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Canada announced on 18 April several changes to its immigration rules intended to attract talented students, to help families unite and to cut waiting time for approved immigrants.
To compete for talented foreign students, Canada will permit foreign students to work off-campus while studying and also for one year after obtaining their diplomas. The Government of Canada is investing $10 million a year for five years to support these two initiatives.
Additionally, post-secondary international students can now transfer between programs of study and institutions without applying for a change to the conditions of their study permit. Secondary-level international students can now obtain longer high-school study permits.
To help bring together immigrant citizens and their parents and grandparents living abroad, the government is exempting all applicants over 55 from the language and knowledge-of-Canada tests. Currently, the exemption is only for those over 60. Also announced were measures to speed up the processing of sponsorship applications for parents and grandparents coming to Canada as family class immigrants. With these new measures in place, it is expected that in both 2005 and 2006, the number of parents and grandparents immigrating to Canada will increase by an additional 12,000 each year. This triples the original 6,000 forecasted for 2005.
In 2007-2008, the wait for permanent residency will be cut from two years to one year, without reducing rigorous security screening requirements, said Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Joe Volpe.
With 236,000 new permanent residents each year, immigration is an important motor of demographic growth in the country, which has a population of 32 million.
"Canada's immigration system is a model for the world and today's measures allow us to maintain and enhance our position. We will do this by reducing application processing times for permanent residents who want to become Canadian citizens," said Volpe in a statement.
The measures, aimed squarely at Canada's ever-growing immigrant community, are long overdue and have been in the works for some time, Volpe said, dismissing suggestions the federal Liberal government is bracing for a possible election.
