Backgrounder - Consultations on immigration priorities

On June 18, 2008, Parliament approved changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) to improve Canada’s immigration system.

The new law allows the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to issue instructions to prioritize certain categories of applications received on or after February 27, 2008, and to return, unprocessed, applications that do not meet the priorities. It is important to note that our objectives for family reunification and refugee protection will not be affected.

Instructions are meant to achieve three major goals:

• Improve Canada’s competitiveness and more closely align the skills of newcomers with Canada’s labour shortages
• Ensure that immigration targets are met
• Ensure that the backlog does not grow, and that people who apply to come to Canada receive a decision quickly

The Minister has stated that her instructions will be fair, open and transparent, and will be developed using input from several sources. This summer, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) is meeting with provinces and territories, as well as regional and national stakeholders across Canada, to gather some of this input.

Consultation schedule* (meetings and videoconferences)

July 7: St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador
July 9: Halifax, Nova Scotia
July 10: Fredericton, New Brunswick
July 11: Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island
July 15: Vancouver, British Columbia
July 16: Edmonton, Alberta
July 17-18: Winnipeg, Manitoba (and Saskatchewan)
July 21-22: Toronto, Ontario
August 13: Northwest Territories
July 10: Nunavut
July 28: Yukon
August 15: National roundtable

*Because Quebec exercises jurisdiction over immigrant selection under the Canada-Quebec Accord, there are no formal consultation sessions with this province. Instead, CIC officials will be holding an information session in Quebec.

Discussion themes

The following themes will form the basis of the consultations:

1. The role of the immigration program in addressing specific labour market needs

2. Occupational pressures in each participants’ workplace/industry/sector/region

• Short term vs. medium term
• What skill levels do these occupations require
• What barriers to accreditation must be addressed

3. Federal skilled worker applications filed on or after February 27, 2008: prioritization of those applications meeting labour market needs, return of others.