File once the U.S. entity exists, the premises are secured and the phased assignment can be described honestly. Commissioning work before opening is a legitimate specialized-knowledge assignment. Waiting until the pools open would waste the months when the specialist's knowledge matters most.
Commissioning is the assignment, not a prelude to it
The new-office rule does not require the U.S. property to be operating at filing; it requires secured premises, a qualifying relationship and financial capacity. Hypothetical example: the resort has purchased the U.S.
site, formed the subsidiary and begun construction, with the pool systems due for installation in four months. A petition can be filed now describing the specialist's assignment in phases: specification review, commissioning and calibration, staff training, and supervision through the first operating season. Her qualifying year must already be complete at filing, and the initial approval will run one year, so timing the filing so that the year covers commissioning and the opening season makes the extension easier to support with evidence of the system in use.
Filing before the site is secured produces a denial; filing after opening leaves the commissioning to a contractor who does not know the resort's system, which undercuts the specialized-knowledge claim itself. Put the filing date on a calendar beside the Canadian payroll record, the U.S. lease, equipment commitments, and the intended start of specialized work.
The first review should identify the earliest defensible filing date and the date on which the initial new-office period would end. Hypothetical example: A Canadian industrial-bakery equipment company signs a U.S. warehouse lease while its fermentation-control specialist is still two months short of the qualifying twelve-month period abroad.
Filing immediately may leave a statutory eligibility gap; waiting allows payroll and assignment records to complete the required period before the petition is submitted.