Preparing useful business material may raise work-authorization issues that a pending family case does not resolve.
Assess the activity rather than its label
Qualifying L spouse status may carry employment permission with required evidence. Calling the task informal or unpaid does not automatically authorize it.
A spouse in valid L-2S status is authorized to work incident to that status, though finding suitable work for a short defined period is its own question. For a family arriving in stages, make sure the civil documents prove each relationship and that travel plans align with the principal’s valid status. What is needed is each person’s intended activity in plain terms: paid work, unpaid work, study, remote work for a Canadian employer, travel back and forth. Dependent child status ends at twenty-one, so a household relying on a teenager's help across a multi-year assignment should count those years before the transfer begins rather than after it. Unmarried children under twenty-one accompany the family and may attend school, but nothing in the derivative status permits them to be employed.
Find out which category the spouse's occupation falls into in the specific state before the household budgets that income, and start any licensing application early, since it will run on its own timetable regardless of the immigration file.