Building a Fast and Flexible Economic Immigration System in Canada

Friday, April 20, 2012
According to an April 17 announcement by Canadian Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney, the country has been taking concrete steps to realize its vision of an immigration system that actively recruits talent rather than passively receives and processes all Canadian visa applications.

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With the purpose of ensuring Canadian long term economic success, Minister Kenney says that his department has been implementing the groundwork for making economic and labour force needs the central focus of the immigration efforts.
Accordingly, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) will first work with provinces, territories, and employers to create a pool of skilled workers who are ready to begin employment in Canada.
"We are making transformational changes to Canada's immigration system," said Minister Kenney. "We want a system that is faster, more flexible – a system that attracts younger people who can help grow our economy the minute they arrive in Canada."
Proactive steps have been taken towards building a fast and flexible immigration system that meets Canada's economic needs such as the reform of the Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP) points system to reflect the importance of younger immigrants with Canadian work experience and better official language skills, as well as the strengthening of the assessment of educational credentials to ensure that immigrants are closer to being ready to work upon arrival in Canada.
Together with these actions, Minister Kenney also announced two additional changes that will help transform the Canadian Immigration system:

• Help CIC ensure FSW applicants meet current labour market needs by allowing new rules set out in Ministerial Instructions to apply to people who have already submitted an application
• Allow new regulations, once approved, to apply retrospectively to people who have already submitted an application.

"All of the changes we are exploring will make Canada more competitive with other similarly-placed countries and more attractive to the best and brightest from around the world, and will better match our immigration system with the best interests of the Canadian economy." added the Minister.