RHYME & REASON

Filipiniana News – December 2012 RHYME & REASON Despite the entry into force of a laudable legislation termed, “Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants” (Bill C-35) in June 2011, it appears that ghosts consultants are still operating in these parts with relative impunity.      For those not familiar with the term, “ghost consultants” usually refer to people who accept fees or other consideration for providing immigration advice or services but whose identities are not on any of the documentation submitted to the government mainly because they are not duly-licensed lawyers, paralegals or immigration consultants.     Bill C-35 (officially called, An Act to Amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act), makes it an “ offence for anyone other than an authorized representative to conduct business, for a fee or other consideration, at any stage of an application or proceeding.” Ghost consultants therefore, are clearly punishable under ...

Filipiniana News – November 2012 RHYME & REASON     When people find out that I am an immigration lawyer in Canada, one of the most frequently asked questions is this:  “what is the easiest and fastest way to immigrate to Canada?”   The proper response to this type of question is that there is no short and simple answer as it would greatly depend on the specific qualifications and circumstances of the prospective immigrant.    However, a number of prospective immigrants (or their families) have told me that they were advised that the fastest and easiest way to immigrate to Canada is to be sponsored by a Canadian citizen or permanent resident spouse.   They were told that they can try to look for (or even pay) a Canadian citizen or permanent resident to marry them, submit an application for spousal sponsorship and voila, one can obtain permanent resident status in a few or several months.  Some are also told that they...

Filipiniana News – October 2012 RHYME & REASON In case you missed the previous month’s announcements from Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC), discussed below are some highlights of further developments relating to Canadian  citizenship matters.     For Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP) participants, also discussed below is a relevant update regarding the cancelled hotline for live-in caregivers that was created in 2009 by the Ontario Ministry of Labour to help protect and promote caregivers’ employment rights.      New Language Requirement for Citizenship Applicants Effective 1 November 2012, CIC will be having stricter requirements for proving the applicants’ knowledge of either the English or French language.    Before this change took effect, the only way that CIC assessed a citizenship applicant’s knowledge of English or French is through casual interaction with CIC staff and by assuming the ap...

Filipiniana News – September 2012 RHYME & REASON Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) announced that as of 1 July 2012, it has temporarily stopped accepting applications under the Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP) category while awaiting changes to the program that are expected to take effect in early 2013.  In the interim, only those with qualifying job offers, as well as PhD students and graduates, are able to apply under the FSWP.  On 17 August 2012, CIC released the details of the proposed regulatory changes to the FSWP which are based on the skills and qualifications that are perceived as “most likely to lead to success for skilled immigrants.”  The major changes relate to the factors of language, age, work experience and arranged employment as well as spousal language ability and Canadian experience.  The pass mark remains 67 points.  Minimum Threshold and Increase in Points for Language The proposed changes recognize langua...

Filipiniana News – August 2012 RHYME & REASON     A recent controversial bill introduced in Parliament is called the “Faster Removal of Foreign Criminals Act”.   If one were to rely solely on the bill’s title, it seems that only non-Canadians and permanent residents will be affected by the proposed changes.  However, a closer review of the bill’s contents will reveal that even permanent residents are included in the definition of “foreign criminals”.   If anything, this bill reminds us that “permanent residence” in Canada is not so permanent after all.  Canada’s immigration laws underwent a major overhaul when the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) was enacted in June 2002.  Nearly ten years hence, several misconceptions still abound regarding the requirements and guidelines for maintaining one’s permanent resident status.    When permanent resident (PR) cards were created, many thought that as lo...

Filipiniana News   -  July 2012 Rhyme and Reason Amidst the ongoing changes to Canada’s immigration laws and regulations in the past few years, many individuals have been adversely affected to the point of losing their status due to misinformation or even carelessness.  Those who may have lost their status are understandably fearful of getting deported anytime soon and thrown on the next flight back to their home country.  However, misconceptions about the removal process abound such that fears are raised even among  temporary residents although they may actually still have valid status in Canada.  For instance, there are those here as visitors, workers or students whose initial permits have expired but whose extension applications are still pending, who fear that they may just be picked up by the authorities and detained since they could not show any proof of legal status.   Such fears are misplaced if the temporary resident has submit...

Filipiniana News   -  June 2012 Rhyme and Reason By Maria Deanna P. Santos     Despite the changes to the Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP) in the last few years that were meant to improve the situation of its participants, there are still  many caregivers who  fail to complete the program or end up losing their temporary resident status.  Upon further inquiry, it turned out that many of these caregivers were either terribly misinformed or had no knowledge of even the most basic requirements of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) and its regulations in maintaining their temporary resident status in Canada. Thus, I hope that the following review of the most basic requirements of  IRPA as they relate to participants of the LCP will help avoid further instances of caregivers inadvertently losing their temporary resident status.     1.   The initial LCP work permit issued by an immigration offic...

Filipiniana News   -  May 2012 Rhyme and Reason Please pardon the seemingly self-serving topic, but I thought that it may be worth further discussion in the interest of assisting those who may be in urgent need of a legal advocate but are very hesitant to approach one.    For many of us, there would come a point in our lives when we, or a family member, will require the services of a lawyer, paralegal or legal consultant (collectively referred to as  “legal advocates”).   Justifiably or not, many are apprehensive about working with legal advocates. This article is meant to provide some guidance towards reducing if not eliminating such apprehensions.  As in most everything else, achieving a good and satisfying relationship with a legal advocate involves a two-way process.   If you are thinking of consulting with or retaining a legal advocate’s services, here are a few tips that could hopefully make the experience a positive...

Filipiniana News –  April  2012 RHYME & REASON It appears that Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney is truly living up to his reputation as an “energizer bunny” in that he just keeps on going with seemingly nonstop major changes to Canada’s immigration laws and regulations.  After all the recent changes that I summarized in last month’s article, the CIC Minister recently announced yet another major change.  Simultaneous with the government’s annual budget announcement, Minister Kenney announced the plan to return the applications and refund the processing fees paid by most skilled worker applicants submitted before 27 February 2008.  This is allegedly meant to eliminate the backlog and is estimated to affect about 300,000 applicants worldwide, while facilitating the implementation of a “fast and flexible” and “just in time” immigration.  CIC states that the affected applicants are welcome to reapply under the new rules, but no d...

Filipiniana News – March  2012 RHYME & REASON Just this month, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) has issued a number of press releases introducing more significant changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and its implementing regulations. Changes to Address Spousal Sponsorship Fraud As a way of addressing the growing problem of spousal sponsorship fraud and marriages of convenience, CIC has imposed a five-year bar for sponsored spouses and common-law partners from submitting spousal sponsorship applications in favor of subsequent spouses or partners.  The five-year period is counted from the day that the sponsored person became a permanent resident.  Thus, even if the marriage or common-law relationship has broken down in less than five years from obtaining permanent residence and the sponsored person has entered into a genuine marriage, common-law or conjugal partnership with another, the former cannot sponsor the new spouse or par...

Filipiniana News – February 2012 RHYME & REASON A few days ago, the Toronto Star published an article about the allegedly increasing incidence of “nanny poaching”.  That is, due to the alleged shortage of live-in caregivers, prospective employers resort to “stealing” other people’s caregivers by enticing them with higher salaries and more attractive benefits. It is a well known fact that in the business world, headhunters and recruiters do it all the time: enticing excellent but employed candidates with better salaries and other benefits to move to other employers.  This practice is so widespread that it will hardly prove to be newsworthy.  Now when this is happening to live-in caregivers, why is it suddenly considered newsworthy and a matter of great ‘concern’?  Are live-in caregivers less deserving of competitive wages and benefits than other workers?  Are they considered mere objects ‘owned’ by their employers that they do not have a right...