a current employer in order to apply for a pass. No way you can apply
on your own. You will be issued a temporary pass which is valid for six months, certain restrictions
apply. But this will give you the opportunity to work while waiting for your sequrity clearance to get
trough. There is only one opportunity to extend the validity of the temporary pass for another six
months (if needed) - and it can be done during the last week of the first six months period only.
If you miss it - no more passes till your clearance is issued.