Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'm so sorry. I thought you were asking me the question.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It's definitely a great thing that everything now is online and paperless, for a few reasons. One, it's easier for applicants to submit the application, and two, it's easier for the IRCC officers to pass the files around. We no longer need to be in a specific physical location to

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you very much for allowing me to testify. I'd like to speak with you today about the issue of backlogs for temporary resident applications, work permits, study permits, visitor visas and temporary resident permits that deal with inadmissibilities. Temporary resident appli

Finance committee  Yes, I'm happy to do that. Thank you.

Finance committee  If I could provide a vision for an occupation-based program, first of all we'd need to discuss whether or not that is even a good thing. If so, then there should be a process where different industries have a transparent process as to their input and whether or not we require occ

Finance committee  Yes, that's right. If it defined it, instead of having ambiguous groupings.... If it defined it based on occupation-based selection, at least we'd know that that's its intent and that it could only select based on occupations. However, at that point, I would also like to argue t

Finance committee  I don't necessarily know if it's intentional abuse. I think every minister does what they feel is right according to what they think. The end results, however, are often problematic. For example, this year, we have had a huge issue with backlog in express entry because last year

Finance committee  Absolutely. I think the decision-makers like to have flexibility in their decision-making. It would be nice if when they made a decision, they could just carry it out. On the other side, you have people who depend on their decisions. People, when they go through the immigration

Finance committee  This may be the intention right now for the current minister, but these provisions give power to any minister in the immigration system. For example, maybe one minister might think that selection based on nationality—this is what they do in the States—is something that they want

Finance committee  The occupations-based selection is just something that I have heard from other lawyers from their meetings with IRCC, namely, that they were considering with regard to selection. In the current provisions, there is no definition of what these groupings could be. In the future, th

Finance committee  Right now the express entry system is pretty clear as to what individual selection criteria are being used. As to whether or not we need further selection criteria, I would be happy to take a look once I actually know what the minister wants to do.

Finance committee  Absolutely. It only gives more power to the minister and it only adds more unpredictability to the system.

Finance committee  Thank you for allowing me to testify. I am speaking to you today because I have grave concerns about the provisions in division 23 with regard to the proposed changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. As an immigration lawyer with over 16 years of practice, I have

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, the horror stories continue. Although you might think I'm biased, I think immigration law is one of the most complex areas of law, and it also has a very deep effect on a person and their family. I am part of an analytics committee of immigration lawyers internationally, a

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I would recommend that workers who have been determined, who already have a job offer in Canada, be allowed to stay. Under the current express entry system, if caregivers were actually considered to be high-skilled, they could very likely come through express entry very easily.