New, improved Canadian Federal Skilled Worker Program visa stream opens

Canada's Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP), the country's main immigration programme for skilled workers, reopened on 4th May 2013. The new FSWP will favour younger applicants. Some 55,000 permanent resident visas will be allocated in the next year. Among these will be 5,000 visas for workers who have experience in one of 24 'eligible occupations'.

Under the new FSWP, skilled workers who wish to emigrate to Canada can apply for a Canadian permanent resident visa if they fall into one of three categories;

• They have a year's continuous work experience within the last decade of one of 24 'eligible occupations. These include many mining-related engineering trades and many technical medical occupations such as physiotherapists, medical laboratory technologists and radiation technologists. In the first year, only 5,000 'eligible occupation' visas will be issued.
• They have a valid offer of arranged employment in Canada or
• They are international students who are either enrolled in a PhD course in Canada or have graduated from a PhD course in Canada within the last year.

Applicants need 67 points out of 100 on points grid

All applicants must also score a minimum of 67 points out of 100 in an assessment of their qualities against the Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) 'points-based grid'.

Points will be awarded for

• Skill in English and/or French
• Educational qualifications
• Work experience
• Age
• Previous employment in Canada
• Adaptability.

Applicants will also be required to prove that they have sufficient funds to support themselves when they arrive in Canada, as they did under the old FSWP. All applicants must also still obtain a police certificate from their home country to prove that they do not have a criminal record. CIC will also carry out checks on applicants in any other country where they have lived. If you have a criminal record, this will affect your application and may well lead to rejection.

The new FSWP has been adapted to favour those who speak English and French and younger applicants. Canadian immigration minister Jason Kenney has said that this change has been made because younger people and those with better language skills tend to assimilate better.

FSWP reformed while suspended

The old FSWP was suspended by Mr Kenney in July 2012. At the time, he said that program would be reformed while suspended.

By 2012, before the old FSWP was suspended, a backlog of some 624,500 applications had accumulated because so many people applied. Some people were waiting for over eight years for their applications to be processed. In June 2012, Mr Kenney took the radical step of terminating all applications made before February 28th 2008. He then suspended the program in July 2012. These two measures have allowed the backlog of cases awaiting determination to be cut to fewer than 100,000. Mr Kenney says that he expects these cases to be decided by the end of 2014.

In late 2012, some of those who had had their FSWP applications terminated sued the Canadian government to try to get their FSWP applications reinstated. Their case was dismissed in April 2013 by a Canadian federal court judge.

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