Canadian Immigration Paused!!!

Calgary, June 28, 2012 — Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney today announced the latest step in re-designing Canada’s economic immigration system.
Effective July 1st, 2012, Citizenship and Immigration Canada will place a temporary pause on new applications to the Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP) and federal Immigrant Investor Program (IIP).
“We have been making lots of changes to our economic immigration system,” said Minister Kenney. “We will take the next six months to do a lot of the heavy lifting to get us closer to a fast and flexible immigration system.”
The pause will allow CIC to make important changes to its economic immigration programs before accepting more applications. This is an important step in moving towards a faster, more flexible immigration system, while immigration levels are at a historic high.
Since the launch of Canada’s Economic Action Plan 2012, Minister Kenney has announced a series of changes to CIC’s economic immigration programs. They include:

• eliminating the backlog of old FSWP applications;
• improving the selection of FSWs;
• creating a new Federal Skilled Trades Program;
• modifying the Canadian Experience Class to help transition successful skilled temporary workers to permanent residence;
• changing business immigration programs to target more active investment in Canadian growth companies and more innovative entrepreneurs; and
• moving towards a new application management system, to develop a pool of skilled workers who arrive in Canada ready to begin employment.

“This temporary pause on new Federal Skilled Worker applications will allow us to set the program on a new course as we intend to launch revised selection criteria soon,” said Minister Kenney. “The pause has no impact on the number of workers Canada admits into the country, as CIC continues to process applications already received. Current immigration remains at historically high levels.”
Application intake is expected to resume in January 2013, when the proposed FSWP regulatory changes – which will be published in the Canada Gazette in the coming months – are expected to come into force.
The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act allows the Minister to issue special instructions to immigration officers to enable the Government of Canada to best attain its immigration goals. Since the 2008 Action Plan for Faster Immigration, four sets of “Ministerial Instructions” have been issued relating to Economic Class applications.
Under this fifth set of Ministerial Instructions, CIC will also introduce a pause on new federal IIP applications. This pause will remain in place until further notice, allowing the Department to make progress on processing its existing inventory.
As Minister Kenney announced earlier in April, CIC will be consulting with provinces, territories and stakeholders on ways to reform the current IIP in order to maximize the economic benefit to Canada. The Department is also consulting on whether to create a new investor program on a short-term basis, to promote growth in the Canadian economy.
The temporary pause on FSWP applications does not apply to candidates with offers of arranged employment or those applying under the PhD eligibility stream.

News Release — Minister Kenney Hits the Reset Button: Sets the Foundation for New, Faster, More Flexible Immigration System

Calgary, June 28, 2012 — Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney today announced the latest step in re-designing Canada’s economic immigration system.
Effective July 1st, 2012, Citizenship and Immigration Canada will place a temporary pause on new applications to the Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP) and federal Immigrant Investor Program (IIP).
“We have been making lots of changes to our economic immigration system,” said Minister Kenney. “We will take the next six months to do a lot of the heavy lifting to get us closer to a fast and flexible immigration system.”
The pause will allow CIC to make important changes to its economic immigration programs before accepting more applications. This is an important step in moving towards a faster, more flexible immigration system, while immigration levels are at a historic high.
Since the launch of Canada’s Economic Action Plan 2012, Minister Kenney has announced a series of changes to CIC’s economic immigration programs. They include:

• eliminating the backlog of old FSWP applications;
• improving the selection of FSWs;
• creating a new Federal Skilled Trades Program;
• modifying the Canadian Experience Class to help transition successful skilled temporary workers to permanent residence;
• changing business immigration programs to target more active investment in Canadian growth companies and more innovative entrepreneurs; and
• moving towards a new application management system, to develop a pool of skilled workers who arrive in Canada ready to begin employment.

“This temporary pause on new Federal Skilled Worker applications will allow us to set the program on a new course as we intend to launch revised selection criteria soon,” said Minister Kenney. “The pause has no impact on the number of workers Canada admits into the country, as CIC continues to process applications already received. Current immigration remains at historically high levels.”
Application intake is expected to resume in January 2013, when the proposed FSWP regulatory changes – which will be published in the Canada Gazette in the coming months – are expected to come into force.
The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act allows the Minister to issue special instructions to immigration officers to enable the Government of Canada to best attain its immigration goals. Since the 2008 Action Plan for Faster Immigration, four sets of “Ministerial Instructions” have been issued relating to Economic Class applications.
Under this fifth set of Ministerial Instructions, CIC will also introduce a pause on new federal IIP applications. This pause will remain in place until further notice, allowing the Department to make progress on processing its existing inventory.
As Minister Kenney announced earlier in April, CIC will be consulting with provinces, territories and stakeholders on ways to reform the current IIP in order to maximize the economic benefit to Canada. The Department is also consulting on whether to create a new investor program on a short-term basis, to promote growth in the Canadian economy.
The temporary pause on FSWP applications does not apply to candidates with offers of arranged employment or those applying under the PhD eligibility stream.
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/department/media/releases/2012/2012-06-28.asp 

Canadian Immigration Official Convicted of Fraud and Breach of Trust

CIC office on Catherine Street in Ottawa where Serré worked (GOOGLE STREET VIEW)

Diane Serré, a former official at Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC), was found guilty of 15 counts of fraud and 12 counts of breach of trust by Ontario Superior Court Justice Catherine Aitken, for using her position at CIC to help 10 immigration applicants with their applications in exchange for gifts and cash remuneration.
The investigation that led to the charges against Serré found that she worked with her esthetician, Vivian Badaan-Dakik, and her husband, Issam Dakik, to find individuals willing to pay for preferential treatment by an official at CIC. Issam Dakik plead guilty to the charges laid against him in connection with the case and was sentenced to 33 months in prison in 2006.
In her 86 page decision, Judge Aitken found that the evidence of Serré’s culpability, which included hundreds of wiretapped conversations between Issam Dakik and Serré, was “absolutely overwhelming”, and determined that she received $25,900 from Dakik as part of the scheme.
Serré’s sentencing hearing will be held on July 27th.

Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenny Loses Immigration Battle

Ottawa has suffered a major setback in eliminating its immigration backlog after the federal court ruled the government is obliged to process all applications it accepted into the system.
About 900 applicants under the federal skilled workers’ program sued Immigration Minister Jason Kenney for violating the pledge to assess and finalize decisions in a timely fashion.
They asked the court to order the immigration department to process their applications within a reasonable time frame.
In a decision released Thursday, Justice Donald Rennie rejected the minister’s argument that the delay is justified because he has the authority to make policies.
“The minister can set instructions that permit him to return some applications without processing them at all, and thus obviously there is no further duty in respect of those applications,” the judge wrote in a 24-page decision.
“However, for those that are determined eligible for processing, the duty to do so in a reasonably timely manner remains.”
In February 2008, the law was changed to give Kenney authority to issue ministerial instructions regarding which applications would be eligible for processing and to remove the obligation to process each application received.
As a result, the litigants argued, their applications were “warehoused” in a lengthy backlog from five to nine years.
Despite the new measure, the court said Ottawa still failed to finalize a file within the six and 12 months Kenney promised — the first ministerial applications have been outstanding between 24 and 52 months.
Immigration has until Oct. 14 to finalize the application of the case’s lead litigant, an IT project manager in China.
Although the court falls short on making an order for all 900 applicants, Thursday’s decision sets the stage for the prompt processing of the other litigants.
“So long as the applicants are not to blame for the delay, a fair application of Justice Rennie’s ruling would require Ottawa to finalize their applications by October 14,” said their lawyer, Tim Leahy.
The decision is final because the court refused the minister’s request for appeal, added Leahy. The next step is for opposing counsels to determine how to proceed with the remaining cases.