Filipiniana News - January 2017
Rhyme
and Reason
New Minister and New Rules for the New Year
When Prime Minister
Justin Trudeau announced some changes to the members of his Cabinet, not a few
were pleasantly surprised by the appointment of a rookie Member of Parliament
as Minister of the Immigration department.
The new Minister of Immigration will replace the outgoing Minister John
McCallum, who will leave politics to be become Canada's ambassador to China. From all accounts, the new Minister, Ahmed Hussen,
appears to be a perfect fit for the job,
who will hopefully bring a fresh and informed perspective to this very
important position.
Here are a few excerpts
from newspaper articles describing the new Immigration Minister:
”Ahmed
Hussen, MP for York South-Weston, is the first Somali-born member of
Parliament, who came to Canada as a refugee at the age of 16 and will serve as
minister of immigration in place of McCallum. His story is the Canadian
immigrant dream — from refugee to community builder, lawyer and now cabinet
minister.
- Toronto
Star, 10 January 2017
"Mr. Hussen arrived in Canada as a refugee in
1993 and settled in Toronto's Regent Park community. While he is proud of his
Somali heritage, he hopes to be more than the token Somali in the Liberal
cabinet.
"As members of Parliament and members of the
cabinet, each of us coming into public life are informed ... by their different
experiences that they bring to the table. And I'm no different in that sense.
I'll bring my experience as an immigrant to Canada, but also an immigration
lawyer, someone who worked many, many years before running for office as a
community activist, a community organizer and a community advocate," Mr.
Hussen told reporters on Parliament Hill Tuesday.
Mr. Hussen's commitment to public service began after
high school, when he began working for the Hamilton-Wentworth social-services
department. He eventually returned to Toronto, where he completed an
undergraduate degree in history at York University.
Returning to his roots, Mr. Hussen co-founded the
Regent Park Community Council in 2002 and helped secure a $500-million
revitalization project for the area.
- The Globe and Mail, 10 January 2017
We wish Minister
Hussen all the best on his appointment and look forward to seeing how his
personal experiences as a refugee and immigrant, as a social activist and legal
advocate, will influence his leadership role in this key cabinet
portfolio.
***
Due to an early
deadline for submitting my column for last month's Christmas issue, I was
unable to report a couple of important immigration changes announced last month: first is the removal of the four-year
cumulative duration limit for temporary foreign workers and the new application
intake system for applicants under the parent-grandparent sponsorship
class.
Removal of the Four-Year Cumulative Duration Limit
The
highly-controversial four-year-in,
four-year-out rule for temporary foreign workers in Canada was eliminated
effective 13 December 2016. All other requirements for a work permit
application, such as a labour market impact assessment (LMIA), must still be
satisfied.
Hence, if a
temporary foreign worker in Canada has been working here for more than four
years, he or she may apply for a work permit renewal provided all other
eligibility criteria are met. If a
foreign worker had lost status but is still within the restoration period, he
or she may apply for the work permit restoration from within Canada. If the worker had lost status beyond the 90-day
restoration period, then he/she must apply for a new work permit from a visa
office outside Canada.
If the temporary
foreign worker had left Canada due to having met the previous four-year limit,
he or she may apply to return to Canada as a worker anytime and need not wait
for four years after having left Canada. However, all other requirements for a
new work permit must be met.
Lottery System for Parent-Grandparent Sponsorship Applications
The IRCC
announced on 14 December 2016 that
instead of accepting the new 10,000 applications in 2017 on the usual
first-come, first served basis, it will allow potential sponsors to express
their intent to sponsor parents and/or grandparents by completing an online
form. The "Interest to Sponsor
Online form" will be available for 30 days or from 3 January 2017 to 2
February 2017. At the end of this
period, IRCC officials will randomly select 10,000 sponsors who completed the
online form and who will then be invited to submit their applications to
sponsor their parents or grandparents' permanent residence applications.
Those invited will
be given 90 days within which to submit the complete sponsorship application
packages. Those who were not invited
will be notified and will be encouraged to express their interest again by
submitting a new online form when the program reopens.
Those invited but
failed to submit the complete application packages within the 90-day prescribed
period will be refused (and their applications returned) and will have to
resubmit a new online interest form when the parent-grandparent sponsorship
quota reopens.
Since this
randomized invitation system is very new, some questions remain such as whether
the quota will be reopened if less than 10,000 completed applications were processed
after the lottery or if several children can submit online interest forms for
the same parent/s. There are many ways
by which this new system could benefit the lucky ones who get invited to apply
but also various ways by which it can lead to frustration and unfairness for
those who may not be as lucky.
As always, the
above are meant for information purposes only and not as specific legal
advice. To seek legal advice about your
particular situation, please consult a trusted immigration legal practitioner.
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