The Future of Immigration in Canada 2024

welcome back to another episode of the Canadian immigration podcast I'm Mark Hy and this is my Fearless comper Alicia Bachman be how are you Alicia I'm doing well Mark we're we're running with all hands on deck these days indeed it is a very very busy time within our practice and within immigration including our dear Minister Miller and some of the decisions he's making and the future of basically immigration in Canada there's this is a real Turning Point especially as we close in on an election and uh you know whether or not immigration itself is going to become some kind of a wedge issue in that election but the minister right now has made a number of different announcements one of them if I flip my screen over here for those who are watching this through the YouTube channel um yesterday uh Actually March 21st he had delivered a speech which just got released the speaking notes recently um on some of the intentions the rationale what they're planning on doing and I'll be honest Alicia this really really looks like they're plan to rip the Band-Aid off and uh and today what we're going to do you guys is we're just going to go through kind of a list of our our Not Top 10 but just some key takeaways that you absolutely need to know and understand as you plan your future and whether or not one you you even decide to come to Canada or two what your options are and what you can do now to position yourself to hopefully get one of those precious spots for permanent residence and I guess three even on the whole temporary residence side where we're at with that whole world of temporary residence that's work permits study permits and where the minister is headed so that's what we're going to talk about today all right let's slide over here Alicia and um right off the bat the first one on our list is the breakdown of the TR numbers by category so do you want to share with the the listeners and the viewers um where we're at right now in terms of the breakdown of of of temporary residence in Canada and this is one of the reasons I thought that Minister Miller's speech was so interesting was because we can see that they are analyzing this and they're looking at what they're going to be doing for the rest of this year and and for next year and so they have taken a look and they said well wait a minute our temporary residents numbers so just like Mark said anybody who's here on a work permit anybody who's here as a visitor anybody here who's here on a visitor status so that could be an actual visitor record or it could be you know you've you've just come in and you're visiting if you're a US citizen or something like that where your Visa exempt so they've taken a look and they see a huge amount of different categories of people who are not under the levels plan right because the levels plan only looks at permanent residents and they're saying okay where are we at on temporary residents so they said right now we've got temporary resident numbers 42% are international students so we have this giant amount of temporary residents who are here on study permits as International students the next thing is they have a fairly small amount 9% here on under the temporary foreign worker program so this is anybody whose employer has gone and received an lmia and then the person has applied for an employer specific lmia based work permit 44% and that's a big umbrella number this is going to be anybody who's under the international Mobility Program so not under the temporary for worker program with an lmia it's somebody who has an lmia exemption it includes a lot of different people so that's your postgrad work permit holders spousal work permits for students or workers people under uh IEC programs people under caet so the kuet Ukrainian Pathways there's a lot of different folks that are falling under this 44% umbrella and then they give you a further breakdown so 26% are postgraduate permit holders so people who've completed their studies then have applied and were in an eligible program for a pgwp 9% are spouses of students and so we'll talk about this really soon because we know that that number is going to start shrinking drastically 10% are part of reciprocal exchanges so IEC and if you would ask me I don't think immigration can really reduce that figure because it's reciprocal with another country so those youth exchange programs those are probably going to be okay because it's a bilateral International agreement 12% spouses of skilled workers and hopefully those will also not be cut because it's somebody who has to have proven that they are working the principal applicant is working and then the spouse proves that they are coming um one thing Alicia I want to point out with this is they could very well re like uh one of the things one of the areas where I could see them um changing this is moving it back to to high skill workers so spouses of of anyone at a tier three or higher are the only ones eligible they could easily do that because it was only recently that they expanded it to include spouses of all uh work from at holders you know who had job offers so it would not surprise me at all if if low wage or low skill individuals are are um not going to be able to bring their spouses but we'll see because again that's just a a temporary policy right so they just allowed that recently but you're right Mark they could take it away so it might only be high-skilled or high wage workers who have a job and are working in Canada that have the ability to bring their spouse under an open spousal work permit 26% arrivals I think this is now going to get clamped down upon as well because we're looking at people who are coming under CET visas or other humanitarian Pathways and it says that number is growing and whenever immigration looks and they see a a stream that's starting to grow significantly and they are wanting to clamp down there's probably going to be adjustments that they're going to make for that and then we've got 177% interc company transfers trade agreements those ones those are largely labor market driven and everything that we're hearing from the minister is they want to tie those temporary figures the temporary residents in Canada they want to make sure whoever's here temporarily there is a darn good economic reason for them to be here and so I don't think they're going to be touching the that are Canadian and us or International and Canadian that are moving employees back and forth so and then the last one is Asylum Seekers and that's a 5 % on the Asylum Seekers which you know Minister Miller is talking about what's going on globally and it is possible that the that Asylum Seeker figure might decrease as well Alicia are you surprised that the temporary foreign worker program only comprises nine% of this total allotment I I was actually quite surprised with this and um you know and I guess when you're looking at overall work permit numbers you know that that is you know if we were just looking at that it would be different because International students you know it's almost you know it's a massive number 42% um but but this is a number that I was actually quite surprised and then as we will get into it the minister has talked about their intentions very quietly with the temporary foreign worker program yeah and I was trying to do some digging because I was trying to figure out where this was announced and it it doesn't seem to have been announced for the temporary foreign worker program but we'll we'll get to that it's it's it's in the fine print within each of the individual Pages yes all right let's talk about these International students Alicia so there's been lots of discussion it was a little over two months ago I guess when the minister I guess dropped the hammer and said look we need to reduce by at least a third the total numbers we know that Ontario and and British Columbia are going to be the hardest hit but I think was Nova Scotia on that list I can't remember there's one other province that was likely to expect a reduction in numbers um but for international students this is a you know they've implemented lots of measures including increasing the minimum funds that you need to be able to study in Canada and uh you know and to a large extent even restricting the the number of schools that are going to be eligible for postgrad work permits and um and putting caps overall but uh you know do you want to touch on this now yeah and maybe Mark you can actually pull up eer from our firm wrote a really great article on what's Happening for international students and specifically with the restrictions on International students their spouses are not now going to be eligible for open spousal work permits which is going to reduce how many people want to come here and also it's going to reduce immigration's overall numbers on that so just like you mentioned Mark there's an overall cap for international students that cap is now going to be allocated amongst the provinces so every province is now going to have a certain allocation of study permits that they can then divvy up amongst the designated learning institutions within their Province so basically the federal government is trying to mandate that the schools that are getting those study permit allocations are ones that are credible that are schools that are of a high caliber and that are not just um I guess he said the equivalent of puppy mills for turning out diplomas or degrees so now there's basically a reduction in how many people can get study permits within that Province and within that school and so now we have these provincial attestation letters these Pals that have to go out so Iger wrote this article about you know also what's going to happen for study permits uh open spousal work permits associated with the principal applicant study permit so now you can't just get an open spousal work permit unless you are coming on a Masters or PhD or you are in one of these professions so dentists lawyers doctors optometrists pharmacists vets uh nurses people who have Bachelors of educations or engineering so if the principal applicants in there only in those cases can the spouse apply for an open spousal work permit so that's a big shift um the other thing that's shifting is that they wanted to crack down on public private partnership schools and they had said that they were going to not allow postgrad work permits from public private partnership schools as of September 2024 they just put a news release out in the last few days saying oh actually we're moving that up and it's going to be May so as of May 2024 it is no longer going to be an eligible postgrad work permit program if it's a public private partnership which is a big deal so those are some of the key changes that are happening for international students right now one of the things I want to point out is some comments that the minister made and uh let me just I'll just share this quickly this just came out I didn't get a chance to listen to the whole thing here but he did appeared on a private podcast this you know this channel that's got a whopping 668 subscribers I'm sure they had a reason for doing it here but essentially this uh this message that the minister has posted um the immigration Minister on cutting immigration uh one of the very interesting comments he made once again is you know that schools need to be prepared and there was some discussions about how the schools were blindsided and he said no that's garbage like they knew since Fraser Minister Fraser that that we were going to have to do something about this and that now they need to basically um what did he describe it as a come to Jesus moment and realize that you as a school you may have to reduce your programs you're going to have to tighten the tighten your belt you're going to have to look at um focusing on programs that are going to be contributing and producing you know um uh workers for the workforce essentially and uh and so he said to the to the schools that look we're going to watch what you're doing even you graduate schools because right now a master's PhD um those programs are not subject to caps and he said um that if they're not happy with how the schools are are you know bringing everything um um you know tightening up their belt and and and reing in the programs um that they are going to do even more drastic measures in the fall and he said they will have an announcement which I'll be honest Alicia I don't think they believe the schools are actually going to do it or be able to do it I personally feel like they're going to roll something out in the fall once again to further tighten things and does it have something to do with an election yeah I think it does does it have a lot to do with our economy yeah it does and the housing yes and everything else and they've really taken it on the chin lately because of the you know the fact that they did not track uh temporary resent numbers at least in terms of caps like they do for permanent residents and so now they're realizing and this is something else they've talked about is that they're going to now Institute these kind of levels planning for temporary residents which only makes sense it makes sense to do that so schools are you you guys need to be on alert because the the the way the minister is talking here he's clearly giving the impression at least to me that uh you know that that he doesn't believe you're actually going to be able to deliver on what they want you to do and if that's the case we are likely going to expect further restrictions and I could even see in terms of spousal open work permits and things like that which are also um still eligible for Master's PhD and like we looked at in in Igor's blog uh that uh that he could easily reduce those as well as a further disincentive for for people to come and the goal once again uh and I'll actually I'll share one other thing here um that from the speaking notes and I think you may have alluded to this before Alicia but you know Minister there's a reason in his speaking notes he addressed is this employment is 1.2 million uh jobs above it's pre-co great but the unemployment rate is at 5.8% as of February 2024 we've done better than recover all the jobs lost during Co and now at 130% uh of that number and so they're they're you know they're doing good but they still recognize that you know there's still people that are looking for jobs and with a market that's saturated with open work permit holders and things like that you know they're they have to listen and uh if the general population in Canada is whether it's real or perceived has certain perceptions you cannot dissociate these decisions from the fact there's an election coming up and and so people need to be aware of that yeah and they have we've heard Rumblings Mark and we'll have to see how this plays out as well but of course the federal government is working closely with the provincial governments and so they are talking more and more about streamlining their temporary resident numbers to economic goals and that's going to mean p PPS right so the pnps are looking at this and they talk about that and so you know most of this is fairly Bleak but we do have a little bit of array of hope that's coming later in this um sequence of of high points but one thing that might be the downside is that we've heard Rumblings from some of the pnps that there's probably going to be tightening on eligibility for certain PNP streams that are linked to education programs within the province So currently many provinces have programs where like it's an international student student stream or you've gone to the school in that Province graduated with at least a 2-year degree from an eligible institution and then you can apply for P&P well we've heard Rumblings that a two-year diploma or certificate program is no longer going to cut the mustard and they're looking at restricting that to potentially a full bachelor's degree so we'll have to see how that rolls out as well but for sure changes with with schools and students so Mark do you want to turn to the the next high point that we're going to cover quickly here all right okay quet Visa holders and uh this is one that um the minister has has addressed very clearly and the reality is Canada as he's indicated would not be um too happy if we just said look all of you quit Visa holders with work permits you can no longer extend and once your work permits expire then you have to go home and you know as well as I do Alicia that there are very few Pathways currently for quet Visa holders to become permanent residents in Canada and uh and there if the if the war you know in Ukraine is not resolving within the near future um I would be very very surprised uh to see the the department not extend and offer an ability to extend these these work permits for people that are in Canada and you know if I slip back here to the messaging you can see they talk about the fact that with all of the 300,000 arrivals in Canada by essentially by the end of this month that's what they expect in Canada they have important Global commitments right and they say here they're the commitments are important to Canadians and Canadians should not be abashed and and you know should should unabashedly be proud of this at the same time there should be an honest conversation about what what the rise in international migration means for Canada as we plan ahead so I think they're saying look we are in a situation now and we're going to get this in one of our later bullet points but with with respect to the quet Visa holders we're committed to these people and so the ones that we've committed to we're going to support and we're going to continue to facilitate but we're going to maybe give a little sober second thought as to as to you know instituting any large scale um programs like we have with no caps uh in in you know in these types of uh circumstances so um so I don't know what if you have any thoughts Alicia do you think they're going to create a separate PR program for quet Visa holders or or do you think they're going to hold off on that aside from the family the family program that's that's in existence now for for you know for individuals who have family in Canada yeah like they might hold off on it because I don't know if they're G to have room in their their Federal levels plan for PRS if they create a new category for ukrainians and so I'm I'm guessing that they're hoping that if they extend the kuet work permit long enough you know over the next so some people have here for a couple years and if they extend it for another 3 years right now people could have extended up until the end of the month for another 3 years so hopefully these people who are currently in Canada have at least three years and if they can start to get their Canadian work experience up if they can start to get their English up I'm guessing that they're hoping there will be some way to scoop um from Canadian residents who have Canadian work permits so it remains to be seen if there will be a specific PR program for all ukrainians but there is simply the family one right now so hopefully if you are Ukrainian make sure that you are increasing your language skills English is so important to make sure that you can get those clb levels that would make you qualify for Express entry so try to get clb5 for everything to qualify for C and make sure you get your one-year Canadian work experience so I do want to talk list yeah I do want to talk about lmia restrictions because this is something that just got slipped in there and you'd have to dig down and go to lmia validity periods and you will notice that during covid lmia validity periods were actually 18 months so a company could apply for their lmia if they had an approved lmia the validity would be 18 months meaning that a worker can submit their work permit application anytime within those 18 months it doesn't mean that the work permit duration is 18 months so just keep those two things in mind but what happened with the restrictions is quietly last fall um or the end of the year last year they turned that 18-month period into a 12month period and then very quietly as of beginning of May May 1st 2024 that six that 12-month period is going to go to a six-month period And so this is significant uh because it will mean that companies have to be very very spot-on on their recruitment they have to have whoever they want for those lmas some of the companies have had bulk lmas where they just have you know five unnamed workers and they can slot in the employees as they find them it's going to mean that they have to be quick on the Recruitment and so that any time they get somebody who's approved on that lmia that person has to submit their work permit within the six-month window otherwise that spot is gone the lmia they'll just lose it and it does force employers to make sure that they are carefully timing their recruitment efforts and they have rolling lmas if if they need to have ongoing Recruitment and right now like we can see that they're they're posting low wage stream business days processing I I'll be honest Alicia I don't know how accurate these are they say for February 2024 we're into March because I've got one myself that is we're over 120 days you know calendar days but we've blown past this so this is we just we just yeah we just submitted an lmia with a corporate client on the 15th of March and they haven't even requested payment yet and that's unusual so normally as soon as you submit your online lmia within a day usually you get a payment request and they haven't even gotten the payment request they called the call center and they said well there's nothing even on file so you know lmas are definitely slowing down and that might be a product yeah yeah and this is what happens you guys when the government says we're going to reduce the number of temporary residents one of the tools they have in their in their tool toolbx is to simply not process as many applications which then results in longer cues and when you have longer cues people then decide to self- select in other words well it isn't worth applying if it takes five months to get this work permit you know as a foreign National and I'm choosing whether to come to Canada or the us or Australia and I can get a job offer from say Australia and I'm just throwing this out in an example I don't know if this is the case but I can get my permit in a month and it's going to take five months in Canada which job am I going to take so processing times lead to that self- selection every bit as much for for temporary residence as it does for permanent residents as well and the other thing on lmia restrictions that's important is that again as of May they are changing the low wage cap figures and so for lmas there's of course High wage streams and low wage streams and anybody who's on a a low wage stream lmia application it used to be that there the cap um most of the time it's 20% sometimes it's 30% but certain industries were allowed to have 30% caps because they were chronic shortages now they are reducing the number of industries that can benefit from that 30% cap so right now you can see we've got a number of industries that can have a 30% cap um s a 20% cap but they are going to say it was 20 it it could be 30 for these industries now only these industries are going to have so instead of having like a list of seven we're going to have a list of three only construction hospitals nursing and Residential Care Facilities will be able to have the 30% everybody else is stuck with the 20% of their Workforce so this is important too because it means that they are really squeezing uh which Industries can have higher percentages of low wage workers all right possible restrictions for humanitarian and Asylum we hinted at this a little bit Alicia but you know The Minister's been clear um where where where do you see things going yeah and so in the speaking notes from the minister they're talking about climate change refugees they're talking about global um humanitarian disasters war and they are saying well you know we have to have some sort of reasoned linkage to who we're bringing in on our economic requirements as well and so the interesting thing and I think this is a positive development is that they are trying to do things like the EMP the economic Mobility pathway for refugees and so they're trying to link um internationally recognized refugees people who are overseas and already recognized as a refugee with Employers in Canada and then bringing them in under this EMP stream which then sets It Up For Less um less Asylum seekers in Canada or Refugee seekers in Canada but people who are already determined to be refugees basically being placed with eligible Employers in Canada often also within rural programs so you have communities who are saying yeah we're ready willing and able to have spots for these people within an economic program which has hopefully better better settlement outcomes but of course Canada has International obligations to taking in a certain number of refugees and so this is this is something that has to be negotiated with International Partners as well right okay what has ircc done so far obviously we've covered quite a bit of this to this point um but uh but you know where where where are we seeing the Focus right now in in trying to reduce yeah so if they're looking at reducing Asylum seekers in particular one of the big things they've done that we didn't touch on yet was they made partial visa requirements for Mexican citizens and so that's pretty large because they were doing analysis of what are the source countries for Refugee claims and Mexico was fairly high on that list and so right away they put on a Visa requirement or a partial Visa requirement for Mexican citizens and that is going to have trickle effects in terms of who's coming in as a temporary resident um potentially who the Asylum SE or Refugee claimant numbers or where those are coming from and they've also you know they could also do that on other countries so they could say look we've got a number of Asylum Seekers coming from country XYZ we're going to start putting more restrictions on in terms of who can come whether we're having Visa approvals from those countries right they can start being more stringent in terms of their criteria so that's something that definitely is um is probably going to affect next year's outcomes and numbers all right speaking of next year speaking of the future where do you see things going so I think everything is going to now be tied policy-wise to what is the economic outcome so who is going to be able to support that person's work in Canada so I think hopefully employers Canadian employers who can really demonstrate that they met a labor market need that they tested the labor market through advertising and recruitment they can't find somebody they can apply for an lmia but I think there's going to be higher scrutiny around even lmas because there has been some rumbling of fraud that people have been especially because it's so competitive with Express entry right now those 50 arranged employment points are gold and so it seems like Bad actors have been exploiting the temporary forign program to get an lmia and then turning around and charging employees to say they have a job offer which is completely illegal and I would hope that the department sees that you know that is clear fraud they need to do better enforcement and cut down on the fraud but it shouldn't throw the baby out with the bath water you shouldn't be penalizing all Canadian employers because a couple people are being fraudulent so um it will however mean that everybody that the federal government is going to be working with the provincial governments they are going to be looking carefully at all of their programs to try to rein things in because we know their overall Target for levels planning is to go from a temporary resident number of 6.2% to 5% 5% yeah and as we see here Alicia from the minister speaking notes he talks about ensuring you know a robust Pathway to PR for those wishing to make Canada their home in the long term avoid the pitfalls in an economy built solely on temporary workers and I think that's what they're seeing now and and the reason they're seeing that is because they've got all of these International students that are here and they themselves Alicia remember issued those 18month work permit um those temporary policies for postgrad work permits how many times did they do it one two people were waiting for a third reup and so they've contributed to it and when it comes to permanent residence if you then have way way more temporary workers who are all looking to become permanent resents well companies then are going to do what they can to keep them temporarily because they're filling you know a position within their within their company and so but this is very telling right here this paragraph it means not only setting targets for PR like we talked about but also for temporary residents and whenever that Target is set that means that unless you have a true cap on the program processing times will increase for everything that's the that's the the the um the choke point with temporary resident applications unless they put a hard cap and just don't accept new applications so he said starting this fall for the first time we will expand the immigration levels plan to include both temporary resident arrivals and PR arrivals the latter category something we're doing already yes they are so this is and this is where I think Alicia the minister already has his mindset on what he's going to be doing with International students and I personally think that regardless I don't think the schools are going to satisfy whatever the minister in you know envisions and that when they roll out these levels plans in the fall there is going to be a little bit more of a surprise for schools when they realize that they're going to further cap and further reduce even for professional schools that's my that's my view but you know obviously we don't know and this is speculation but this sure seems like it it sure seems like that's the direction they're going to go and Mark I think after all this we should turn to the one bright point um so the one point bright point in all of this is you know Minister Miller so if you if you go down we can look at exactly what he said but he said you know as part of our efforts for temporary residents to transition to permanent residency we will have more domestic draws so on that paragraph that starts with on the other hand on another hand at the bottom of the page there yeah so halfway through that paragraph he says as part of our efforts we will have more domestic draws for us so I assume the federal government and ask provinces and territories taking part in the PNP to do the same with their allocations now to me this means CC draws right like do a c only draw make sure that you have some sort of way of bringing in and giving a chance to those who are currently sitting in Canada to transition to PR yeah which we've talked about like you and I every time we go live on our live Q&A which we're going to be going live after the recording of this um we've talked about the fact that they have for whatever reason stopped doing CC draws and I'll be honest Alicia it just makes no sense to me with all of the people in Canada why you would continue to bring new people from outside um when when they're already here and you know as you look at the draws and if we go back you know how far is it you know since the last CEC draw we probably have to go back September September 2021 202 September of 2021 you can see all of these draws you guys so September of 2021 let's see and actually uh let's see looks like it's the 14th maybe Alicia um Canadian experience class right here is September the four yeah September 14th 2021 that's right so yeah this is uh this is the world we're in unfortunately but um this could be a bright spot and we'll have to monitor it and see what happens in the you know in the coming rounds of invitations but I you know I wouldn't be surprised you know so let's see where that goes all right last one Alicia practical advice yeah so practical advice all right if you're in Canada learn French if you're in Canada maximize your iels cell pip or the new Pearson test language scores you want to have maximum points on there you don't want to be losing any of the points if you are having a work permit that's going to expire start talking to your employers right now about doing an lmia because it takes four weeks of advertising plus probably three or four months right now for lmia processing it's longer than the stated processing times as far as our our experience with clients is and so it's really important to transition to try to get that closed employer specific work permit it has to be a genuine employer who is doing the right thing they cannot charge you for going and doing an lmia it is the employer application to make sure that they are asking for the lmia from Service Canada so realize right now that things are super competitive if you are a student and you're eligible for your postgrad work permit apply right away if you have a spouse that's eligible for an open spousal work permit because you're a student apply right away because some of those things might get taken away y all of those things and I want to put a little teaser out there you guys because I'm going to be doing a little episode um on specifically um increasing your compe competitiveness for Express entry and one of the things on my list and I'll show you why may very well be if your employer not willing to support you with an lmia it may be to go home and in some knowledge-based environments it might there might be a possibility for you to um you know to make arrangements to be able to work outside of Canada um and I'm not going to get into a lot of details here because it it can be a little bit more a little bit more complicated in establish in that you're truly working outside but this may very well be an option for you as well so stay tuned for that and for those of you who see that you're you know the the light at the end of the tunnel is starting to dim and you're running into a wall and that you know that wall has a door but the door is locked to you there may be Avenues to get yourself some new keys to get in and uh we'll be talking about that a little bit more but this is uh this is the future as Minister Miller releases more information we'll definitely address that um and uh as always if you are in a situation you're trying to figure out what to do don't hesitate to reach out to Alicia and I and and book a consult there's links in the description below all right thanks Alicia and take care and thanks so much for for listening

Channel: Canadian Immigration Institute

Views: 22,107

Keywords: Mark Holthe Immigration Lawyer, Canadian Immigration Institute, Canadian Immigration Lawyer, Holthe Immigration Law, canada immigration, immigration canada, how to immigrate to canada, canada immigration 2022

Id: TvGr-knUFQs

Length: 35min 44sec (2144 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 27 2024