New laws for Canadian immigration

We all know that Federal Immigration Minister Jason Kenney announced the introduction of new laws to the immigration system of Canada. The immigration system of Canada is burdened by a huge backlog for the last decade as it was extremely easy to qualify. There was no requirement of a prior job offer or a relative for applicants and the list of applicants kept growing with time.

The new laws aim at reducing the current backlog and fast track the applications based on the demands of the labor market. Kenney announced recently that Canada will still take 250,000 new immigrants this year. But even now, applicants do not require a prior job or relative to qualify for Canadian immigration. Any applicant who has a minimum of one year of work experience in any one of the 38 occupations list released by CIC is eligible to apply. It must be noted that the new laws will not have any impact on applicants who are applying with job offers and who are applying through a provincial program.

The processing time for applications in the USA in the local Canadian Consulates will be somewhere around one year. The new laws will be applicable to applications which are filed on or after the 27th of February, 2008. In case an application is already in process but the profession does not figure in the 38 occupations list and it does not have a job offer either, then the application will be returned. Otherwise the processing of the application will continue.