Syed Khan – December 18, 2021
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has laid out the policy priorities in a mandate letter written to Immigration Minister Sean Fraser on December 16. The immigration minister is expected to present his first Immigration Levels Plan, after assuming office, to the parliament in February 2022.
In the letter, Trudeau has outlined 13 issues that call for action like refugees, citizenship, temporary workers, economic immigration, processing times, reunification of families, and francophone immigration.
The main theme of the letter highlights the need to prioritize and continue policies that fortify Canada’s immigration and refugee framework, bring in more newcomers to all Canadian provinces, which will, in turn, support Canada’s financial recuperation from the COVID-19 pandemic.
It goes on to encourage policies that will assist Afghans and human rights activists and to ‘continue to fortify family reunification and minimize application processing times, particularly those affected by COVID-19.’
Some of the important points to note from the letter are:
- Working towards bringing in more immigrants as has been stated in the 2021-2023 Immigration Levels Plan.
| Immigration Plan target: | Year: |
| 401,000 new immigrants | 2021 |
| 411,000 new immigrants | 2022 |
| 421,000 new immigrants | 2023 |
- Expanding programs and pathways for international students and temporary foreign workers to get permanent residence through Express Entry.
- Introducing more immigration programs for Afghans and human rights activists.
- Increase the quota of the number of eligible refugees from 20,000 to 40,000 at least.
- Work in partnership with the United States to modernize the Safe Third Country Agreement. The Safe Third Country Agreement between Canada and the United States (U.S.) is part of the U.S.–Canada Smart Border Action Plan. Under the Agreement, refugee claimants are required to request refugee protection in the first safe country they arrive in, unless they qualify for an exception to the Agreement. The Agreement helps both governments better manage access to the refugee system in each country for people crossing the Canada–U.S. land border. The two countries signed the Agreement on December 5, 2002, and it came into effect on December 29, 2004. To date, the U.S. is the only country that is designated as a safe third country by Canada under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
- Developing the Economic Mobility Pathways Pilot Program and welcoming at least 2,000 skilled refugees.
- Expanding the Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot. This is a community-driven program designed to spread the benefits of economic immigration to smaller communities by creating a path to permanent residence for skilled foreign workers who want to work and live in one of the participating communities.
- Making the Atlantic Immigration Pilot Program permanent. Launched in 2017, this program helps employers in Atlantic Canada hire foreign skilled workers who want to immigrate to Atlantic Canada and international graduates who want to stay in Atlantic Canada after they graduate.
- Expanding the Municipal Nominee Program
- Establishing a safe and trustworthy employer system for Canadian companies that use the Temporary Foreign Worker program to hire new talent.
- Developing and streamlining the Global Talent Stream by making work permit renewals hassle free, keeping the processing time under two weeks and establishing a hotline for the employers.
- Improving foreign credential recognition.
- Developing policies to establishing rights and status for undocumented workers that contribute to Canada. Reducing application processing times for such workers, including COVID-19 delays.
- To accept online applications for programs that seek family reunification and issuing a temporary resident status to applicants’ spouses and children living abroad while their applications are under processing.
- Establishing an understanding with Quebec to work towards supporting the knowledge of the French language of immigrants.
- Working towards supporting better francophone immigration across all Canadian provinces.
Efforts made by the IRCC:
The IRCC, in previous announcements, has stated that it will accept 40,000 permanent residence applications from international students who have graduated from a Canadian institution. In May, the IRCC launched 6 new temporary streams and announced that it would be accepting more applications than ever in the following sectors:
| Name / Type of occupation | The number of applications to be accepted: |
| Temporary workers in the healthcare sector | 20,000 |
| Temporary workers in non-healthcare essential occupations | 30,000 |
The full mandate letter can be read here ( https://pm.gc.ca/en/mandate-letters/2021/12/16/minister-immigration-refugees-and-citizenship-mandate-letter )
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