Prospects for immigration to Canada in 2020 remain at last year's level
Feature of the current moment
As Russian Toronto reminds in its editorial, federal elections were held in Canada in October 2019, in which the Liberal Party won again. True, it is difficult to call it a victory, since the win came with great difficulty, and as a result they lost some seats in parliament.
If in the previous period the Liberals had more than half of the seats in parliament, which gave them the opportunity to make any decisions without regard to other parties, now the situation is fundamentally different – according to the results of the 2019 elections, the Liberals held significantly less than half of the seats, so they have to seek support from other parties. And this is already quite difficult, since they have to make concessions and give something to these parties in return. Therefore, if the Liberals do anything in the field of immigration, it will only be the most necessary.
In addition, the topic of immigration in Canada has become extremely toxic, largely due to the actions of the Liberal government in the previous period. Undoubtedly, all politicians recognize the need to accept immigrants to fill labor shortages and rejuvenate an aging population, but overall, anti-immigrant sentiment has become strong in Canadian society in recent years, and all parties have to take this into account.
Given all of the above and the fact that the system is working quite well, the country is already accepting a record number of immigrants, there is no point for the government to do anything additional. If there are any changes, they will only be where the system fails and requires intervention. In particular, only one program currently requires such attention – it is the family sponsorship of parents.
Family sponsorship of parents
The main reason for all the difficulties of family sponsorship of parents is that there are far more people wishing to go through this program than there are spots allocated. The quota for this program is indeed quite small, only 10,000 people per year. However, even this number is a step forward compared to previous years, when the quota was only 5,000 people.
Obviously, when demand exceeds supply, it is impossible to find a formula acceptable to everyone, as there will always be those who are dissatisfied. In particular, initially there was a system where applications were placed in a queue. As a result, applicants waited for years, and the queue became longer and longer – in strict accordance with the school problem about a pool where more water flows in through one pipe than flows out through the other. This ended with lawsuits against the government due to unacceptably long processing times.
This system was replaced with a lottery. Those who did not win also filed lawsuits, and the government, to avoid trouble, abandoned this method of selecting applications. True, they could not come up with anything smarter than replacing the lottery with a “first-come, first-served” scheme. Applications were opened in the first days of January, everyone rushed to fill out applications online, and within 20 minutes the application period ended, as the limit of spots was completely filled in those 20 minutes. This predictably ended with lawsuits.
The government is now thinking hard about what else to propose, and while it reflects, it has taken a timeout, postponing the acceptance of applications in 2020 indefinitely.
Obviously, a solution that satisfies all applicants could be to allow everyone who wishes to go through family sponsorship, removing any quotas. However, no one will agree to such a decision – it would become too heavy a burden for Canadian healthcare and the pension system.
Another solution, which would satisfy the government, is to close this program. However, it is unlikely anyone will go for that either; it is too radical a decision. Even the Harper government, which repeatedly stated that sponsored parents are a big burden for Canada, did not dare to take such a step, let alone the Trudeau government.
As a working alternative, proposals have already been made to allow everyone to sponsor parents on the condition that parents cannot count on receiving pensions and will not have access to free medical services, and all expenses for their maintenance must be borne by the relatives who sponsored them. But it is unlikely anyone will decide on this option either.
Therefore, we can only wait for the government to find a way out of the current situation. At the same time, there is complete confidence that this time too they will not come up with anything worthwhile, since the problem about the pool and two pipes has only two solutions – shut off the inlet pipe or make the drain pipe very wide. And these options are not being considered yet.
Immigration of specialists
As for the immigration of qualified specialists, the government has no particular problems here. At both the federal and provincial levels, there is active recruitment of specialists, so that there is no need for intervention in the process. The fact that it has become more difficult for specialists to go through immigration does not bother the government much; rather the opposite, as it improves the quality of selection.
The fact is that what we warned about several years ago is now beginning to materialize. The main flow of specialists in recent years has been made up of graduates of Canadian universities and colleges; there are not many other real paths of immigration for specialists. They exist, but these are very narrow loopholes designed for certain categories of specialists, and the main flow of applicants cannot count on them.
After it became clear over time that only studying at Canadian colleges and universities provides real chances for immigration, the number of international students in Canadian educational institutions began to grow rapidly. This was bound to lead to a situation where the number of graduates would exceed the number of available spots, and some would be unlucky.
That moment has now arrived. In 2019, the cutoff score under the Express Entry selection system began to rise and is currently around 470 points, which is quite high. It is unlikely to decrease in 2020; rather, it will likely continue to rise. As a result, a significant percentage of graduates from Canadian educational institutions are losing the opportunity to immigrate.
Unfortunately, nothing can be done about this. Quotas will not be increased, and the number of applicants will only grow, so this is all predictable. The only options are to improve one's English and French, think about how to improve other parameters, or look for alternative programs, including provincial ones, that offer better chances of success.
Provincial Programs
As for provincial programs, minor changes can be expected. The government has announced that it plans to introduce a new program soon that will allow individual municipalities to select immigrants for themselves. In effect, the selection of immigrants is to be delegated not only to the provincial level but even lower, to the municipal level.
It is hard to say how justified this is, but it could become an additional opportunity for those who wish to immigrate to Canada but cannot qualify under federal or provincial programs. A total of about 5,000 spots are planned for this program. This is, of course, very few, especially since these spots will likely be taken from other programs for skilled workers—the total number of immigrants accepted per year remains unchanged.
Other Programs
There is also a possibility that this year the rule under which children born in Canada automatically receive Canadian citizenship may be abolished. This decision has been discussed for a long time, and sooner or later it will be adopted. It is quite possible that the time has come, as indicated by renewed debates on this topic in the Canadian press.
The situation with refugees remains unclear; the large influx in previous years became a problem for Canada and caused considerable irritation in Canadian society. Currently, this topic is being avoided, and it seems that refugees are no longer welcomed with open arms, rather the opposite.
However, if a new wave of violence begins in the Middle East, which seems to be heading that way, Canada will be forced to accept refugees from the war zone, and this could lead to a reduction in quotas for immigrants under other programs, including programs for skilled workers.
But these are purely hypothetical assumptions for now, so it makes no sense to discuss them seriously at this point. If we disregard this, overall, 2020 promises to be a calm year in terms of immigration.
These are perhaps all the changes to expect in Canada's immigration sphere in the new year.