Canada Immigration News

A new report from a Canadian think tank alleges that recent changes to the Canadian citizenship regime favour some immigrants over others and run contrary to the Canadian multicultural ethos.

The report, Becoming Canadian, was written for the Institute for Research into Public Policy by Dr Elke Winter. The Institute is Canada's oldest non-partisan think tank. Dr Winter says that the Conservative government of Stephen Harper, elected in 2006, has introduced changes to the citizenship process that favour educated, and possibly white, immigrants.

Chris Alexander, Canada's immigration minister, has given an interview to a Chinese newspaper just days after scrapping the Immigrant Investor Program which was extremely popular with Chinese applicants.

He has said that Chinese citizens were still welcome in Canada and will be able to apply for Canadian visas under a new investor program which will open later this year.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada has announced that the Immigrant Investor Program (IIP) and the Federal Entrepreneur Program (FEP) will be terminated. The two programs were once Canada's main investor and entrepreneur programs but both had been suspended for some time.

In a statement, CIC said that the move will 'eliminate a large and longstanding backlog of applications, and pave the way for new pilot programs that will actually meet Canada's labour market and economic needs'.

PhD graduates of the University of Toronto have complained that they have been wrongly rejected after applying for permanent residence visas under the Federal Skilled Worker Program. Two students have taken their complaint to a Canadian newspaper to try to raise publicity about their. They claim that many others have been similarly turned down.

Canada's immigration minister Chris Alexander has promised to improve the service that his department, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) provides for those seeking to migrate to Canada.

Mr Alexander became immigration minister in August 2013, replacing Jason Kenney who had been in the post since 2008. Mr Kenney introduced a series of major changes to the Canadian immigration system, re-focusing the system to favour skilled based and employment based immigrants over family stream applicants

On 8th November 2013, the Canadian immigration minister Chris Alexander announced changes to the Canadian Experience Class (CEC) visa stream which came into force on 9th November 2013.

The CEC allows foreign nationals who already have at least one year's work experience in a skilled occupation in Canada to apply for a Canadian permanent residence visa providing that they meet Canada's immigration criteria.

Applicants under the CEC must have Canadian work experience in one of three Canadian National Occupational Classification System (NOC) categories;