Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney suggested Wednesday the possibility of legislating away Canada’s backlog of immigration applications.
"We’re looking at all options for dealing with these backlogs… It’s not fair to [applicants] and it’s not fair to our economy," said Kenney.
The federal government has already moved in this direction: according to the Montreal Gazette deals have been struck with eight provinces and territories to sort through the backlog of Federal Skilled Worker (FSW) applications to move qualified applicants (who are interested) to these province’s Provincial Nominee Programs (PNPs). Applicants will have to adhere to different criteria for each province, which can be different than the original qualifying criteria of the FSW applications.
According to the Globe & Mail, Minister Kenney described a vision of Canada moving towards an expressionist system, whereby "applicants would consent to having their application sifted by businesses and the provinces, to see who might be wanted where."
The gist of Kenney’s comments suggest the government aims to find ways to significantly reduce the government’s backlog of immigration applications, while providing a more responsive and quicker process in the future, especially to better match up potential immigrants with the provinces and employers who need them.
Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) is selectively contacting applicants from the FSW program when they are eligible to be moved to a PNP program. For example, in the case of Ontario, some applicants from the following occupations are being contacted to see if they are interested in immigrating under the Ontario PNP:
NOC 2171 – Computer Analysts and Consultants
NOC 2173 – Software Developers
NOC 2174 – Interactive Media Programmers and Developers
NOC 1112 – Financial and Investment Analysts
NOC 2161 – Mathematicians
Other provinces may be dealing with the application process differently.
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