The Canadian Government has made further amendments to its immigration system, aiming to both reduce the backlog of pending visa applications in order to improve processing times, at the same time as putting more emphasis on its intake of skilled economic migrants.

Jason Kenney, Minister for Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism has announced that Canada’s skilled occupation list has been reduced from 38 to 29 occupations in order to increase its selectivity, and in turn shorten the processing time for eligible applications. Effective immediately, to be eligible to apply as a federal skilled worker, applicants must either have a job offer, or they must have minimum one year of continuous full-time experience in one of following 29 in-demand occupations;-

For those applying under this occupation list, the number of applications considered for processing will be limited to 20,000 per year and within the 20,000 limit, a maximum of 1,000 applications per occupation will be considered. These limits do not apply to applicants with a job offer.

In addition, all federal skilled worker and Canadian Experience Class applicants must submit the results of an independent language test before they will be considered. Other than the language test result requirement, these changes apply only to the federal skilled worker immigration category. The authority for the changes, known as ministerial instructions, comes from amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act approved by Parliament in 2008 as part of the Action Plan for Faster Immigration.

The instructions are meant as a flexible tool to allow the government to keep the intake of applications for economic immigration in line with the number and types of jobs available in Canada, as well as reduce application backlogs and processing times.

Mr Kenney highlighted that previous changes (in 2008) had already helped reduce the backlog of “in-process” federal skilled worker applicants from 640,000 to 380,000. The majority of decisions on new applications are being made in six to 12 months, compared with up to six years prior to the changes. The current changes are aimed at further refining the application system to ensure processing times remained manageable.

Mr Kenney also reconfirmed Canada’s planned immigration quota for 2010, as a total of 240,000 – 265,000 immigrants and advised that CIC anticipates achieving the upper end of this range, allowing Canada to welcome more immigrants in the economic category than originally planned. This includes federal skilled workers and record-level numbers of provincial nominees, without reducing the number in the family or humanitarian immigration categories.

Minister Kenney noted that some of his provincial colleagues expect the need will grow further in the years ahead. “This is something we will need to take into consideration when we consult more broadly on plans for future years,” he said.

“These changes bring Canada in line with the practices of the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, our main competitors for skilled immigrants,” said Minister Kenney. “They help match the supply of applicants to our processing capacity and today’s post-recession job market needs. This is the only responsible way to manage our immigration system.”

The Government is also proposing new eligibility criteria for the immigrant investor program so it makes an even greater contribution to the Canadian economy. Proposed regulatory changes will require new investors to have a personal net worth of $1.6M, up from $800,000, and make an investment of $800,000, up from $400,000. These proposals were pre-published today in the Canada Gazette for a 30-day public comment period.

Canada’s current criteria for investors are the lowest in the world, and have not been changed since 1999. As a result the program draws a larger number of applicants than can be admitted every year under the immigration plan, and processing times are increasing.

Until the changes are finalized, the Government will stop accepting new investor applications to prevent a flood of applications before the new criteria take effect, which would stretch processing times even further. When the new criteria are in place, new applications will be processed alongside the old ones. In this way, Canada can begin to realize the benefits of the changes immediately.
“Canada needs investor immigrants,” said Minister Kenney. “These changes are necessary to keep Canada’s program competitive with that of other countries, and keep pace with the changing economy.”

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