Commander 1,
You may not need to wait to get your JAA ticket. Contact Transport Canada and they will tell you what you need to do to get the Canadian license.
I served a full apprenticeship and have held an A/C license since 1993 and I have had to start from scratch to get my Canadian license.
I was asked to submit all my records (logbook, license, academic) and they told me that they would accept my logbook of experience but that my academic course (and thus current license) were not accepted to them and that I would need to redo all the exams. I am subsequently enrolled with ICS Canada as a correspondence student doing the basic knowledge course and once I have completed the exams and passed the course I will need to write the TC exams. Those exams and my logbook SHOULD be eneough to qualify me for the license.
I say SHOULD because as a government department they are entitled to shift the goalposts without notice or explanation.
I don't know what your basic qualification, if any, is but I will assume for the sake of the thread that you are currently involved in the industry in a technical capacity. Assuming that, you will be busy with or have completed your academic studies.
IF those studies are acceptable to TC from the syllabus/time studied point of view you may well be allowed to take the exams now.
That will make things a lot easier for you as you will not need to go through with the JAA qualification and then move to Canada to have to start all over again.
Personally, however I would suggest that you do the JAA if you can as you can never be TOO qualified from a license coverage point of view.
I hope this is making sense to you. BTW, I have the advantage of working for a Canadain company (on non C- reg aircraft) and they have done all the research/leg work for me and are even paying for my ICS and all the exams provided I pass. If not, then I get to pay it all back.
No pressure, then, right??