It depends on how different. Affiliation by common ownership requires the same owner or group to own and control both entities in substantially the same proportion, so the actual figures decide it.
The percentages are the evidence
Common ownership by a family is not the test; substantially identical ownership and control is. Where one sibling holds sixty percent of one company and thirty percent of the other, the claim becomes difficult, and where holdings are close but not identical the analysis turns on the specific numbers and on who actually controls each entity. Shareholders' agreements matter here because voting arrangements can produce control that the share register alone does not show. The first step is simply to obtain the current registers for both companies and compare them, which is a small task that frequently changes the plan. If the structures do not support affiliation, a corporate reorganization is one option, but it should be discussed with counsel rather than executed and explained later.
Hypothetical example: A beverage-canning group wants to move its Canadian distribution director to oversee a newly acquired United States depot. The first review should produce a dated ownership chart, foreign payroll timeline, organization chart, and list of decisions the proposed director will control. Share registers and voting agreements settle the relationship; payroll records settle the qualifying employment; staffing records settle whether the role is managerial. The applicant also needs to count prior L time, because managerial or executive classification has a seven-year aggregate limit.