Payroll records, T4 slips and the employment contract prove employee status; consulting invoices prove the opposite. Only the period of employment counts, so if the employee year is short of twelve continuous months within the last three years, the petition must wait until it is not.
Let the payroll history set the filing date
What goes wrong is that the résumé says three years with the company and the petition repeats it. The examiner then sees an employment start date on the support letter that conflicts with the first T4, and the request for evidence follows. Build the timeline from documents: the employment agreement with its start date, monthly payroll registers, T4 slips for each year, records of the managerial role held during that year, and an organizational chart from that period showing subordinates.
If the transferee was a consultant first, do not hide it; explain it and show that it is excluded from the count. Include leave records if there was an unpaid absence, because the year must be continuous, and a short paid vacation does not break it while an extended unpaid leave might. Add the corporate documents in the same package: articles, share certificates, and financial statements for both entities, so the qualifying relationship and active-business tests are proved by the same submission rather than a later supplement.