19 June 2008

Canada's new immigration law comes into place

Canada's new immigration law came into place yesterday after being approved by the Cabinet, but now the country must work on its backlog of visa applications. According to the National Post, the Government has little knowledge which skills sectors the Canadian visa applicants would fit into and what sectors are needed to be filled in the country.

The Government plans to ask each province about where the skills shortages lie and how immigration can help to solve these shortages, which is similar to the approach previously taken by the Australian Government. The Government has also pledged CND$100 million to pay for the process of coding the applications according to the skills offered.

The new laws will allow some applications to bypass formal processes, meaning the backlog of 925,000 applications should be reduced faster than usual. The legislation is hoped lead to a speedier and more streamlined Canadian visa application process.

The immigration system will have to undergo more restructuring to reflect the changing demographics of visa applicants to Canada, but it has not yet been decided what changes will be made. The newspaper suggests the new immigration process may be similar to Australia's thriving new points-based system, after a comparative study between the two countries established many parallels. A recent study showed that Canadian nationals support Canadian immigration if it meets skills shortages, with 73 per cent saying immigration is either important or somewhat important to the nation.