My eBook, How To Immigrate To Canada For Skilled Workers: The Authoritative Guide To Federal And Provincial Opportunities is available now on Amazon and other online retailers. Get your copy of the essential guide to Skilled Worker class applications today!

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Also available is my new eBook, "How To Immigrate To Canada In The Family Class: The Authoritative Guide Including Québec And Super Visa Opportunities". Get it at Amazon or the other e-retailers noted above.

Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Happy Holidays from Canada

2014 wasn't the most eventful year on the immigration front in Canada, but 2015 is shaping up to be a game changer. The biggest change of course will come with the Expression Of Interest program. This will impose a major change not in the application process for skilled workers, but in the actual chances a skilled worker has for immigrating to Canada.

Where Canada has historically had a first-come-first-served approach to immigration in all classes, it is moving toward a very selective, and therefore highly political approach that will bring the "most qualified" to the front of the line - even if they just got in line yesterday. While this approach is currently limited to economic immigrants, don't think for a minute that it wont come to apply to all classes of immigration.

In the future, who knows? Even reunification of families may be prioritized by which families might be more economically successful as immigrants in the government's eyes.

Outside of the immigration front, and on a more personal note, 2014 finds me fully settling in to my Canadian life. America is becoming a crazy memory, where my only remaining concerns are with friends and family. What goes on there - fair or unfair, just or unjust - only matters to me to the extent that it impacts those I love. Beyond that, living in Canada has confirmed what I've long felt about my home country: there's something fundamentally wrong with the United States.

For those seeking to immigrate to Canada, I wish you the best in 2015. More than ever it will be important for you to understand the program options available to you and to seek out qualified advice on the path you set out on. Canada is likely to welcome more immigrants than ever in 2015 - mainly because it's a year in which we will see a federal election, and the Tories are going to want to play the immigrant card has strongly as they can. But to be one of the lucky ones who get through the red tape, be sure you are informed, proactive, and consistent in your immigration strategy.

Have the happiest of New Years and God bless you all, my faithful readers!  

Wednesday, December 03, 2014

Half of a change on the way for January 1, 2015 - Express Entry debuts

The CIC announced on December 1st:

In January 2015, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) will launch a new electronic system called Express Entry to manage applications for permanent residence under these federal economic immigration programs:

  • The Federal Skilled Worker Program,
  • The Federal Skilled Trades Program, and
  • The Canadian Experience Class.

Provinces and territories will also be able to recruit candidates from the Express Entry system for a portion of the Provincial Nominee Programs to meet local labour market needs. 

Express entry means that qualified applicants will no longer be processed on a first-come-first-served basis, but instead, be put into a pool of applicants. When an applicant has a job offer from a Canadian company (that cannot be filled by a Canadian citizen), or a job becomes available that matches the applicant's skills (same caveat that the job has to be one no Canadian is available for), then applicants will be matched to the opportunity by the Federal government.

That's right - the Federal government is going into the headhunting business.

Only one hitch though: The job-matching aspect of this new legislation is not ready to roll out yet. Ottawa is going ahead with half a program.

Why? Because it means as of January, they can stop processing applications under the three programs while giving the impression that they are still pro-immigration.

Ottawa says the program will be fully running by the spring of 2015. But this is the same government that brought you the Canada Action Plan - a well advertised jobs program that has generated few new opportunities, despite (according to the Toronto Star) "...spending more than five times as many taxpayer dollars on promoting its economic plan as it is on raising public awareness about the flu pandemic."

Skilled worker program? Read "Killed" worker program.

You can thank the Tories.

Monday, December 01, 2014

What it "feels like"

When we talk about weather in Canada, be it hot or cold, one of the phrases you'll hear is "feels like". This refers to either the effect of the wind in winter, or the humidity in summer. or instance, when I was getting ready to go out this morning, I turned on the TV, and the report was that it was 1C out, "but it feels like -3C"...

What it feels like outside is way more important than the actual temperature. You dress for what it feels like. And it can be dramatically different. It can be -10C outside in the winter, but with a brisk wind from the north or east, all of a sudden it feels like -24C. If you dress for -10C, you're going to be in trouble.

Conversely in summer it can be 24C outside, but the humidity makes it feel like 36C. If you are dressed for a pleasant 24C, you are going to be miserable.

So remember, in Canada, what it feels like matters way more than what it is.