Ottawa will replace the current governing body of immigration consultants with a new regulator that has the “respect and support” of its members, says Immigration Minister Jason Kenney.
It is expected that the new Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants Act will make it a criminal offence to provide immigration services without proper licensing, with up to $50,000 fine and up to 2 years in jail for those who dare.
Bill C-11, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act is finally approved by the House of Commons. It means that soon we can have new, more effective procedures of processing refugee cases. In particular, certain failed claimants would be removed from the country in just 4 months - compared to years it takes now it demonstrates the desired effectiveness of new procedures.
Under the latest joint CIC and HRSDC policy facilitating the stay for holders of Post-Graduation Work permits whose employment authorizations are about to expire while their permanent residence applications are being processed, the foreign workers’ current or prospective employers are allowed to apply for an LMO without proof of recruitment efforts provided that they intend to recruit them permanently. All other LMO criteria will apply as usual.
CIC has long been taking a stand of processing arranged employment case (either already in Canada or waiting to come to Canada) on a priority basis. Recently CIC announced that some temporary residence applications are to be given expedite processing and they are the following:
Ontario PNP has been recently changed to include PhD students under its umbrella. International PhD graduates who finished their studies with one of the Ontario’s publicly funded universities, may now apply for permanent residence in Canada via the Ontario PNP. The beauty of this sub-stream of the Ontario PNP is that an applicant does not have to have a job offer in order to qualify.
This seems to be a very clever way to retain these highly educated and bright individuals in the province.
