Citizenship & Immigration Canada (CIC) continues it’s review of the Canadian Immigration Visa System and has indicated significant changes will be made to the Federal Skilled Worker.

Some Key highlights – The Parental sponsorship program was suspended for a two-year period to allow CIC to play catch up on a significant backlog of applications. In it’s place they have introduced a new Super Visa – a ten year multiple entry visa which allows parents of Canadian Citizens and permanent residents to apply to come to Canada for up to a two year stay. In past the annual allowed stay was up to a period of six months. The entrepreneur program was also suspended and is currently under review.

The Occupation list remained unchanged from last year but the cap was cut in half to 10,000 with a maximum of 500 applications in each of the occupation. Three occupations have reached their caps for the current processing year, which ends June 30, 2012. Applicants with qualifying Arranged Employment are able to bypass the occupation list as well as the cap. Expect to see changes to the occupational list announced in June 2012.

The Canadian Experience Class, which allows applicants to immigrate based on prior Canadian work and or educational experience and the Provincial Nominee Programs are continuing to see growth as Citizenship & Immigration Canada places emphasis on applicants who have proven they can become economically established in Canada.

CIC continues to evaluate the Federal Skilled Worker Program after an internal review and public consultations and has stated that changes to the regulations for Federal Skilled workers will be made late 2012 or early 2013. More emphasis is expected on Canadian job experiences versus overseas job experience as well as changes to the point system.

The moral of the story is… if you qualify under the existing program and immigrating to Canada is a goal – apply now before changes are implemented that could affect your ability to qualify.

Warren & Sara Green – Certified Canadian Immigration Consultants

www.albertaimmigration.com  www.saskimmigration.com