Canada Immigration News

Canadian Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney announced 5 March that the government was tightening spousal sponsorship rules in an ongoing effort to deter people from undertaking marriages of convenience to come to Canada.

According to preliminary data just released by Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC), Canada continued to admit a high number of new immigrants into the country in 2011.According to the data, there were 248,660 new permanent residents in 2011. This consisted of 156,077 new economic immigrants, including those on the Canadian skilled worker visa, 56,419 new family class immigrants and others.

Ontario is in the process of developing its first-ever immigration strategy to compete for immigrants against other Canadian provinces.Last Friday, Immigration Minister Charles Sousa announced the creation of a 13-member expert panel whose aim is to create an immigration strategy that best supports Ontario's economic development and help new immigrants find jobs.

Alberta's Premier Alison Redford is in the US last week to look for US workers to immigrate to Canada to fill labour shortages. While the main focus of her visit to Chicago is to highlight Alberta's energy relationship with the US, the province's labour shortage will also be an important discussion topic when she meets with US political officials and union leaders.

Canadian Immigration is considering changes to the citizenship rules in order to target so-called birth tourism. Birth tourism is where a foreign national comes to Canada to give birth so the baby can receive Canadian citizenship.

Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney announced last week his vision for a more efficient immigration system that would allow Canadian employers a greater say in selecting new immigrants.