Canadian Government to introduce ‘Startup Visas’ for Foreign Entrepreneurs

Posted on April 18, 2012 by CICS Immigration Team

Kevin O'Leary (right) and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney in a joint news conference on Wednesday

In a joint announcement today, Kevin O’Leary’s venture capital firm, O’Leary Ventures, and the Canadian Citizenship and Immigration Ministry introduced a new ‘Startup Visa’ for foreign entrepreneurs looking to start a company in Canada.

The Canadian government will be consulting with venture capitalists and other leaders in the startup industry over the next few months to get their input on how the program should be designed to maximize the benefit for Canada’s venture capital industry, and a pilot program is planned to be instituted later in the year.

Venture capital industry leaders like O’Leary believe the Startup Visa program will help attract global entrepreneurial talent to Canada and attract more capital to Canada’s startup sector, which will contribute to creating a more innovative and prosperous economy.

O’Leary has a large following in Canada due to his successful investment record, which includes founding an education software company, Softkey, and selling it for $4.2 billion, and for his starring role in the Canadian venture capital reality show, Dragon’s Den, among other programs.

Immigration Canada Offices in St. John and Manitoba “Not Closing”

Posted on April 18, 2012 by CICS Immigration Team

Earlier reports that the Citizenship and Immigration Canada offices in Winnipeg Manitoba and St. John’s Newfoundland would be closing have been corrected by CIC authorities. Neither office will be closing.

According to the latest clarification from a representative at the St. John’s office, staff at the office will be reduced by one employee and the office will remain open.

The federal government has been down-sizing several departments recently as part of a measure to reduce the growing federal deficit.

Immigration Canada to Create New ‘Skilled Trades Worker’ Program

Posted on April 17, 2012 by CICS Immigration Team

The federal government will be creating a new Federal Skilled Worker Program specifically for tradespeople later in the year, that is intended to help meet Canada’s shortage of skilled trades labor.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney remarked that “we are facing huge and growing labour shortages in Canada, particularly here in the West and in Alberta” at a construction site in Calgary earlier in the month.

The current Federal Skilled Worker Program scores immigration applicants out of 100 points, with a passing score of 67. The criteria the score is based on are English/French language ability, education, work experience, age, the existence of a Canadian job offer to them, and their adaptability.

The assessment criteria have been unfavorable to skilled tradespeople, who generally score lower on language ability and education than skilled professionals, resulting in skilled tradespeople making up only three percent of those accepted under the current Federal Skilled Workers Program.

The new skilled trades immigration class will put more emphasis on practical training, as opposed to just formal education, and will favor trade workers skilled in construction, mining, transportation, manufacturing and services.

Update on Canadian Government’s slashing of pre-2008 Skilled Worker applications

Posted on April 11, 2012 by CICS Immigration Team

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As posted earlier, the Conservative government proposed to eliminate 280,000 applications filed before February 27th 2008 for the Federal Skilled Worker Program.

Here are some questions that you may have:

Will I be affected by the proposed changes?

Under the proposed changes, CIC would close Federal Skilled Worker applicants’ files if they:

applied before February 27, 2008, and
have not had a decision made by an immigration officer based on selection criteria by March 29, 2012.

It is expect this would affect around 280,000 people including dependents.

Who will not be affected by the proposed changes?

Any application that has received a file number after February 27, 2008 so you will not be affected if your file number was received after this date.

What is being done to respond to this decision by the Canadian government?

Immigration consultants are looking into a joint effort to stop the finalization of the proposal. It is expected that the changes will happen as the Conservative party holds a majority and it will receive enough votes to pass through.

There is a good chance that this issue will drag on and head to the Supreme Court. However, once or if it gets to that, it will not be for another few years as complaints against the government must go through many legal hurdles.

What options do I have if my application is removed from the backlog?

This depends on the individual applicant. Unfortunately, some applicants will not have any options under the new rules and regulations. There are currently over 60 immigration programs under both federal and provincial governments.

Will I receive a refund?

Your government application fees will be refunded. The professional fees will be treated as per the particular agreement each client has with their consulting firm.

Canadian Government to Create International ‘Job Bank’

Posted on April 4, 2012 by CICS Immigration Team

A new international job bank for immigrants to be launched (BRIAN SNYDER/REUTERS)

As part of the revamp to Canada’s immigration assessment system, the federal government has announced that it will create a ‘job bank’ in which all immigration skilled worker applicants will be placed, and from which Canadian employers and provinces will be able to recruit.

Those immigration applicants selected by a Canadian employer or province would then have their applications fast-tracked, making application processing times more dependent on the demand from provinces and Canadian employers for applicants’ skills, rather than the current criteria of time spent in the queue.

The job bank idea is modelled after New Zealand’s immigration system, which also pools applicants and allows employers to cherry-pick the most promising ones. The new immigration assessment system is expected to take at least two years to implement.

Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said the Canadian government would also try to reduce the phenomenon of areas of high unemployment recruiting immigrants for labor. He said immigration authorities would require employers to prove they attempted and were unable to recruit Canadians before they are able to offer a job to an immigration applicant and nominate to have their application fast-tracked.

Canadian Government to Legislate Elimination of 280,000 Immigration Applications

Posted on April 3, 2012 by CICS Immigration Team

The Conservative government proposed to eliminate 280,000 applications filed before February 27th 2008 for the Federal Skilled Worker Program in last Thursday’s federal budget.

If this proposal is approved, as it is expected to be, the hundreds of thousands of applicants affected will either have to give up on their hopes of immigrating to Canada or re-apply under new immigration rules.

For the last few years, the Canadian Citizenship and Immigration Ministry has been searching for a way to solve the massive backlog in the Federal Skilled Worker Program. Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has previously suggested that Canada adopt New Zealand’s approach and legislate an end to the backlog. With Thursday’s announcment, that option has officially been selected.

The wipe-out will cost the Canadian government $130 million in the refunding of application fees paid by those who applied under the Federal Skilled Worker Program before the February 27th 2008 cut-off date and whose files are being closed.

Mr. Kenney says the new immigration system that will replace the current one after the backlog has been eliminated will create a pool of immigration applicants and allow provinces to nominate those who they believe are most promising to have their application fast-tracked.

The Canadian government believes this will create an immigration system that is more responsive to the needs of Canadian employers and select applicants that have skills more greatly demanded by the Canadian economy.

Europe’s Economic Problems Causing Rise in European Immigration to Canada

Posted on March 29, 2012 by CICS Immigration Team

The increase in the unemployment rate in many European countries due to the economic problems those countries have been facing after decades of very high social welfare spending levels, and most recently, the financial crisis of 2008, has led to a significant increase in the number of Europeans applying to immigrate to Canada, as described in a new report by Brian Stewart of the CBC:

More than 40,000 Irish workers poured into Canada in 2010-11 after economic calamity took down the so-called Celtic Tiger. In Toronto alone, a special Irish-Canadian immigration centre is being launched to help the more than 10,000 who arrived on working visas. If the past is any judge, this kind of out-migration from Ireland may be just a modest beginning.

This month thousands of carpenters, electricians, machine operators and the like lined up for hours to attend the Working Abroad Expo in the city of Cork. There they listened to pitches from Canadian and Australian companies who are in strong competition to recruit trades people for mining, construction and health-care.

But even the 300,000 unemployed in Ireland today is but the grim tip of the iceberg when it comes to Europe’s economy.

The latest estimates are of 24 million unemployed men and women in the European Union, with jobless numbers running at 23 per cent in Spain (a devastating 49 per cent among young people) and roughly 20 per cent in Greece.

European immigrants more easily assimilate into Canada than immigrants from Asia and Africa due to cultural affinity to the majority, better English and French language skills, and skills more relevant to an advanced economy, so the expected shift in immigration patterns is likely to be welcomed by Canadian immigration officials.

Changes made to Canada’s immigration assessment system in the last few years have given immigration applicants from English and French speaking countries an advantage in immigrating to Canada due to a greater emphasis placed on language skills in how points are awarded in the assessment process, so this group of applicants is expected to be more successful than the average in getting accepted.

Refugee Activists say new Bill violates Canadian Charter, Federal Government Says Bill Necessary to Protect Canada

Posted on March 27, 2012 by CICS Immigration Team

Asylum Seekers (UNHCR/A. Webster)

The “Justice for Refugees and Immigrants Coalition”, a refugee activist group, made a public statement on Monday denouncing Bill C-31, a proposed update to the Immigration and Refugees Protections Act, charging that it violates the Canadian Charter of Rights.

The bill would strengthen the ability of Canadian immigration authorities to deport refugee claimants and prevent claimants from remaining in Canada through a long series of appeals.

The Federal Government rejected the coalition’s charges, and insisted that the bill is a vital step in protecting Canada’s asylum program from being exploited.

The refugee advocacy group was particularly critical of the proposed new power the bill would grant Canadian immigration authorities to detain refugee applicants for up to 12 months.

The Canadian government believes that this is necessary to prevent refugee applicants from escaping immigration controls and residing in Canada illegally, a problem that is common to other developed nations like the US, which now has an estimated 20-22 million illegal immigrants.

Canada’s Best Places to Live – 2012

Posted on March 21, 2012 by CICS Immigration Team

190 Canadian cities and towns have been ranked by Moneysense magazine and you may find some of the cities you’d have expected in the top 10, lower in the rankings.

Canada’s capital, Ottawa, has been ranked the number one place in Canada for the third year in a row, due to the combination of having affordable home prices relative to other major Canadian cities, a low crime-rate and, thanks to a large number of federal government jobs, a high average income.

Burlington, Ontario, a city in the Greater Toronto Area with a population of 175,000, took the number two spot in the ranking due to its high average income, extremely low crime rate and excellent weather, while Victoria, BC, was pushed down from last year’s second place showing to 35th place.

Canada’s most populated cities, Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver have been ranked 47th, 149th and 56th respectively. This is a bit surprising since Vancouver, for example, was ranked tied for 4th as the world’s best city to live by Mercer.

The methodology by Moneysense has received much attention with both praise and criticism. It works by ranking the cities by 22 categories, for example culture, weather, unemployment, childcare spaces, and crime. However, some of these categories, sub-categories and the scoring system have been criticized.

All in all, we’d recommend that you take a look at the rankings list and see where cities stand in each category.

Chinese learning French to Immigrate to Canada

Posted on March 20, 2012 by CICS Immigration Team

The Toronto Star reports that an increasing number of people in China are finding the best way to successfully immigrate to Canada is to learn French and apply through Quebec’s immigration program:

Chinese desperate to emigrate have discovered a backdoor into Canada that involves applying for entry into the country’s francophone province of Quebec — as long as they have a good working knowledge of the local lingo.

So, while learning French as an additional language is losing ground in many parts of the world — even as Mandarin classes proliferate because of China’s rise on the international stage — many Chinese are busy learning how to say, “Bonjour, je m’appelle Zhang.”

Unlike Canada’s federal immigration program, Quebec’s immigration program has no caps and no backlogs. This makes it the few remaining avenues of immigration for those not eligible for the investor program or family class sponsorship.