Citizenship and Immigration committee  I actually disagree a little bit, because in our system we do allow someone to move forward even if they don't meet all of the eligibility requirements. They can ask to be admitted on humanitarian or compassionate grounds. They can also go to the IAD. Therefore, if we screen out

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Absolutely. People were already eligible before, and they should already be eligible to be in Canada. I don't see any reason at all for us to spend any more resources on trying to get them to be requalified for this.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Absolutely. It would be such a waste of our opportunities and talent to have these students leave Canada because they weren't able to meet their one-year of work experience in Canada and didn't have the time to go through the system. I would certainly recommend that we extend th

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Absolutely. There are two groups of people I see that are suffering quite a lot. One is the students. During these COVID times, they oftentimes have trouble finding work. In order for them to stay in Canada, they need to have that one year of high-skilled work experience in Canad

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Furthermore, on that process you've just spoken to, it also doesn't apply to someone who's applying for a work permit in the first instance. Right now, it is allowed to have someone to apply for a work permit inside Canada if they are in Canada. We have many people who are inside

Citizenship and Immigration committee  There is one aspect for the entrepreneurs that I feel could be better supported in Canada by our immigration policies. Right now there are very few policies, and a lot of them are discouraging people from starting work in Canada. For example, self-employment work is not counted t

Citizenship and Immigration committee  In terms of permanent residents and in terms of actually being able to be together, absolutely it is. It's not necessarily that the criteria has become more difficult, but in terms of practicality, in terms of waiting time, absolutely....

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I absolutely concur that the inequities in requirements for someone who is from a visa-requiring country and those for someone who is not are very stark. Especially now when processing times are just through the roof, it's very important to have a way for family members to come t

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Absolutely. Right now, in order to attract international students, it's all about that path towards permanent residency. We are doing well in certain ways compared to other countries, but we could certainly do better. First of all, right now, a lot of the rules for students com

Citizenship and Immigration committee  First of all, I think we should stop with this sort of lottery system or first-come, first-served system that sees those with best Internet getting in. I think we need to increase the numbers and give people.... With first-come, first-served, you submitted your application and th

Citizenship and Immigration committee  For the clients I have seen, it has become an extremely stressful situation to have your parents' ability to join you be the subject of a lottery. This is almost as though we're playing with people's lives. What we are seeing is that people are really suffering, with their famil

Citizenship and Immigration committee  First of all, as my colleague has already said, the temporary resident visas for those who are married to Canadians or permanent residents are routinely denied because they are seen as having too many ties to Canada and not likely to leave Canada. Even if they are able to obtain

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you for inviting me to testify. Let me first speak to the issue of international students. This is an area that is currently filled with chaos and confusion, especially as it pertains to those students who have applied from abroad. We often have the IRCC website saying tw

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I have not, and I would like to address your comments about marriages of convenience. Absolutely there are marriages of convenience, but the issue is, how do you determine that? If people are just called on the phone, a person who has been trained by a fraudulent consultant on

Citizenship and Immigration committee  There has to be a standard across the board as to how the officers are trained and how they are to conduct the interviews.