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CANADA-2015: FOCUS ON SKILLED WORKERS
Family Sponsorship
The family sponsorship category is allocated 24.4% of the total quota. Priority will continue to be given to family reunification, meaning faster processing and issuance of visas for sponsored spouses and children. Under this category, 68,000 immigration visas are planned to be issued in 2015.
The possibility of sponsoring parents is also retained. For them, a quota of 20,000 immigration visas is allocated for 2015. Unfortunately, this is not very many, especially given that the government's main efforts are aimed at reducing the backlog of applications. It is expected that by the end of 2015, the number of unprocessed applications will decrease by 70%. In practice, this means that the quota for accepting new applications for parent sponsorship will likely remain very small.
It must be said that everything related to this program is extremely painful for those who would like to bring their parents to Canada. The government's attitude toward this program is negative, since it brings in people who provide no economic benefit to Canada and, on the contrary, require additional costs for medical and social services.
The Canadian government cannot completely close this program. Therefore, limited quotas have been introduced. These quotas are filled very quickly, after which acceptance is closed until the beginning of the next year. In practice, this means that only a small fraction of those who would like to sponsor their parents have the opportunity to do so.
It is not entirely clear how the ministry plans to solve this problem. For now, of course, there is the Super Visa, issued to parents for 10 years, but it does not provide many of the benefits that Canadian permanent residents enjoy. In particular, parents arriving on a Super Visa do not have the opportunity to work legally in Canada.
Business Programs
What is currently unclear, and about which Chris Alexander said not a word, is the fate of the business programs. After the federal Investor and Entrepreneur programs were closed in June 2014, the government has remained silent on all discussions about what will be offered in their place.
Against the backdrop of other countries actually expanding immigration programs to attract investors, the persistent ignoring of this topic by Citizenship and Immigration Canada seems at least strange.
Incidentally, judging by publications in the Canadian press, the only active federal immigration business program, the Start-Up Visa, which began accepting applications on April 1, 2013, is showing results far from what was expected. Despite a quota of 2,750 immigration visas allocated for 2014, only 2 people under one project have gone through it so far, and another 15-20 projects are under review. Based on this data, it seems that this program, widely advertised by the former head of the immigration department Jason Kenney and positioned by him as absolutely innovative, has failed, like all his other initiatives.
I recall that when this program was introduced, I expressed my doubts that it would be successful. I wrote: "Obviously, innovative ideas are a niche product, and not all of them become commercially successful. More precisely, only a small percentage of such ideas bring success. Therefore, it is difficult to count on a mass influx of bright individuals with ideas that will later turn into successful commercial ventures. Investors who risk their money must be careful in choosing startups, and it is completely unclear whether they will actively participate in this program" (full text of the article: Start-Up Visa for New Bill Gates). Which is exactly what we are now observing.
Obviously, for the Start-Up Visa program to truly work, it requires serious changes, and indeed radical changes in the very scheme of selecting holders of innovative ideas.
One might also add that closing the previously well-functioning federal Investor and Entrepreneur programs, with no replacement at all, can also be considered a serious shortcoming of the current leadership of the immigration department.
Conclusion
If we sum up the announcement made by Canadian Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Chris Alexander, the new elements primarily include an increase in quotas, with two-thirds of them allocated to the economic stream.
Given that virtually all immigration programs in the economic stream have cleared their backlogs of applications awaiting processing, since 2015 a unique situation has emerged for those who meet the requirements of one of the economic block programs. In fact, it means that from 2015, doors to Canada are once again wide open for skilled workers.
In my memory, this last happened ten years ago and lasted about five years. It appears that we are again at the beginning of a new cycle of active admission of immigrants to Canada from among skilled workers. Therefore, I strongly recommend that everyone thinking about immigration take the emerging opportunities seriously.
This is especially timely in connection with the situation in Russia and Ukraine. Without delving into an analysis of who is right and who is wrong in the current situation, the following can be stated. Russia finds itself in international isolation, with an extremely negative attitude towards it from virtually all countries that have influence on the world stage. Given the militarization of the economy, the emergence of new expenditure items in the form of Crimea and Donbas, the decline in energy prices and Russia's exclusion from European markets, the deterioration of the business and investment climate within the country, further deterioration of the economic situation in Russia is simply inevitable. It is also clear that this will last a long time.
2014 has already been a record year for Russia in terms of the number of people who have left the country. There is little doubt that in the coming years this trend will only increase, until the Russian government puts a barrier to those leaving, and that is only a matter of time.
Therefore, the emerging opportunities for immigration to Canada for young professionals are extremely important, first of all, for residents of Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, where in the coming years the situation will only worsen in all areas.
Elena RYABININA.
«Russian Toronto»