The article is no doubt portraying a positive view of immigration to Canada, focusing on the success of Steinbach, Manitoba, a small town, in integrating immigrants. This has resulted in the growth of the town. Astute commenters pointed out that the majority of immigrants don’t settle in small towns but rather, in Canada’s three or four largest cities (which drives up real estate values and strains infrastructure in those aforementioned cities).

There were also highly praised comments which were from self-confessed old codgers, who bemoaned the older, central neighbourhoods in Vancouver which have been apparently overrun by hoards of Asian people with large amounts of money.

The appeal to environmental degradation was cited (i.e. that more resources shall be polluted and farmland shall be paved over with subdivisions); this is a logical argument given that the current immigration and Refugee Protection Act (at section 3) is utterly silent on safeguarding the environment. However, given the dearth of investment and research into green jobs economic growth shall inevitably be tied to environmental degradation for the near future. Canadians state that they care about the environment, but behaviour suggests that care only insofar as it does not negatively impact their living standards. Perhaps pro-environmental advocates can push for a change to Canada’s immigration laws. I wish them the best of luck.

Another logical argument for reducing immigration was the assertion that there should be more encouragement for Canada’s youth to take up the skilled blue collar jobs that pay a decent wage, and a corresponding discouragement for certain children to enter university (which would theoretically reduce the need to import foreign plumbers and electricians). This is something that cannot be legislated, and moreover, this won’t address the fact Canadians do not want to work in low skilled jobs such as a Tim Horton’s in Alberta. I have seen firsthand the efforts by Tim Horton’s franchisees in Alberta who offer a higher wage resulting in little or no response from the Canadian-born labour market; the reason? – Local Canadians don’t want to work the night shift.

The fact that 2nd generation immigrants are as a group successfully integrated into Canadian society was ignored, due in part because such good news does not make for selling newspapers. Such good news is only apparent if one looks at specialized literature from academics such as Arthur Sweetman. News media compete for your attention by highlighting the dramatic problems of life like murder and sex and terrorism: if it bleeds, it leads. Thus, those without the life experience of meeting and interacting with different peoples, those only acquainted with minorities through a mug-shot on a police website come to caricatures and generalizations about minorities.

The more reasonable position taken on the online comments section was to reduce economic immigration during an economic downturn. This may make sense.

The proposed easing is also no doubt a reflection of the fact that since the CEC program came into effect in 2008, very few people were issued permanent resident status, (only a few thousand per year). The immigration department was expecting many more thousands to avail themselves of the CEC program as a path to permanent residency in Canada; the two year bar was likely too lengthy a requirement given the fickleness of Canadian employers who may be spooked by economic changes. The pattern that is emerging from the current Immigration Minister is to make the economic-based immigration programs of Canada easier and faster, and reducing or eliminating family class immigration for parents, and other family class immigration spouses to Canada, not to mention the extra scrutiny brought to bear on spousal/common law cases.

The long term goal of the current government is no doubt to make the balance of immigrants to Canada skewed towards the economic/skilled worker programs and away from the family-reunification goals of Canada’s Immigration laws.

The news release says, “Faced with backlogs and growing wait times” but fails to admit that the backlogs were created by the department’s own resource allocation – deploying less immigration officers to deal with sponsorships, thereby manufacturing an excessive wait time for the sponsorship of parents and grandparents in addition to allocating less spots for family class immigration (in favour of skilled/business immigration). This is also known as creating “facts on the ground.” This ignores the fact the end-all of Canada’s immigration program is not exclusively for Canada’s economic benefit. If you read the relevant Act, you’ll find it’s also about family reunification.

In keeping with the desire to have a veneer of democratic accountability, the press release states the department, ”will host a series of multicity in-person consultations with stakeholders”. The voices that will be heard at these consultations speak at different volumes to the ear of the Minister. Some, voices like that of the Canadians Against Immigration Fraud which fit more within the intention of the current government to restrict family class immigration on the basis of a few fraudulent cases. Similarly, one-sided institutions like the Fraser Institute effectively are agents for the current government’s view that immigrants with a Canadian job offer are preferable for Canada’s economic objectives (over immigrants who bring human capital – possessing inherent skills/adaptability associated with high education and a demonstrated degree of proficiency in a skilled endeavour). The former view is essentially similar to the United States H1b system which has been criticized for being a form of enforced loyalty to a US employer, pending the long process of obtaining a US green card.

In other words, organizations that assert the health care burden of elderly immigrant parents shall bring Canada’s health care system to its knees (or some other melodramatic assertion) will have a huge share of the Minister’s ear.

I have found no statistics that show there is a net burden to Canada’s economy when parents/grandparents are allowed to immigrate; if buying expensive jets are predicted to have economic spinoffs for Canada, then why wouldn’t sponsored parents, who become consumers of Canadian goods and services (and are prohibited from taking welfare for 10 years and, further, must pass numerous medical exams before getting a visa), have similar implications?

The argument that elderly immigrants are a burden on Canada’s health system, and never contributed into Canada’s health system is not relevant, given that the current payers into the health care system are the current health care users; in other words the current funding of Canada’s health care system can’t be attributed to the taxes paid by Canadians who worked in Canada for the past 40 years.

The government took a good first step in pausing the intake of parental immigration and committing to eliminate the backlog of parental sponsorships. It would be unfortunate if it used the consultations as a way to disingenuously conclude that Canadians do not want parents to immigrate.

It adopts a corporate globalized flair when it promises Canadians a, “just-in-time system that recruits people with the right skills to meet Canada’s labour market needs”.

In fact, this announcement is at the cost of the approximately 280,000 applicants who applied under the pre February 2008 system. They are promised a refund (“CIC will begin the process of returning the full amount of fees paid to the Department by these affected FSW applicants). However, the press release does not state that the interest accrued by the government will also be paid back to these applicants who have had their applications sitting in a government filing cabinet for eight years or longer.

The sentence, “To create a fast and flexible immigration system that creates jobs and promotes Canada’s long term prosperity” is a lie; the system shall likely be transformed to cater to corporate-dictated short term economic needs. No effort is being made to use government levers to import workers who have skills to facilitate true long term economic development in growing such as in “green jobs“.

The Minister of Immigration knows that there no domestic constituency who in local Canadian parlance “gives a crap” about foreigners being lied to by Canada’s immigration department and misled about the process. There is no political downside to the Canadian government meting out harsh unfair measures to foreign nationals.

As such, the only course of action for those 280000 applicants whose cases shall be culled would be proceeding en masse to the Federal court of Canada for a mandamus application. In the best case scenario, this would lead to a temporary court order delaying the enactment of proposed legislation until the court decides whether the 280000 cases should be processed in accordance with fairness (i.e. in accordance with the law that was in effect when those 280000 people submitted their applications to Canada’s Immigration department). The court would presumably agree that the actions of the government were unfair and would order that the cases be processed under the law that was in effect at the time such cases were first received.

The Minister of Immigration upon receiving notice of the federal court action by some of Canada’s immigration lawyers will predictably call us part of “the immigration industry lobby” –obscuring the fact that lawyers’ duties include the safeguarding of their client’s legal interests. Similarly, he has in the past attacked the Federal court of Canada for doing its job – adjudicating on the process of government processes such as immigration decisions.

Although it is conceded that something should be done about the backlog, other options could have been considered such as accepting no new immigration applications until the old ones were disposed of (i.e. “first in first out”), adding more visa officers to deal with the backlog, or more bolder options such as offering work permits to select high skill workers (if the local labour market is not affected) who are already sitting in the backlog (which would acclimatize those motivated applicants to work in Canada).

The IMM 5476 is thus required to be submitted even if you have consulted a Canadian immigration lawyer, or, indeed, if you have consulted anyone and received advice from them regarding an immigration application. The reason for this rule is to help eliminate the ‘ghost consultants’ – those unlicensed immigration consultants who for a significantly reduced fee, often fill out forms, often in a sloppy manner. This sloppy, price-discounted form filling often ends in a refused case, and also, leads to irreparable damage to a person who is seeking the Canadian government’s permission to enter Canada.

The problem with the wording used in the IMM 5476 is that captures those smart, prudent people, who are on a budget, and seek advice from a Canadian immigration lawyer; those people who seek only advice about an immigration matter, and then engage Canada’s immigration department un-represented after obtaining said advice.
Under Canadian law, every person has the right to seek advice from a lawyer in absolute confidence. The questions asked of the lawyer and the advice given by the lawyer to a client are confidential. Even the mere seeking of advice of an opinion from a lawyer is absolutely confidential. The current Immigration regulations, however, ignore this fact. The current Immigration regulations state as follows:

• (2) The application shall, unless otherwise provided by these Regulations
  …
• (c.3) if the applicant has been advised, for consideration in connection with the application, by a person referred to in any of paragraphs 91(2)(a) to (c) of the Act, include the information referred to in paragraphs (c.1) and (c.2) with respect to that person;
• (c.4) if the applicant has been advised, for consideration in connection with the application, by an entity — or a person acting on its behalf — referred to in subsection 91(4) of the Act, include the information referred to in paragraph (c.1) with respect to that entity or person; and

In other words, the current regulations purport to oblige applicants to disclose the names of any lawyer they consult in the course of preparing their application to the immigration department. I have often been consulted on spousal applications (which are characterized by very complicated forms) where the couple, armed with my advice subsequently file the application themselves. I have also been consulted for ‘second opinions’ by persons who had seen one Canadian immigration lawyer but were not fully comfortable with the advice provided by the first Canadian immigration lawyer. The above section can slap a person who did not declare their seeking advice with a finding of a “material misrepresentation”, or a rejection of the entire application on the basis of being incomplete. The misrepresentation results in a two year ban from Canada, and a significantly more difficult time re-entering Canada after the two years has expired.

Every legitimate Canadian immigration lawyer and consultant agrees with Canada’s immigration department about the blight that ghost consultants cause. However, the above regulation as it is written is too overreaching; it should be amended or interpreted to focus more on the real culprits – ghost consultants.

If you are considering immigration to Canada, you would be wise to have an immigration lawyer assess your case. They can help you decide which immigration program would be the best fit for your skills.

The application processing could take from 12-18 months depending on how many applications are ahead of yours and which immigration program you are applying under. While you are waiting to hear back from them you may want to consider obtaining a temporary work permit visa, this will allow you to obtain a job and work on establishing a home in Canada.

As an immigration lawyer with years of experience in the field, I often receive questions about the immigration process. Since many of these questions concern the same topics I’m answering some of them below.

Who can immigrate to Canada?

Canadian Immigration is broken down into 5 basic areas under which people can apply for immigration. Keep in mind that Provincial Nominee Programs also offer many options for immigration.

• Skilled workers program: This is perhaps the most common immigration program. More immigrants come into the country under this application process. You do need proof that you have education in one of the types of job listings available to choose from.
• Canadian experience Class: People who have enter Canada under a temporary work visa often find that they can qualify through this program.
• Family Class: In the past this was a program designed to reunite families of people who had successfully immigrated to Canada. The Canadian government is placing more restrictions on this program now.
• Business Class: This class was designed to encourage businesses to relocate to Canada.
• Investor Class: This program is currently closed, but may be re-opening in the near future.

 Are there some skilled worker jobs that will help with my acceptance?

The skilled workers program is set up on a point system.  The points are awarded based on education, ability to integrate with Canadian culture, and ability to procure work in Canada. There is speculation that the Federal Skilled Workers Program will see some changes in the near future. More skilled workers are needed with experience based skills instead of educational skills. Keep watching the NOC job classification lists for new possibilities.  

How long does it take for an immigration application to be accepted?

It can take anywhere from 12-18 months for an immigration application to be reviewed and either accepted or denied. This is because Canada allows so many immigrants during a year that the line of waiting applications is always long. There may be opportunities in the Provincial Nominee Programs that could be processed more quickly; however, you are probably still looking going to have at least a 12 month wait to hear back on your application.

This is one of the reasons that many hopeful applicants opt for the Temporary Work Visa’s as a way of establishing themselves in Canada while they wait to hear back from the Immigration Department.

All applications under the investor program that had been received from residents of Iran had to be placed on hold pending the approval of the transfer of funds. Since the allowed limit for transfer of funds during the sanction was limited to $CAD40,000 this made it impossible for Iranians applying under the investor program to transfer the necessary funds to complete the application process. This also affected investor programs through Provincial Nominee Programs as funds equaling $CAD75,000 were necessary to process these applications.

However, if the Iranian had funds outside of Iran when the sanction was put in place they could still transfer it and their application would be processed within a normal time frame. Arrangements were made for investor applications filed by Iranians so that they could get the fund transfer approved through Minister John Baird personally. However, this was not widely known in Iran at the time. This arrangement was clarified for investors from Iran on Jan. 25, 2012.

The end of the sanction renders all these arrangements null and void. Investor applications from Iranians will now be processed in the usual manner. The problem that many people trying to apply for the investor program now face is that the program is closed at this time. However, it may reopen mid-way through this year. Stay in touch with your immigration lawyer or check back on the CIC website for more information about this.

Iran is one of the leading sources of immigrant investors in Quebec. Quebec operates under its own set of immigration regulations to some extent. However, they still have to abide by what the Canadian government rules in some cases. This can be confusing for some people applying through the investor program. We suggest hiring an immigration lawyer to help you with your applications if you are unsure whether to apply under the Canadian investor program or one of the Provincial Nominee Investor programs.

Normally the funds required for the Provincial Nominee Programs are lower; there could also be other incentives for investors to apply for this type of application. Quite often the Provincial Nominee Programs can offer investors an opportunity to enter into a fast growing economy. The Provinces are offering some very attractive opportunities in order to attract the investors and skilled workers that they need for their economic growth.

Harper went on to state that, “We will ensure that, while we respect our humanitarian obligations and family reunification objectives, we make our economic and labour force needs the central goal of our immigration efforts in the future”. While no specific details about the changes in the immigration policy were included, Harpers word did hint at some of the changes that may be seen in the future.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney later expanded on some of the ways that the immigration program could be reorganized to address the economic issues Harper mentioned. He made a point of mentioning that Canada had no intention of reducing the number of immigrants they accepted. One of the possible changes to the immigration process that he expanded upon was the point system that is presently used in the skilled workers program. He said that in future the skilled workers program would be looking more closely at younger workers, people with pre-arranged jobs, and that the system would become more proactive.

Kenney said that in future the skilled workers program would be looking at applicants with skills learned through experience on the job rather than just at those with higher education degrees. At present the skilled workers program has been selecting based on education as opposed to experience. While there will still be opening for those applicants with higher education, there will now be more openings available to skilled trades that are learned through on-the-job experience.

This will open up many new areas and skills for people applying for immigration under the skilled workers program. It will also allow Canada to benefit from immigrants that have the skills that are missing at the moment. Many of the Provincial Nominee Programs are already focusing on this sector of the immigration population and it has been working very well for them; allowing them to build a strong and healthy economy.  

Kenney also mentioned that changes would be made in the entrepreneurial and investor programs, as well. It is believed that businesses and investors who are interested in moving to Canada to set up high tech and research and development-based companies will find a welcome. These are seen as the businesses of the future and will help to promote the image that Canada is seeking to establish. More is expected to be announced about the changes to the immigration program in the near future.

This could be a very good change for immigration applications. It opens up some areas of work that were not previously considered. This provides chances for people with different job skills the opportunity to apply. Of course, it also removes some of the jobs that were previously on the list of jobs. This could prove to be a problem for some hopeful applicants who have been studying for specific job skills.

Applicants can reduce the chance of their applications being denied by consulting an immigration lawyer for help. Immigration lawyers stay up-to-date on all changes to immigration rules and regulations. Consulting a lawyer could save you both time and money when applying for immigration status under the skilled workers program.

In most cases skilled workers should still be able to find job classifications that they can apply under. Canada is merely streamlining their job openings to more closely follow the perceived needs of the work force. As with any country, the necessary skilled workers available to fill job openings fluctuate from year to year. In the case of Canada these job openings are only reviewed once every 5 years. In some cases this works in the favor of people hoping to apply under the skilled workers program.

5 years is generally enough time for a person to complete post-secondary education and submit their application. Canada is facing an aging work force, with many people due to retire in the near future. This is one of the considerations they look at when defining the skilled jobs that will need to be filled. In most cases the new list of jobs is making available jobs in fields that were previously closed for applicants. Providing a more extensive list of possible skill areas for applicants to apply under gives most applications a better chance of being accepted.