Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chair, members of the committee, thank you for the invitation to speak to you today about the subject matter of part 3, division 16 of Bill C-4. Mr. Chair, and members of the committee, my remarks will provide an overview of the foundational legislation required to implement

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It's a combination of things, as I noted in my remarks. Evidence shows that it is often a combination of factors that increases an immigrant's chances of economic success, so we're looking at building a system that valorizes human capital but also recognizes the role of employers

Citizenship and Immigration committee  One of the objectives of EOI is to maximize the number of immigrants coming to Canada with high human capital and/or a job offer and/or a provincial or territorial nomination. EOI doesn't change the number of immigrants coming to Canada. We've been receiving, on average, about 25

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes. We've benefited from conversations with officials from New Zealand and Australia. They've been very generous in sharing their experiences with us. The New Zealand version of EOI has been in place for 12 or 13 years. The one in Australia is newer, having been implemented in J

Citizenship and Immigration committee  In a way we're already in competition with Australia and New Zealand and other immigrant-receiving countries. The fact that we don't currently have the ability to pick the best and brightest puts us at a disadvantage. We believe that introducing the EOI system will help to level

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I beg your pardon?

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It will have common elements, but it's important to note that they have quite different legislative frameworks in New Zealand and Australia. New Zealand is a unitary state. Still, we're learning from their experiences as we build our system.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That just allows us to adjust, to make sure.... Again, going back to one of the primary objectives, which is to align our application intake with our processing capacity, it's just to allow us not to draw, if we're on a bi-weekly schedule and we've established that we will draw x

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Again, just to recall that the annual levels plan is the instrument that will set out on a yearly basis what the planned ranges are and the targets are for each of the streams, including those that will be managed through EOI. It will be our job essentially to ensure that we are

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I go back again to the annual levels plan that sets ranges and then targets by program stream, which will continue to exist once we've introduced EOI. The current thinking about those streams that would be affected in the first instance is yet to be confirmed, but the federal ski

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It's completely separate. Again, the annual levels plan is where you see that balance between the economic and the non-economic streams kind of reflected. That will be determined through the process that leads to the annual levels plan being tabled every year. Again, what EOI is

Citizenship and Immigration committee  As noted, the EOI is not a new program. It would become a mandatory pre-application step to apply to certain economic programs; the current thinking, but to be confirmed, is for the federal skilled worker program, the Canadian experience class, and the federal skilled trades prog

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Well, those are some of the details that we're working out with ESDC. I think, depending on the.... There are a lot of discussions under way obviously about the temporary foreign worker program and the—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Understood, but it's also the labour market opinion process, which currently applies to certain streams of permanent immigration. The labour market opinion is a requirement as part of the federal skilled worker program where there is a job offer when that individual is coming in.