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.

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.

Canadian Immigration Minister to announce new Entrepreneur Program

Posted on March 14, 2012 by CICS Immigration Team

Canadian Citizen and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney says that the Canadian government will introduce its new immigrant entrepreneur program soon, which will target “high value innovators” and not be saddled with the problems of the previous entrepreneur program.

In an interview with the Globe and Mail, Mr. Kenney said that the previous program, that was suspended in July of last year, was overly burdensome and ineffective.

The Globe and Mail article notes that the previous program had a backlog of 10,000 applications, with a processing rate of only 1,000-1,500 per year, meaning a best-case clearing time of eight years.

The Immigration Minister said that what will be done with the backlog has not been determined. One option the Canadian government is considering is allowing provinces to cherry pick applicants from the backlog that they believe are the most promising, so that applicant processing time is determined more by the needs of provinces for applicants’ skills and experience, rather than the criteria used in the old program of time spent in the queue.

Mr. Kenney said that New Zealand has used a similar process since 2003, when it faced a large backlog like the one Canada currently faces. A pilot program allowing provinces to mine the backlog has already started, he said.

Hundreds of Canadian Immigration Consultants will meet in Mississauga

Posted on February 14, 2012 by CICS Immigration Team

Six hundred immigration consultants are registered to gather at the First General Meeting (FGM) for members of the Canada Immigration Consultants of Canada Regulatory Council (ICCRC) in Mississauga on Friday. This will be the largest gathering of Canadian immigration consultants in history.

The ICCRC is Canada’s immigration consulting regulatory body, and replaced the previous self-regulatory body of the immigration industry, the CSIC, last year.

The regulatory body has new investigative powers granted to it by Bill C-35, an Act to Amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, which came into law on June 30, 2011. This legislation gives the federal government new abilities to crack down on unlicensed immigration consultants and otherwise illegal immigration consulting activities.

The ICCRC, unlike the old regulatory body, is also directly answerable to the Immigration Minister of Canada, Jason Kenney.

The keynote address for Friday’s FGM will be given by Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s Deputy Minister, Neil Yeates.

Jonathan Kay of National Post says Immigrants turning Canada into Nation of ‘Tiger Moms’

Posted on February 13, 2012 by CICS Immigration Team

An editorial by Jonathan Kay in the National Post, published on Friday, argues that immigrants are turning Canada into a nation of ‘Tiger Moms’, a term that refers to demanding Chinese mothers who push her children to excel academically, due to the competition that immigrant students from Asian countries are giving to native born Canadian students:

But the issue is more fundamental than that: Competition from Asian students is coming to shape the parenting practices and scholastic expectations of millions of native-born Canadian parents.

It used to be that upwardly mobile native-born parents could count on getting any reasonably bright child into a good private school and university. Now, those children are in competition with Asian immigrants who spend their weekends drilling math and spelling-bee lists.

Kay describes how the phenomenon of status-focused immigrant students and their parents had affected his own wife and the parenting of their children:

For native-born Canadian parents, that’s a scary thing. Last year, my wife read Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua, and laughed at the author’s insanely Type-A mothering techniques. But when she put the book down, the first words out of her mouth were “Should we put our kids in piano lessons?”

And so we did. We also sent our youngest child to after-school reading lessons, even though I’m not sure she needed them. The competition from highly motivated immigrants is making stressed out Tiger Mothers of us all.

The article explains how this recent trend has a historical precedent in the increase in Jewish immigration and academic excellence in the early 20th century, as the Jewish proportion of the student bodies of prestigious American universities shot up, reaching 28% in Harvard and 40% in Columbia by 1925, alarming the WASP establishment which instituted quotas in reaction.

Quotas in this day and age wouldn’t be politically palatable, and in any case wouldn’t be ethical, writes Kay, as they would be racist and deny the children of immigrants, who were promised a better life in Canada, the opportunities available to other Canadians.

We can expect to see continued change in Canadian culture and in particular educational institutions, as the population of immigrants, a high percentage of whom are highly educated and expect their children to follow in their footsteps, increases by millions over the next few decades.

TD Economists urge Canada to expand Provincial Immigrant Nominee Program

Posted on February 7, 2012 by CICS Immigration Team

A report by the Toronto Dominion bank argues that Canada could reduce the wage gap between immigrant and native-born Canadians by expanding the provincial nominee program.

The provincial nominee program requires immigrants to live a certain number of years in the sponsoring province, and allows provinces to create their own criteria for an applicant being accepted as a permanent resident.

As reported by the Vancouver Sun:

One way to improve this outcome would be to expand the provincial nominee program, Alexander said, as the provincial programs result in better employment numbers.
“At the end of the day, I think the provinces know what their labour markets need best.”

The TD report also says that Canada should make its immigration criteria more flexible, and give more priority to language proficiency. Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney declared last month that the Canadian government is making these very changes to the immigration admission process.

New Immigration Rules will be more Flexible, says Citizenship and Immigration Minister

Posted on February 2, 2012 by CICS Immigration Team

Changes to be made to Canada’s immigration process will make it more flexible, says Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney.

Kenney said new rules will give more weight to those in-demand skilled trade experience when assessing the eligibility of a candidate, to fill the shortage for this type of skill-set in Canada’s job market

As the National Post reported:

“People who are skilled tradespeople have an almost impossible job of coming to Canada under our current system because the skilled worker program basically selects people with advanced university degrees,” Kenney told CTV.

Kenney also reported that the changes would include new rules to make deportations faster, to prevent, what he described, as an overdrawn process whereby those facing deportation hold the process up with years of appeals.