“Consultations on immigration priorities”- new announcement of Canada government.

The Citizenship and Immigration Minister, Diane Finley highlighted the details of consultations related to immigration priorities of Canada, and this is followed after the changes of immigration law (Bill C-50) has been amended.

As per the new immigration law, the minister is bestowed with the power to make decision related to all issues of immigration applications. He would set the priorities of applications, and would be the one to decide whether an application is to be passed, held for future consideration or returned with the refund amount.

The motive behind the new immigration law is to reduce and stop the inflow of backlog. This would also provide relief to the applicants, as now they would get the decision within 6 to 12 months instead of waiting for years in for their turn to come. This new law is set to work immigration system in proximity with labour requirement, so that immigrants get to explore more employment opportunities in their respective field.

The consultations that are highlighted by the minister would mainly focus on fulfilling the demand of the workers who are falling short in any particular occupation. This would help the immigration officers to set the processing of applications as per the need of the country, and the workers whose skills are in demand would get priority. The changes introduced in the Canada Immigration Law are all well designed to match the need of labour market. Finley reflects his opinion that they would define the needs in a much explicit manner, so that the economy of Canada and immigrants derive the maximum benefit out of it.

The Immigration department plan to consult provinces, territories, national stakeholders and representatives of business, labour and NGO’s through meetings or videoconferences. This consultation schedule is to take place in July in order to define the needs of economy from all perspectives. After the session of consultation, the instructions would be available on the website of Canada Citizenship and Immigration and Canada Gazette. The instructions and related issues of immigration would also be presented in Parliament as part of Annual Report on immigration.

The changes in the legislation will not cast any change in the agreements with any province, like in case of Quebec for skilled workers. The changes would not even affect the protection of refugees and goals of family reunification.

Applications of those federal skilled workers would be processed who have job in hand before arriving in Canada. The applications of federal skilled workers, which were received on or after February 27, 2008, would be processed as per the instructions.