Citizenship and Immigration Canada
www.cic.gc.ca
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Improving Canada’s immigration system
Canada has a strong tradition of welcoming immigrants from around the world to help enrich our communities—socially, culturally and economically. Our annual immigration plan balances the three main goals of immigration:
- to support the development of a strong and prosperous Canadian economy;
- to see that families are reunited in Canada; and
- to provide a safe haven for refugees and people in need of protection.
Each of these goals is important, and we are constantly reviewing our immigration system to find ways to better achieve them. In the 2008 federal budget, we proposed changes to Canada’s immigration system that would help improve Canada’s immigration program, without sacrificing our commitment to reuniting families and protecting refugees.
The changes remove the Department’s obligation to process every application we receive and allow the Minister to issue instructions to immigration officers on which applications are eligible for processing. Parliament approved these changes in June 2008.
Since then, the Department has been working closely with the provinces and territories, business and labour leaders, as well as immigration experts to develop the instructions. They outline a set of eligibility criteria that federal skilled worker applications are assessed against before they are recommended for processing. The criteria correspond to Canada’s economic immigration needs. In general, these needs are in high-demand areas such as health, skilled trades, finance and resource extraction.
Canada currently has a large backlog of applicants in the skilled worker immigration category, which translates into wait times of as long as six years for people to find out if they can come to Canada. We will process all applications in the backlog to a final decision. But of the applications received on or after February 27, 2008, the date the new instructions took effect, only those that meet the eligibility criteria will be processed. The backlog will stop growing. New skilled worker applicants should ultimately receive a decision in six to 12 months.
The instructions don’t affect our objectives for family reunification and refugee protection. Our annual levels plan will continue to establish clear targets for the number of immigrants we intend to welcome every year. For example, in 2009, Canada plans to accept between 240,000 and 265,000 new permanent residents, including approximately 70,000 in the family class, some 26,000 protected persons, and at least 20,000 provincial nominees to help provinces meet the demand for workers, many of whom are lower-skilled.
The instructions are also consistent with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which protects against discrimination on such bases as race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age and mental or physical disability. Decisions on individual applications will be made by CIC immigration officers and cannot be reversed by the Minister.
The Government of Canada recognizes the importance of immigration and is committed to keeping this country a competitive destination for immigrants the world over.
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