A lease deadline is not an eligibility argument. Filing while the committed capital is still thin invites questions you cannot answer, and a signature made under pressure can lock the household into rent it cannot carry. Ask the landlord for a later start or a shorter term while the funding is completed.
Let funding, not a rental calendar, set the date
In a hypothetical Côte Saint-Luc example, a couple delays one quarter, completes a supplier contract and a build-out payment, and files with a clearer record than a rushed lease would have produced. Set your own milestones: funding committed, documents assembled, case reviewed, then application. A pre-launch business can qualify on credible commitments; first sales are not universally required.
Remember also that a visa's validity period differs from the authorized stay recorded on the I-94, and Canadian citizens generally need an E-2 visa. Pressure arrives disguised as opportunity, which is why it works. A landlord's deadline, a seller's other buyer, a lease rate expiring Friday: each is presented as a reason to move now, and each transfers the risk to the party who is not ready.
Say what you need in writing — a later commencement, a shorter initial term, a conditional clause — and treat a refusal as information about the counterparty rather than as a verdict on the plan.