Category Archives: News

Immigration News

News, Saskatchewan Immigration

Immigration spurs Saskatoon population boom

Saskatoon was one of the fastest growing cities in the country in 2013 thanks in large part to an influx of new international immigrants according to new data released by Statistics Canada.

With a grow rate of 3.9 per cent in 2013, the Saskatoon region fell just behind the Calgary region that had a rate of 4.3 per cent.

Saskatoon’s census metropolitan area — which includes the cities of Saskatoon, Martensville and Warman and large swaths of surrounding communities — grew by more than 11,000 people in 2013. The area now has a total population of 292,597, a boom lead largely by international immigration. Nearly half of newcomers to region were international immigrants. The region recorded the highest growth rate among international immigrants at a rate of 2.1 per cent.

In December last year, the Saskatoon Chamber of Commerce estimated the population of the greater Saskatoon area would have hit 300.000, but the new data says those estimates just fell short.

As for the city itself, internal estimates pegged the population at 246,300 people.

City of Saskatoon staff have been estimating a growth rate of at least 2.5 per cent per year as they chart a path for the city’s future growth. At that rate, the city would hit a population of 1 million by 2072.

Regina’s CMA had a growth rate of 3.1 per cent or an increase of 7,100 during the same period, bringing that area’s total population to 232,100

Canadian Investors Immigration, News

Asians looking away from Canada

Tens of thousands of Chinese and Asian citizens may have to find a new destination for their wealth after the Canadian government announced its intention to end its immigrant investor programme.

The Canadian federal Immigrant Investor Program provided limited economic benefit to the country, according to a news release on the website of the Canadian embassy in Beijing.

Research shows that immigrant investors pay less in taxes than other economic immigrants, are less likely to stay in Canada over the medium- to long-term and often lack the skills, including official language proficiency, to integrate as well as other immigrants from the same countries, it said.

“Our government is focused on attracting experienced business people and raising investment capital that will contribute to our economic success over the long term,” said Chris Alexander, Canada’s Citizenship and Immigration Minister. “Our government will continue to focus on economic immigration programs that make sense for Canada by ensuring our economic and labour market needs are being met now and into the future.”

The immigrant investor programme, which granted permanent residency to those who committed C$800,000 to a five-year zero-interest loan, was very popular among wealthy Chinese people.

The programme will be replaced with a new Immigrant Investor Venture Capital Fund, which will require immigrants to invest money, rather than just loan it.

Hong Kong media reported that Citizenship and Immigration Canada said that the investor queue stood at 65,000, and 70 per cent of the backlog as of January 2013 was Chinese, suggesting about 45,500 mainlanders will have their applications scrapped.

Canada has been a popular country for Chinese migrants since Ottawa largely opened its immigration policy to people from the Chinese mainland in 1996, and China has became the largest source of immigrants and international students in Canada, according to a report by the Center for China and Globalization released in late January.

The number of Chinese migrants globally was more than 9.3 million in 2013, nearly 2.3 times the figure 23 years ago, it reported.

However, Canada’s immigration policy changes have caused a lot of Chinese to lose their interest in the country.

“We have closed our Canadian sector, as it (the Canadian government) has cancelled or suspended some investment programs for immigration in the past two years,” said Gao Jia, a counselor with Globevisa, a Beijing-based immigration agency.

Wu Hongjie, a property specialist from Kingston Property Consulting in Beijing, said the new rule would not have much impact on Chinese purchasing Canadian properties, according to a report in Singapore.

“Chinese citizens are able to gain a 10-year multiple-entry visa to Canada, so citizenship is not that important as travel is very flexible between the two countries. Many Chinese clients are interested in small apartments in Canada as accommodation for their work, or for their children’s Canadian education, which will not be influenced much by immigration policies,” she said.

Canadian Investors Immigration, News

Why has Canada given up competing for immigrant investors?

One of the budget items that received little attention was the termination of the 25-year-old Immigrant Investor Program (IIP). It was the flagship immigration tool that specifically focused on attracting global entrepreneurs and investors to Canada.

The program was “suspended” some two years ago for study. Many, myself included, were thus hoping for the program’s resurrection, as a more effective and strengthened version. Instead, the budget announced its obituary.

I believe this decision was a missed opportunity, and this view should not be seen as partisan concern. After all, the IIP was established by the Mulroney Conservative administration and under the Chrétien government, during which time I served as Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, we further developed the program.

No, my regret is about squandering our leadership in this sector.

We were the very first country to establish such a program. Now, more than 20 countries have copied and adopted our model, and the list will continue to grow, since the economy growth is the priority-one issue for all governments and the labour market continues to be increasingly mobile. Just when this concept is really taking off globally, and when demand has never been higher, our government abandons this policy ground. Why give up on competing for investors who can add to our economic vitality?

It is not as if our intake of immigrants is being overwhelmed by the investor class. At best, the number of investors represents only 2-3 per cent of the roughly 250,000 immigrants that annually enter our country.

Apparently, the government’s rationale was about ending “abuse.” If there were shortcomings, it is incumbent to fix the problems and tighten the criteria. Absolutely no disagreements here. But why throw the baby out with the bath water? Moreover, if ending programs is the way to address government abuse, then how many federal programs would have to be axed?

If the government had concerns, then it should have consulted extensively, in an effort to address these problem areas, and seek out better ideas and practices. But there was no meaningful dialogue. The government failed to recognize that in developing sound public policy, how you do it is as important as what you do.

I fully admit that the IIP was not perfect (what program is?) But if the government thought the investment amount was too low, then they could have proposed an increase. Most stakeholders were actually anticipating and supportive of a higher threshold. Indeed, Canada would be worth every extra penny!

In addition, if they thought that residency was being undervalued, then deepen the commitments.

If they wanted the program to deliver additional economic heft, then introduce innovations to target new national or regional economic priorities.

Rather than refocusing and reinvigorating the program, it was turfed, all without providing any economic analysis. Did the ministers of Finance and Immigration, for example, examine and quantify the impact of the collective investments; or tabulate the additional consumer expenditures that these high net worth individuals made, or the contributions that their children are making to our nation? In the budget document, the Finance Minister took less than one page to explain his decision, with reasoning that is rather weak and speculative.

And to add insult to injury, the budget purports to replace the IIP with an undefined “pilot” project. Talk about ending with a bang and restarting with a whimper.

The truth is that Harper government, for whatever reasons, was never comfortable with this program. Perhaps they found it easier to pit a few well-to-do immigrant investors with a “jumping the line” argument, against the many more modest independent or family class immigrants. They don’t worry about other provinces now aiming for Quebec, which was allowed to continue its unique investor program. And when you examine the new Citizenship Bill they introduced, the government clearly devalues the standing of Canadians living abroad, some 3 million strong, and thus pits them against fellow citizens living at home.

Perhaps we should not be too surprised. Wedge, populist politics has been a main staple of the Harper school of governance, but it is a divisive and unhealthy way of running a country.

Trying to attract global investors and talent is a highly competitive game, and Canada needs to play in the big leagues. This budget decision should have been about enhancing economics and not advancing Tea Party politics. Pity.

Sergio Marchi served as Minister of Citizenship and Immigration from 1994 to 1996 in the government of Jean Chrétien.

News, Quebec Immigration

Quebec immigration bill would create uncertainty

February 26th, 2014

Quebec’s Bill 71, introduced in the National Assembly last week to change the province’s 1968 immigration law, would be unfair and create uncertainty for those who want to emigrate to Canada, says immigration lawyer Mitchell Brownstein.
According to the proposed law, those who want to come to Quebec must send an “expression of interest” to the immigration ministry, and those who are eligible are placed in a bank to be considered. The government is saying the processing time for potential immigrants would be reduced to two years as opposed to up to five years.
Brownstein, who is also a Côte St. Luc councillor, said that in Bill 71, “for the first time ever, they’re saying they can retroactively refuse files.
“They’re saying they’ll be able to take people’s processing fees when they submit an application for immigration — the government says it’s going to be faster — and in the time they decide to process the file, they can [later] decide that this person is no longer in demand based on his occupation, even though at the time he applied, he was in demand. They can just say ‘no’ and send back his money.
“This doesn’t give anybody any certainty whether they’re eligible for immigration or not, which is a really bad thing,” he added. “When they accept a file, and the person’s occupation is in demand, they should process it within a reasonable time, so they can get here while the occupation’s still in demand. It shouldn’t take them five, four or three years.”
Brownstein pointed out, as have media reports, that there is a backlog in Quebec of 80,000 files and the government is claiming the process is currently taking up to five years.
“That’s ridiculous, they’re just not managing their inventory properly,” he said. “They have a large backlog because they’re accepting too many files or they don’t have enough staff to process the files in the various Quebec delegations around the world. If they want to accept that many files, they need more staff. If they want to accept less files, then they should accept less files. But they shouldn’t take people’s processing fees — they’re on a track and waiting, and to then be in a position, that later on, they could just be told no, they’re not eligible, that’s just not right.”
Brownstein said a similar situation took place on the federal level in 2001, when immigration rules were changed with the effect that most of 300,000 clients would not be eligible to emigrate to Canada, and that those who had applied would just be sent back their money.
“At our office, we had 125 files, and 72 of them authorized us to take the files to a Federal Court judge to send an order of mandamus (a judicial remedy) to the Canadian consulate where their files were being processed, to ensure that the files would be reviewed and they would be called to an interview before the date the law was to come into effect. We won that case.
“Our clients, two days later, received  letters from the embassies, were called for an interview and they were either accepted or refused — 98 percent were accepted. But then the law came into play, and it was similar to the Quebec bill. It was going to be retroactive, so a group of 70 lawyers across Canada formed a class action and took the federal government to court, and settled with them. They decided to allow the  300,000 clients to be considered based on the old and new laws, whatever was more favourable to them.”
Brownstein said governments have the right to apply retroactivity, but it should be done in a reasonable way.
“If the rules of play are being put into the law before the candidate applies, it wouldn’t be deemed unconstitutional, it would be acceptable. It’s not fair, it’s not properly treating people making plans for a future life, but it’s legal.
“It’s a sad day for immigration, because it’s showing there’s less respect for individuals coming to this country.”
Another aspect of Bill 71 is establishing francization as a guiding principle for immigration to Quebec.
“I don’t think that’s anything so new,” Brownstein said. “They’re just putting it into the law. They’ve been doing it for years. I don’t think it’s great because they’re not necessarily getting the best immigrants for this province by insisting they pass a French test, and come here with a high score on the test. They’d be better off bringing the most qualified individuals, all of whom can learn French.
“By limiting immigration to Quebec to individuals who come from French countries, you’re really limiting your pool and not getting the best out there.”

News

Canada to make immigrants wait four years for citizenship

Canada’s immigration minister, Chris Alexander, has introduced legislation in the Canadian parliament that would increase the required residency period before immigrants could apply for citizenship to four years from the current three years.
Mr Alexander announced the bill at a press conference at Fort York in Toronto, the site of a historic battle between Canada and the United States in 1812. He said that the bill would ‘increase, reinforce the value of Canadian citizenship which we all sense but which needs to be renewed in every generation’.
The bill would also quadruple the cost of a Canadian citizenship application from $75 to $300 and massively increase the maximum penalty for ‘residency fraud’ from $1,000 to $100,000.

Residency fraud

Residency fraud is committed when a foreign national creates falsified evidence that he is resident in Canada while, in fact, continuing to live elsewhere. In order to qualify for citizenship, a foreign national with permanent resident status must currently be able to show that he or she has resided in Canada for three years (1,095 days) in the last four years.
Canadian immigration has been concerned that some people with permanent residence visas, particularly from the Middle East, continued to live in their home countries and paid agents to create bogus records showing them to be resident in Canada.
In 2012, former immigration minister Jason Kenney announced that over 3,000 people would have their Canadian citizenship revoked when it became clear that when applying for citizenship they had faked evidence to show that they were spending more time in Canada than was actually the case.

Falsified documentation

Mr Kenney said that some Canadian immigration consultants were providing falsified documentation showing receipts for living expenses, household bills and so forth to be used in citizenship applications.
The bill would also make Canadian language and citizenship tests considerably harder and extend the requirement to take a language test to all applicants up to the age of 64. Currently, those over 54 are exempt.
Mr Alexander said that the measures would ‘strengthen the value of citizenship’ and added that Canadian citizenship is ‘our most precious commodity’.

‘A weighty privilege that bestows both duties and rights’

He said ‘We want new citizens to embrace our rich culture and values and feel compelled to remain active members of Canadian society. Canadian citizenship is uniquely valuable in the world, a weighty privilege that bestows both duties and rights, opportunities and responsibilities’.
Canada’s main opposition party, the New Democratic Party has said that the measures ‘will require serious study’ before they support them and expressed a concern that the government might be ‘playing politics’ with the issue.
Canada’s other opposition party; the Liberals, welcomed the increased residency requirement.

Citizen of convenience

John McCallum of the Liberal Party said ‘I do agree with the principle that when a person becomes a citizen of Canada, that person should be a real citizen and not a citizen of convenience’.
The bill will also include measures to extend Canadian citizenship to the ‘Lost Canadians’ who despite having lived in Canada throughout most of their lives and having been born to Canadian parents, do not have citizenship because they were born overseas.