New rules to strengthen the Temporary Foreign Worker Program

Improvements to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) will ensure that the program continues to be fair to employers and maintain its focus on alleviating temporary labour shortages.

The regulatory improvements to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program include the most significant changes to the program in many years. There are three major elements:

• a more rigorous assessment of the genuineness of the job offer;
• a two-year period of ineligibility for hiring temporary foreign workers for employers who fail to meet their commitments with respect to wages, working conditions and occupation; and
• a four-year limit on the length of time some temporary foreign workers may work in Canada before returning home.

For more details on the regulatory improvements, please see Protecting Temporary Foreign Workers and Four-Year Limit for Foreign Nationals Working in Canada.

The Temporary Foreign Worker Program is driven by employer demand and aimed at filling identified labour shortages where no suitable Canadian workers or permanent residents are available.

Canada re-opens Immigrant Investor Program

 Effective December 1, 2010, Citizenship and Immigration Canada will once again accept applications under the federal Immigrant Investor Program.
Under the new program criteria, investor applicants will need to have a personal net worth of $1.6 million, up from $800,000 under the old criteria, and make an investment of $800,000, up from the previous requirement of $400,000.
“These changes were necessary,” said Minister Kenney. “The requirements had not been increased in more than a decade and we need to keep pace with the changing economy.”
Canada’s old immigrant investor criteria were the lowest when compared to other countries with similar programs.  The new criteria now align it more closely with other immigrant-receiving countries. 
The investor program was suspended in June, in part because the high volume of applications was leading to wait times that were too long.  Raising the requirements will help reduce the flow of applications while ensuring we attract experienced businesspeople who can make a more substantial contribution to the economy. Higher personal net worth criteria mean the program is now better positioned to attract investors with valuable business links and the resources to make secondary investments in the Canadian economy. 
“Higher investment amounts mean provinces and territories will receive more investment capital to put toward job creation and economic development projects,” added the Minister. 
Canada’s Immigrant Investor Program offers several benefits to international investors, including permanent resident status up front and guaranteed repayment of the investment. 
Under Canada’s old criteria, the volume of applications submitted under the Program had grown exponentially and processing times had increased. By stopping applications between June 26, 2010, and December of this year, the government prevented further delays. Applications received on or after December 1 will be subject to the new criteria and will be processed alongside the old ones. In this way, Canada can begin to realize the benefits of the changes as soon as possible.

Canada will welcome more economic immigrants in 2010

Each year, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) sets out a plan for the number of immigrants it intends to welcome within economic, family and humanitarian immigration categories. The planned range for 2010 is 240,000 – 265,000 immigrants. CIC generally achieves the midpoint of this range. In 2010, 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.

Even with higher numbers of economic immigrants, Canada still receives many more applications than can be processed in a timely way. As a result, the department is limiting the number of new applications it will consider in the federal skilled worker category every year.

“Canada will continue to welcome historically high numbers of immigrants, but we need to manage the number of new applications or risk creating new backlogs and longer processing times,” Minister Kenney said. “We have more than enough applications on hand now to fill many of our needs, and we want to be fair to those people who have been waiting the longest.”

Effective immediately, to be eligible to apply as a federal skilled worker, applicants must either have a job offer, or they must have experience in one of 29 in-demand occupations. These occupations were identified through analysis of updated labour market information and consultations with provinces, territories, stakeholders and the public.

For those applying under the occupation list, the government will limit the number of applications considered for processing to 20,000 per year as a way to better manage the supply of applications with labour market demand. Within the 20,000 limit, a maximum of 1,000 applications per occupation will be considered. The limit does not apply to applicants with a job offer.