Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) officially launched the Federal Skilled Trades Program (FSTP) on Wednesday, and plans to admit up to 3,000 permanent residents through the program in 2013. Applicants of the FSTP must meet three general requirements to be eligible for the program: meet the minimum language requirements of the program, have at least two years of full-time work […]
Read moreToronto leads all Canadian cities with a score of 20.6 points in the most recent CWM Metropolitan Economic Activity Index, which rates the economic activity of Canadian cities according to nine economic variables selected by CIBC’s World Markets subsidiary. The indicators used in formulating the Index score include a city’s unemployment rate, population growth, bankruptcy rate and housing starts growth […]
Read moreIn an effort to stop abuse of the International Student Program by those seeking to work illegally in Canada and stem the growth of a student-visa mill industry that harms the reputation of Canadian educational institutions, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) on Friday proposed to parliament new regulations that would limit student visas to enrollees of institutions recognized by provinces […]
Read moreCICS News has learned that Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) has made a final decision on which occupations will be eligible for the new Federal Skilled Trades Program (FSTP) that is scheduled to open on January 2nd. CIC is expected to announce that the FSTP will give occupations one of two treatments; Group A occupations will be sub-capped at 100 […]
Read moreCitizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) announced this month that the Canadian Experience Class (CEC), which is being revised with a shorter Canadian work experience requirement for eligibility, will be re-launched on January 2nd 2013. CIC is planning on admitting up to 10,000 permanent residents through the CEC program, which first began in 2008 as part of the federal government’s efforts […]
Read moreCitizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) on Thursday introduced the ‘Bridging Open Work Permit’ for temporary residents who are working in Canada and are awaiting a final decision on their application for permanent residence through an economic class immigration program. The new work permit will save foreign workers from having to discontinue their work in Canada and leave the country while […]
Read moreCitizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) last week released a list of 27 countries whose nationals will have their asylum claims expedited. The new rules were created to fight a growing problem of bogus asylum claims by nationals of European member-state countries, particularly Hungary. The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) has reported thousands of Hungarian Roma arriving in Canada in recent […]
Read moreCitizenship and Immigration Canada announced today that the Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP) will re-open on May 4 2013 with the new selection rules. CIC closed the FSWP to new applications in July 2012, saying it needed time to reduce the program back-log and re-design the point system used to select immigrants to better meet Canada’s economic needs. The re-launched […]
Read moreA Statistics Canada report released last week shows Canadian immigrants continuing to experience lower employment rates than the general population, with the gap growing since the 2008 financial crisis. According to the report, the employment rate of immigrants aged 25 to 54 in 2011 was 75.6 percent, while that of Canadian-born residents was 82.9 percent. Both Canadian born residents and immigrants saw their employment rate fall between 2008 and 2011, […]
Read moreTwo trade unions have filed an application in federal court to force the federal government to reverse its decision to grant some 200 work permits to temporary foreign workers from China that a Canadian company wants to hire to run a new mine in British Columbia. The International Union of Operating Engineers and the Construction and Specialized Workers Union, which together […]
Read more