Last week the Government of Canada released its 2021 – 2023 immigration levels plan. This is an important document that the government releases that describe its immigration targets for the next three years, both in terms of overall immigration numbers, and how many immigrants will be accepted through each of Canada’s immigration programs.

The new levels plan reconfirms Canada’s commitment to encouraging immigration. Canada’s previous levels plan indicated immigration levels increasing slightly each year, and in general remaining in the low 300 thousands per year. The recently announced levels plan anticipates total immigration levels over 400 thousand for each of 2021, 2022 and 2023. The government expects that approximately half those immigrating to Canada will do so under an economic program (including Express Entry and the Provincial Nominee Programs) the remainder will arrive as refugees, or as members of the family class.

On August 18, the Ontario Immigration Bureau announced that a handful provincial nominees for international students would be opened on August 19^th. As the province with the most international students in Canada, the degree of competition for provincial nomination places for international students in Ontario is imaginable.

From the 18th to the morning of the 19th, all Polaris employees were actively involved and finally helped multiple clients successfully grab valuable places in the program.

Today the OINP announced it’s intention to enact regulatory amendments that will alter the application procedure to the Employer Job Offer: Foreign Worker Stream, the Employer Job Offer: International Student Stream, the Employer Job Offer: In-Demand Skills Stream, the Master’s Graduate Stream, and the PhD Graduate Stream. The proposed change will introduce an Expression of Interest (EOI) system to these streams. Under the current system applicants apply on a first-come first-served basis to these streams. These programs are now so popular however that it is often very difficult for even well qualified applicants to get a slot to apply. In addition, because it is first-come, first-served a marginally qualified applicant who registers quickly, will be able to apply when a much better qualified, but slower to act applicant will be shut out.

Under the new proposal the OINP will establish a points system, and applicants will register and receive a score based on their qualifications and characteristics. The OINP would then be able to select the highest scoring applicants from all those who have registered and invite them to submit an application. The OINP has not yet released details of the scoring system it will use. This proposal represents a major change to the way the OINP works. The job-offer streams in particular were among the most attractive in Canada for less qualified applicants, since those streams did not compare applicants against each other at any point. This change, if enacted, will bring these streams more into line with programs offered by other provinces, and will change the competition for spaces from a test of speed, to a test of qualification.

Our client is a football coach. In Canada, Sports coaching is a qualified profession. Our client has a personal studio and cooperates with a local Chinese company to train Chinese children to play football. Our team worked towards determining if our client can successfully become a Self-Employed Football Coach in Canada.

The client had studied coaching courses in Europe and had a coaching certificate recognized by UEFA and the FA. But sport training is a professional field. Our team at Polaris Strategy cooperated with football clubs and schools in Ontario to showcase the job opportunities of local free football coaches, proving that our client can build his own business in Canada.

Application process:

1. October 30, 2017: Submitted a complete set of application to the immigration office.
2. February 7, 2018: Received the Federal File Number issued by the Immigration Service.

3. October 7, 2018: Received the notice of supplementary materials issued by the Immigration Bureau.

4. January 17, 2019: Received interview notice.

5. April 7, 2019: Received the notice of medical examination.

6. July 5, 2019: Obtained the Canadian Permanent Resident Visa.

Canada faced a lack of labor in many fields during COVID-19 in 2020. At the same time, a lot of people who had travelled to Canada before the international lockdown were stranded in the country for an unknown period of time, unable to return to their own countries.

Based on these two situations, on August 24^th, 2020 the Canadian Immigration Service announced that applicants who are already in the country can apply for a work visa for a specific employer if they have a valid work invitation! In short, if the application is approved, the work permit can be granted while they’re in Canada.

Canadian Work Permit

According to previous regulations, work visas for temporary residents usually need to be applied from outside of Canada. If an applicant who came to Canada as a tourist and submits a work visa application, he had to leave the country to complete the approval procedures.

However, the Canadian government has now adjusted the policy during the COVID-19. Applicants who are in the country and hold a tourist visa can directly apply for a work permit for a specific employer and do not need to re-enter the country after approval.

It is worth noting that these applicants will need an employer and still have to apply for LMIA. What is exempted is only the procedures for exit and re-entry, all other policies have not changed.

Applicants must meet the following conditions:

1. Applicant must be in Canada and have a legal and valid visitor status.
2. Applicant must have arrived in Canada before August 24.
3. He/she holds a job offer.
4. Submit the LMIA specific employer work permit application before March 31, 2021.
5. Comply with other regulations of the Canadian government.

Study in Canada

The Canadian government announced that the length of online classes during the unapproved period will also be included in the graduation work permit (PGWP) time for the study visa applications that are submitted before September 15^th, 2020.

After submitting the study permit application, any time spent studying online outside of Canada during the epidemic will be counted in the PGWP, but it must meet:

• Completion of at least 50% of the courses in Canada.
• Must apply for a study permit before September 15, 2020, and start or have started professional courses in the spring, summer or autumn of 2020.
• The time spent studying online outside of Canada before December 31, 2020 will not be deducted from the evaluation time of the graduation work permit.

Canadian universities are preparing to usher in a different back-to-school season. All colleges and universities have invested in resources, training and digital infrastructure to ensure that students get a participatory and high-quality online learning experience.

Links to some of the school policies during the epidemic are below:

University of Manitoba: http://umanitoba.ca/coronavirus

The University of Winnipeg: https://www.uwinnipeg.ca/covid-19/index.html

Manitoba Institute of Trades & Technology (MITT):

https://mitt.ca/291/blogs/updates-from-mitt-regarding-covid-19-coronavirus

Red River College: https://www.rrc.ca/coronavirus/

The Canadian government has made adjustments in both work and study situation in Canada to provide help and support for people.

Learn more about studying, working and immigrating to Canada by contacting Polaris Strategy. We are always guiding you in the right direction!

info@polariss.ca

Our client had been admitted to Canada as a visitor but granted only a short length of stay here. To make the most of the trip, and particularly with the disruption to international travel caused by the COVID-19 pandemic the client needed to extend their stay in Canada.

The application for a visitor record was submitted before the first period of stay had expired; the application was submitted in March of this year. Delay was encountered during the processing of the application, mostly because of the pandemic.

As part of the processing of the application the client was originally required to provide biometrics. Normally this is not a challenge for an applicant located in Canada, because biometrics can be given at Service Canada locations. In the current period of uncertainty we first had to secure an extension of the time to provide biometrics from IRCC, and then later, when all biometric collection facilities had ceased to operate due to COVID-19 we simply had to wait.

It is important to realize that because we made the application in a correct and timely fashion at the outset, none of these delays caused any prejudice for the client. Because their application was submitted while their visitor status was still valid the client benefited from implied status. Implied status means that the client was considered to keep their valid visitor status while the application is being processed and decided. The application took much longer than normal because of COVID-19, but the because of implied status the client had valid status in Canada throughout the entire time.

In mid-July IRCC recognized that it was unable to process many applications, because it was waiting for biometric information that applicants were unable to provide, since all the biometric collection facilities were closed due to COVID-19. IRCC decided to institute an exception to the biometric requirement for temporary residence applications to allow processing to move forward. The client benefitted from this decision and IRCC finished processing the application.

Because of the delay in processing, and the rule regarding implied status a visitor who originally entered the country in early February, and was given only a one-month duration of stay at that time, has made one application for a visitor record, and is now authorized to remain in Canada until mid-November. Needless to say, this was a very positive outcome for the client.

Today IRCC announced a change to its interpretation of the work ‘Parent’ as it is used in the Citizenship Act. The Citizenship Act provides that a person is entitled to Canadian citizenship, no matter where in the world they were born if they have a Canadian parent.

What does it mean to have a Canadian parent?

1. In the past IRCC understood a Canadian parent to be a biological parent of the child.
2. In other words, if one of the child’s biological parents was a Canadian citizen the child would be entitled to Canadian citizenship.
3. This entitlement would exist no matter where in the world the child was born and would exist for the child whether they ever actually claimed that citizenship or not.

What was the change?

1. IRCC will now interpret having a Canadian parent as having a legal parent at birth who is a Canadian citizen – even if the legal parent at birth is not biologically related to the child.
2. This means that Canadian legal parents will no longer need to sponsor children in this situation for Canadian Permanent Residence.

What is the difference between sponsoring your child, and the new rule?

Under the old system, non-biological parents would have needed to sponsor their child, rather than have them considered a citizen from birth.

1. Sponsorship is a lengthier process – the child may have to wait longer for status.
2. The sponsor must be present in Canada – if they are living outside of the country sponsorship would not be possible
3. A sponsor might be disqualified for some other reason (not having anything to do with the child)
4. Sponsorship results in the child obtaining permanent residency – they would need to apply for citizenship later

On June 3^rd, 2020 Ontario conducted a draw in its express entry linked Human Capital Priorities stream. In keeping with past practice, it has invited candidates with experience in certain occupations only. Unusually for the OINP they have issued invitations to two different groups of applicants in this draw – those with 1 year or more of Canadian work experience, and those with one year or more of foreign work experience.

Of interest are the different CRS score ranges for these two groups. 167 workers with experience in Canada were invited, and the lowest invited score was 358 – this is a very low score for success in the express entry system. 532 workers with only foreign experience were invited and the lowest invited score was 471 – this is a very high score to achieve.

These results clearly indicate the change in the Federal express entry pool since the outbreak of COVID-19. The Federal government has ceased conducting draws for those without Canadian experience or provincial nomination and has been making up its invitation target by accepting more – and therefore lower-scoring – candidates with Canadian experience. As a result, the CRS score required for those with Canadian experience is very low, and we can see that in the Ontario draw here. By contrast, the pool of high-scoring applicants without Canadian experience just keeps growing, since none of these candidates are being selected in federal draws – and even in a provincial nominee program draw like this one a very high score is needed for selection.

Program and when is it planning to reopen it? Read all about it here:

The Quebec Immigrant Investor Program (‘QIIP’) is an immigration pathway unique in Canada. It is the last remaining immigration program that permits applicants to qualify for immigration on the basis of making a passive investment.

The vast majority of immigration pathways that allow applicants to qualify by making an investment do so in the context of the applicant starting or acquiring an active business, and in addition to the investment the applicants are expected to actually operate and manage the business, they are investing in.

Here’s how it has been affecting EE process and more…

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused tremendous disruption in societies worldwide, and Canada is no exception. In the area of Canadian immigration, measures have been taken to deal with COVID-19, and this has caused real uncertainty for applicants and practitioners.

One area that may appear to have been less seriously affected by the pandemic, is the express entry system. In this category, immigration officials continue to hold draws and continue to process applications, so it might seem that not very much has changed. Is this still what we see when we take a more detailed look at the numbers?

Throughout 2019 and the early part of 2020 the express entry system was both stable and predictable. General draws were held regularly, and the points threshold required for selection stayed fairly stable, in the 460s – 470s. In spite of the predictability of these results they were not fully satisfying, because the points requirement was quite high – 460 CRS points is a difficult bar for many applicants to clear.

With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic this period of stability has ended. Draws are still being held regularly, but their structure has changed. More importantly, at least at first glance, the points requirement has started to go down.   Does this mean that fewer people are creating profiles in the system? Does this mean that this is the time for applicants who couldn’t qualify before to seize an opportunity? It’s not that simple, but to understand exactly what is happening requires a more detailed look at the structure of the draws and the numbers.