Immigration Minister Sean Fraser has provided an update to CIC News on current policy considerations related to the development of a new immigration pathway for temporary residents.
Mandate for new migration pathways
On May 11, 2022, Parliament adopted a motion put forward by Randeep Sarai, MP for Surrey Centre, which gave Fraser 120 days to put together “pathways to permanent residency for temporary foreign workers, including international students, with significant Canadian work experience in sectors with persistent labour shortages”. Fraser has until September 8, 2022 to create a plan which must incorporate the following elements:
- Giving more weight to in-Canada work experience and expanding eligible occupation categories and work experience;
- Examining data from recent migration programs, including TR2PR and others;
- Targeting labour market and skills shortages through immigrant selection policy;
- Encouraging retention of immigrants in smaller communities and settlement of Francophone immigrants outside of Quebec;
- Identifying mechanisms to react more quickly to changes in labour market needs and regional economic priorities; and
- Giving specific consideration to labour fields that are currently underrepresented in economic immigration programs.
Read more: New Canadian Immigration Program in the Making
TR2PR a policy model?
In December 2021, then-newly-appointed Immigration Minister Sean Fraser was mandated to “[expand] pathways to Permanent Residence for international students and temporary foreign workers through the Express Entry system.” This mandate came shortly after the closure of the Temporary Resident to Permanent Resident (TR2PR) immigration pathway in November 2021.
The TR2PR pathway was an effective, but temporary, measure designed to allow Canada to meet its immigration target during the pandemic. Rupa Banerjee, a Canada research chair on immigration issues at Toronto Metropolitan University, noted that the TR2PR pathway’s focus on individuals who were already in the country was an “essential move” at the time due to border closures and pandemic restrictions.
Fraser said in June that the new pathway will not be identical to the TR2PR pathway, but has since implied it may be similar.
Considerations being discussed; no decisions announced
The program is still in its development phase and no concrete decisions have been announced. According to Fraser, one of the major policy considerations in the creation of this new program is that there are more people currently coming into Canada on a temporary basis than there may be spaces for in a permanent immigration plan.
The minister also said that he would not consider awarding temporary residents extra points through the Express Entry system because “that doesn’t necessarily give you the best and brightest… we might be drawing from people who don’t actually want to come.”
At the same time, however, he acknowledged that some temporary resident permits are being refused because immigration officers do not believe that the individual will leave once their visa expires.
“They’re told they can’t come temporarily because people think they might want to stay permanently, when in fact we all want them to stay permanently,” he said.
