How to Extend Your Time in Canada as an International Student
New Options for International Students to Remain in Canada Post-Graduation
Canada is launching two new temporary permanent residence pathways for international student graduates looking to extend their stay in Canada after they graduate.
The goal of these new pathways is to make it easier for skilled international students to fill labour shortages, and aid in Canada's post-pandemic economic recovery.
Both pathways will be available to international students that currently live anywhere in Canada outside of Quebec, or are planning to live outside Quebec.
Details About These New Programs
The first immigration pathway will be available to all international students who have recently graduated with a Canadian post-secondary degree or diploma. Only 40,000 applications will be accepted through the temporary program. If the government has accepted 40,000 applications before November 5, 2021, it will stop accepting applications before the cutoff date.
The second pathway will only be available to French-speaking international graduates. There will be no cap on intake for this pathway, due to the shortage of French-speaking skilled workers outside of Quebec.
Eligibility Requirements
In order to be eligible for either pathway, applicants must have graduated from a Canadian designated learning institution no earlier than January 2017, and received an educational credential.
The credential could be obtained from a Canadian university, college, trade/technical school, or a Quebec CEGEP.
University credentials include:
- Associate’s degrees
- Bachelor’s degrees
- Master’s degrees
- Doctorates
College credentials must be obtained through a program of study that is at least eight months long, and can include:
- Degrees
- Diplomas
- Certificates
- Attestations
For applicants with diplomas of Vocational Studies (DVS) or Attestations of Vocational Specialization (AVS), they must have completed a program that is at least 900 hours in length.
Additional eligibility requirements include:
- The applicant must be employed in Canada with a valid work permit or have authorization to work at the time the application is received.
- The applicant must speak French or English, and meet the mandatory language requirements by obtaining a Canadian Language Benchmark (CLB) of 5.
- The applicant must live in Canada legally and meet the relevant admissibility requirements.
- The applicant must not be considered inadmissible to Canada for criminal or medical reasons.
- The applicant must have an intermediate level of French comprehension in all four language skills (reading, writing, speaking, listening) for the French permanent resident pathway.
Both permanent resident pathways will begin accepting applications on May 6 and will remain open until November 5.
Advocates Push For Children's Immigration Applications to be Processed Within 6 Months
New Processing Deadline Would Help Reunite Refugee Families More Quickly
The national advocacy group, Canadian Council for Refugees, is calling on the federal government to reduce processing times for children's immigration applications to just six months.
The group has described the current wait times for application processing as "unacceptable."
According to Janet Dench, executive director of the Canadian Council for Refugees, Canada is legally obligated under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child to process family reunification applications humanely and expeditiously.
Dench told the Canadian Press that expediting the application process is critical because many children of refugees have been separated from both of their parents, are not being properly cared for, and are often at risk of physical and sexual abuse.
The reason for this separation, according to Dench, is that in many refugee cases, parents must leave their children with a grandparent or family member, or even neighbours in their home countries, so that they can flee to Canada.
Jennifer Wan, a Toronto-based immigration lawyer, told the Canadian Press that she knows of two refugee parents from India who have been waiting years for their children to join them in Canada.
The parents had been issued refugee status in July 2019 after fleeing violence in their home country of India. The couple had applied for their children to come to Canada only a few months later, but are still waiting on a decision.
Wan agreed with the Canadian Council for Refugees, stating that the Canadian government should prioritize family reunification cases that involve children separated from their parents, especially if they are in danger or are not receiving proper care.
Immigration processing has been severely affected over the past year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as the entire immigration processing system has been operating at reduced capacity. Travel restrictions and difficulties obtaining documents have added to the complications that many refugee families are facing.
However, Alexander Cohen, a spokesman for Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino, told the Canadian Press that the government is prioritizing certain refugee cases throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Since the onset of the pandemic, we have prioritized processing of vulnerable persons, family members and those in essential services," he said. "We're prioritizing applications from refugees sponsoring their dependants ... and are also assessing the results of two pilot programs to improve processing for protected persons with dependants abroad."
Federal Court Of Appeal Has Struck Down A Challenge Against The Safe Third Country Agreement
On April 15th,2021 the Canadian Federal Court of Appeal struck down a challenge against the Safe Third Country Agreement (‘STCA’) with the United States. This agreement was signed in 2002 between Canada and the United States requiring refugees arriving in both countries to apply for asylum in the first country they arrive in, barring some exceptions (Federal Court of Appeal, 19-20). These exceptions include those who have family in Canada and unaccompanied minors. The agreement also does not apply to those who enter Canada at irregular border crossings or those arriving through air or sea travel (Federal Court of Appeal, 20). The STCA, nevertheless, has enabled Canada to turn many asylum seekers away at the Canadian border, leaving them to deal with the United States immigration system.
In July 2020, the Federal Court recognized the dangers asylum seekers face when being returned to the United States and found that “the designation of the United States as a safe third country under section 159.3 of the Regulations and the resulting ineligibility of refugee claimants in Canada under paragraph 101(1)(e) of the Act” infringed on the claimants’ section 7 right to life, liberty and security of the person as guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Charter) (Federal Court of Appeal, 5-6). Unfortunately, the Federal Court of Appeal reversed this decision.
The Federal Court of Appeal based its decision on a finding that the Claimants Charter challenge was not properly constituted. Justice Stratas argued that singling out just two provisions (section 159.3 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulationsand paragraph 101(1)(e) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act) for attack was wrong and amounted to creating a “strawman” (54, 62). Specifically, Justice Stratas argued that it is artificial to analyze these two provisions in isolation as if they were not part of an interrelated legislative scheme (46, 55). He pointed to two rules established through jurisprudence, namely that “legislative provisions in an interrelated legislative scheme cannot be taken in isolation and selectively challenged” and “where administrative action or administrative inaction under legislation is the cause of a rights infringement, it, not the legislation, must be challenged” (Federal Court of Appeal, 58 and 60).
Accordingly, all relevant parts of the legislative scheme, not just a general provision in isolation, need to be part of a Charter challenge (Federal Court of Appeal, 68, 70). In particular, Justice Stratas pointed to section102(3) of the Act as an important provision that the Claimants did not challenge (Federal Court of Appeal 61-62). Section 102(3) requires ongoing reviews on the United States, its human rights record, and its ability to protect refugees once it has been designated as a safe third country (Federal Court of Appeal, 40).
Based on this reasoning and the finding that an evidentiary record had not been established due to the claimants focus on only the two isolated provisions, Justice Stratas also argued that there was insufficient evidence to find a section 7 infringement (Federal Court of Appeal, 138).
Justice Stratas also made several problematic findings in his decision. He stated that the experience of the ten Claimants who brought the case are not enough to show that every person turned back from the border faces detention and maltreatment (Federal Court of Appeal, 138). This required a need to consider expert opinion, which he then discounted as only showing that there is a risk of detention in the United States (Federal Court of Appeal, 139).
Justice Stratas also stated that “psychological suffering is inherent in the plight of refugees fleeing their home country out of fear of persecution. Thus, one must ask whether sending refugee claimants back to the Untied States actually increased psychological suffering above this inherent level” (Federal Court of Appeal, 148). These remarks ignore the humanity of the asylum seekers and the suffering they face and frame the refugee journey as inherently harmful, as opposed to harm being the result of specific country policies and laws such as the STCA.
Jamie Liew, an immigration lawyer and professor in Ottawa, stated that the “reality that people experience has been completely ignored in this decision” and that it “raises questions about future cases where people may claim that their charter [rights] are violated” (Aljazeera). Similarly, Maureen Silcoff, the president of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers has said that the decision is “a step backwards for human rights in Canada.” The decision discounts the reality asylum seekers in the US face and discounts their experiences and suffering. If the case is brought to the Supreme Court, hopefully the decision will be overturned.
IRCC Eliminates Automatic Immigration Application Extensions
IRCC Will Now Only Allow Extensions on Case-By-Case Basis
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) is taking back a policy change implemented due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and will no longer extend deadlines automatically for incomplete immigration applications, according to CIC News.
This new policy change will affect citizenship, permanent residence, and temporary residence applicants.
IRCC will, however, continue to be flexible, and will still offer extensions on a case-by-case basis to applicants who cannot produce all the required documentation due to COVID-19 disruptions.
The goal is to increase the speed at which decisions are made regarding immigration applications.
"Having clients provide the required supporting documentation will allow IRCC to make timely decisions on their applications, where possible," said IRCC in a press release. "This will also help minimize impacts to future processing times for all applicants by reducing the current inventory IRCC has and expediting people’s travel to Canada when the travel restrictions are eased."
Over the next few months, IRCC will contact all applicants that are approaching the deadline, and request supporting documents. If they cannot provide the documentation, they must provide a reasonable explanation for how COVID-19 created disruptions that are preventing them from submitting a complete application.
The following are examples of "reasonable explanations," according to IRCC:
-
A Visa Application Centre or Application Support Centre in your region has been closed, which prevents you from providing your biometrics
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A provincial or city-wide lockdown is preventing you from undergoing a medical examination or obtaining supporting documents, such as police certificates.
If an applicant's request for an extension is considered "reasonable" based on their explanation, the application deadline will be extended for another 30 days.
If they are not eligible for an extension, applicants must then get their documents in order as soon as possible.
“As it can take time to get this information, it’s important to start collecting the documents now, so you will be able to submit them on time when we ask for them,” the IRCC press release said.
Applicants will receive another request a few weeks or months later, and will have 30 days from the date it is received to submit the supporting documents. An immigration officer will then make a decision on your application.
For citizenship applicants, on the other hand, if your documents are not received after the 30 days, and you have not provided a reasonable explanation, the department may stop processing your application and consider it abandoned.
IRCC will contact you to inform you of their decision, so you will not need to contact them directly.
Former Prime Minister Says Canada’s Population Needs to Reach 100 Million
Brian Mulroney Says There’s a Low Population Problem – Could Immigration Be The Solution?
Canada’s current population is just above 38 million people – but some experts believe that isn’t nearly enough. Among them is former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, who has called for Canada to increase its population to 100 million by 2100.
Mulroney spoke about population-related issues at a think tank hosted by the Globe and Mail and Century Initiative. The latter is a non-profit organization with a goal of increasing Canada’s population while educating the population about the benefits of a high population.
“We need more people,” Mulroney said, addressing Canadians. “A lot more.”
As it stands, Canada’s birth rate is too low to stop the population from decreasing. The low birth rate, combined with the aging workforce, will put financial pressure on the working population, explains Century Initiative. They point out that 9 million baby boomers will reach retirement age this decade.
That’s where immigration comes in. Immigration is one of the most powerful factors that increases the population. In 2019, more than 80 percent of Canada’s population growth came from immigrants. Canada has pledged to bring in 1.2 million immigrants from now until 2023.
Is this number enough to help Canada thrive? Not quite, says Century Initiative.
“This business-as-usual approach to population growth will not create the economically vibrant, socially generous future Canadians want and expect,” the organization wrote in a report.
According to Century Initiative, the goal of having 100 million people in Canada by 2011 is “neither radical nor unachievable.”
Here’s How Current Immigration Numbers Affect This Goal
Currently, Canada is on track to bring in just over 400,000 immigrants in 2021.
Century Initiative suggests that Canada should aim to bring in 500,000 immigrants in 2026 – in other words, Canada would increase its immigration rate by 1.25% each year.
In order to do this, Century Initiative explains, Canada must strategically ensure that immigrants are set up to succeed.
“Higher immigration targets must be accompanied by further investment to improve immigrant settlement supports and better systems to match immigrants to industries, sectors, and places where they are most needed and have the best chance of succeeding,” they say.
Population increase and immigration rates are not new topics to Mulroney. Last year, he called for Canada to aim for a population of 75 million people – 25 million short of Century Initiative’s goal for 2100. Mulroney also tripled immigration when he was Prime Minister between 1984 and 1993.