Alberta immigration program changes to prioritize those with immediate family in the province

2023/01/21 Leave a comment

Of note, combining economic and family class immigration:

Alberta is adjusting its immigration process in an attempt to make it easier for those with ties to the province to move to Canada.

The province announced Wednesday that they will allocate 25 per cent of express entry nominations to potential newcomers with skills in high demand who have immediate family members already living in Alberta.

It’s a move that Rajan Sawhney, Alberta’s minister of trade, immigration and multiculturalism said will help address the ongoing labour shortage while easing the process for potential immigrants.

“AAIP’s change will draw workers in high-demand sectors through Express Entry who have immediate family ties in Alberta,” she said in a statement.

“This approach will help ensure Alberta’s economy will prosper by dedicating a portion of provincial nominations toward in-demand workers who will have a great support network right from day one.”

The Alberta express entry stream allows the province to nominate a limited number of qualified candidates from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada’s express entry system.

The province said the change will apply to prospective newcomers who have immediate family in Alberta — such as a sibling, a parent, or a parent — and have the skills to work in high-demand sectors including tech, healthcare and agriculture.

In December 2022, Alberta gained more than 41,000 new full-time jobs for a total of nearly 94,000 full-time jobs in 2022 and 221,000 full-time jobs have been added in Alberta since the start of 2021.

It’s anticipated that a there will be a job shortage of 33,100 workers by 2025 across several occupations, skill levels and sectors in Alberta.

Alberta gets 6,500 nomination certificates each year and it’s expected that 815 of those will be used for the new stream in 2023.

“As an agency that works on the ground with newcomers, we know based on just the data and the stories that we hear from our clients that those that have familial supports here fare a lot better than those who don’t,” said Alka Merlin with Immigrant Services Calgary.

“We are excited to see that the government is responding to what the community has been saying all along.”

Merlin, however, says more can be done.

“We really encourage the government of Alberta, especially the Fairness for Newcomers Office to continue working with regulatory Bodies to simplify and accelerate the assessment of qualifications by eliminating the barriers to registration,” she said.

According to IRCC, there is currently a backlog of more than 2.15 million immigration applicants.

Source: Alberta immigration program changes to prioritize those with …

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‘Profoundly unfair:’ Frustration mounts over immigration lottery to reunite families

2017/05/05 Leave a comment

No matter which system, there will always be more demand for family reunification that can be accommodated easily within the overall levels of immigration.

And kind of funny to hear Conservative critic Michelle Rempel arguing the government to use a “sober, management lens.” After all, when in power, the Conservative government reduced the levels for parents and grandparents as part of the relative shift to more economic class immigrants, thus creating a backlog even with the introduction of longer visitor visas to address the demand.

A valid policy choice, although one that was not necessarily popular with affected communities:

Hundreds of Canadians frustrated by the government’s shift to a lottery system to sponsor their parents and grandparents as immigrants to Canada are hoping to prompt change through an electronic petition.

Petition e-739, which closes for signatures this afternoon, calls on the Liberal government to take a phased-in approach and give priority to qualified sponsors who have made repeated applications.

This year the government moved from a first-come, first-served process to one where potential applicants were randomly selected by draw. The change was announced in December 2016 by then immigration minister John McCallum, just weeks before the deadline under the old system.

Brad Fach, a Cambridge, Ont., software engineer who launched the petition, was shocked to learn of the sudden change after he and his wife spent much time and money preparing the required forms and documentation to apply for her mother and father to emigrate from Belgium. He said the government has reduced a sensitive, emotional process to an undignified, “botched” system.

“I believe it mocks a very serious issue of family reunification, and is the wrong way to go,” he told CBC News.

Last week, the government announced that 95,000 people had filed an online form to win one of 10,000 spots to apply for sponsorship under the new lottery system. That put the chances at roughly one in 10.

Under the previous system, the first 10,000 completed applications turned in to the immigration processing office when it opened in January were accepted. The switch to a lottery system aimed to make it more fair and transparent, according to the government, as the old process favoured those who were geographically close to the centre or had the financial means to pay for couriers or legal representatives to help get them to the front of the queue.

Fach rejects that rationale. To qualify as a sponsor for parents or grandparents, he said, you must be in strong financial shape.

“You need money regardless, so you already have an advantage over the rest of the population. To claim that this somehow levels the playing field is complete crap,” he said.

Give ‘ray of hope’

Fach believes the new system is flawed because the online form to enter the lottery required only basic information, not details to ensure applicants were qualified and met financial requirements to sponsor their parents or grandparents.

If the government remains committed to the lottery, Fach said, it should at least devise a system that accounts for waiting time to give people a “ray of hope” they will eventually be invited to apply as sponsors.

Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel likened the lottery to an “abdication of responsibility,” leaving the system to chance instead of making improvements in a systemic, purposeful way.

“It almost seems like we’re giving up. We’re giving up on process efficiencies, and it’s luck of the draw on whether you get into Canada or not,” she said.

Rempel said Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen must look through a “sober, management lens” to improve processes that match up with new legislation and immigration priorities.

“That’s going to be a tall order, because they’ve changed this so much and they’ve got so many problems now,” she said.

NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan said the parent and grandparent program is the only immigration category where the fate of applicants is up to the “luck of the draw.”

“I think that is fundamentally wrong,” she said.

Source: ‘Profoundly unfair:’ Frustration mounts over immigration lottery to reunite families – Politics – CBC News

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