GREEN Island, Hanover, resident Andrea Paisley yesterday travelled the four hours to the Canadian High Commission in Kingston to pick up the immigrant visa for which she applied in March, making her the first person in Jamaica to be successful under that government’s new Express Entry system.

It was a prayer answered for the 32-year-old single mother, who has long been planning to migrate to give herself and her eight-year-old twin boys a better quality of life.

She had every confidence that she would have been successful, she said. What she didn’t bank on was it happening so soon; two months after submitting the application.

“I was so happy. I was ecstatic,” she told the Jamaica Observer, recalling her emotions when she was informed that the processing was successful.

Her boys, Jaeden and Jordan Stephenson, were equally ecstatic at the High Commission yesterday. They don’t yet know where Canada is on the map, but they are looking forward to calling it home in a few months.

“Everybody, I want to thank you for giving me this amazing bag and the cool things in it. Thank you for the flag and cake. It tastes very, very good,” Jaeden said after High Commissioner Robert Ready and Counsellor Kate O’Brien presented them with their visas and Canadian memorabilia.

Express Entry is an electronic means of managing applications for some of Canada’s economic immigration programmes. Candidates are asked to create an online profile and express their interest in moving to Canada permanently. Those who meet the minimum criteria are accepted into a pool and ranked according to various factors, including language proficiency, education and work experience. The minimum qualifying score as of April 17 was 453 points out of a possible 600 for those who have no prior job offer or nomination from a Canadian province. The programme came on stream in January and promises a turnaround time of six months from the date of being accepted into the pool.

In Paisley’s case, it took only two months.

“I submitted the application on the 13th of March, then I got an invitation to apply on the 27th of March. I submitted that on the 14th of April and I got word that it was approved on the 14th of May, so one month after,” she explained.

Paisley holds an MBA and works as an auditor, but she does not currently have a job offer in Canada so her score was 462 on the Comprehensive Ranking System.

“The process was very easy,” she told the Observer, explaining that she completed the application on her own, without the assistance of a lawyer or immigration consultant.

“Hiring a lawyer would be a waste of money,” she said. “I went on the website and read what was required. I got the educational assessment report done (since my) education was not in a Canadian university or college. I got the language test done. In fact, I had already got those done from last year so that simplified it for me.

“Then I uploaded everything to the website. It’s easy to navigate and user-friendly. All you need to do is just read,” she stressed.

Paisley’s experience is a boon for the High Commission, which has been facing scepticism regarding the efficiency of the Express Entry system.

“The fact that she did this on her own proves that what we’ve been saying would happen did, and we didn’t pull her out of the pile to prove this point. It’s an objective, electronic, high-tech programme,” O’Brien told the newspaper.

On the subject of the two-month turnaround time for Paisley, O’Brien said the critical thing is that she followed the High Commission’s instructions to a ‘T’ and provided the required documents within the stipulated time frame.

“She has neither a approved certification from a Province, nor an approved job offer. [But] she was smart and fast.

“We’re all trying to deliver on what the minister (of citizenship and immigration) has promised. It’s express, after all, but the thing only works if people have all their documents, if they check their e-mail (in a timely manner), and do what we ask. It’s possible. It works, and this is proof,” she said.

The counsellor was unable to say how many Jamaicans have applied under Express Entry to date, but she said 9,500 people have so far been invited to apply, worldwide. Jamaica was among the first three or four overseas offices that were assigned files for processing, she added.

Canada’s immigration target for 2015 is between 260,000 and 285,000 new permanent residents, an increase of about 20,000 over the previous year.