The length of time that a temporary foreign worker needs to have worked full-time in the Canada to qualify for permanent residence under the Canadian Experience Class (CEC) immigration program will be reduced from 24 months to 12 months in January 2013, according to a tweet by Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney. The long expected change in the CEC program’s work […]
Read moreCitizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney attended the annual conference for Canada’s self-regulatory organizations (SROs) today and asked for their cooperation in helping recent immigrants to Canada become licensed in their field. The Canadian Regulators Conference, held in Ottawa on November 8th and 9th, is organized by the Canadian Network of National Associations of Regulators (CNNAR), an association made up […]
Read moreThe Royal Canadian Mint, a Crown Corporation responsible for minting Canada’s coins, is developing a digital version of the Canadian dollar that it hopes will make digital transactions as easy as cash-based ones. The technology being developed is called MintChip, and the Mint is describing it as the ‘evolution of currency’. It relies on public-key cryptography and tamper-proof hardware to […]
Read moreWhen Americans look for a country to flee to in the event of their favoured candidate losing the presidential elections, they inevitably look to Canada, their (mostly) English speaking cousin to the North. For the past three decades, it has been predominantly supporters of Democratic candidates that have made the immigration ultimatum, as Canada has been perceived to align with […]
Read moreThe provincial government of Ontario announced a new immigration strategy on Monday which primarily focuses on attracting more economic class immigrants, meaning those who immigrate through skilled worker and investor programs, to Ontario. The strategy is shaped by recommendations submitted to the Ontario government by an expert roundtable last month which the government commissioned as a response to years of decreasing immigration […]
Read moreCitizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) summarized what it considers the successes of its reforms in recent years in a press release on Friday. CIC said that it expects that by the end of 2013, it will be able to process applications as they are received, and complete their processing within one year. It said that this will open the door […]
Read moreA judge in Ontario has frozen three properties found to belong to Iran, including the building that housed Iran’s former embassy in Ottawa and Iran’s former cultural centre in Toronto, according to a story by the National Post: Three properties were frozen, ensuring they are not sold or transferred, until court can decide whether they should be forfeited to the […]
Read moreCitizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) announced today that it will keep immigration levels at 240,000-265,000 in 2013, for the seventh straight year. The maintenance of immigration numbers from previous years amidst a growing Canadian population means Canada will have a lower immigration rate as a percentage of its population, and rebuff calls by several prominent organizations to increase immigration levels […]
Read moreAn article in Monday’s Vancouver Sun blames trade and professional associations for hampering the economic integration of Canadian immigrants. The story, by columnist Don Cayo, cites a new report by Canadian researchers that finds that occupational licensing is preventing immigrants to Canada from working in their field of study, at a cost of $2-5.9 billion a year to the country’s […]
Read moreCitizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) introduced new spousal immigration sponsorship regulations today to reduce the incidence of marriage fraud. The new rules require sponsored spouses who have no children with their sponsor to be in a live-in relationship with their spouse for two years to get full permanent residence status. Under rules in place until today’s announcement, a sponsored spouse […]
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