With an ever-expanding British Columbia Provincial Nominee Program (“BC PNP”), the federal government has announced that it will make room in its overall  2012 target for provincial nominees for a record amount of nominees destined to and nominated by British Columbia. CIC plans to admit to Canada as permanent residents between 42,000 and 45,000 people in the provincial nominee programs across Canada in 2012, inclusive of spouses (and common-law partners) and dependent children of the nominees. BC’s proportion of nominations was 17% this year, and while the PNP allotments per province were not finalized as at the time of CIC’s announcement, the government announced that it would continue to provide British Columbia with a record amount of space in the overall provincial nominee program in 2012.

Some noteworthy statistics included in the announcement are as follows:

• The BC PNP has increased more than eight-fold, from approximately 600 people admitted in 2004 to 4,900 people admitted in 2010
• Provincial nominees accounted for 16% of economic class admissions and 11% of total immigration to BC in 2010.

In the BC PNP, the Province of British Columbia has its own immigration categories for the selection of immigrants, while CIC maintains authority for “admissibility issues”, such as medical and security screening, generally speaking.

Read the full announcement here.

With the backlog having climbed to more than 165,000 parents and grandparents waiting for a decision on their Canadian permanent residence applications, and with the waiting time for processing exceeding seven years, CIC has announced a four-part Action Plan to tackle this problem. This Action Plan encompasses the following:

1. Increasing the number of parents and grandparents to be admitted in 2012 to 25,000 (up from nearly 15,500 in 2010).
2. Introduction of a new Super Visa for parents and grandparents, which will be valid for 10 years, and which will allow eligible applicants to remain in Canada for up to 24 months at a time with the possibility to renew for a further 24 months. This Super Visa will come into effect on December 1, 2011.
3. Public consultation on how to redesign the parents and grandparents program, so that it will become sustainable and avoid huge backlogs.
4. CIC will not accept new sponsorship applications for parents and grandparents for two years starting November 5, 2011.

This Action Plan appears to have some “give and take”. While no new sponsorship applications will be accepted for two years so that the backlog of applications can be attacked, eligible parents and grandparents can obtain the new Super Visa so they can join their family members in Canada, albeit with temporary status. Full details on eligibility criteria for the new Super Visa have not yet been announced, although CIC has announced that parents and grandparents will have to take an immigration medical test, prove that they have purchased Canadian medical insurance, and prove that there is a child or grandchild in Canada who will provide financial support and who meets a minimum income threshold. CIC aims to process Super Visa applications in eight weeks on average.

Read the full announcement here. 

Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney announced that Canada will accept more immigrants in the Federal Skilled Worker permanent residence application category in 2012 than in the 2011 Immigration Levels Plan.  Underscoring the importance of this economic class category, the 2012 figure is set at 55,000 to 57,000 Federal Skilled Workers, an increase from 47,000 to 47,400 in the 2011 Immigration Levels Plan.

Each year Canada welcomes approximately 250,000 permanent immigrants, who qualify among the various immigration application categories.  One of the more difficult decisions that must be made each year by the government, which has been reluctant to increase overall immigration above approximately 250,000 permanent immigrants each year, is the distribution of these 250,000 visas among all of the various permanent residence application categories. The categories are, generally speaking, ”economic class” categories (which include Federal Skilled Workers, the Canadian Experience Class and Provincial Nominees), and the “family class” categories, which include sponsorships of spouses, common-law partners, dependent children, parents and grand-parents. The government faces a difficult role each year in trying to get the balance “just right” between economic and family classes, and within the various sub-categories within these general classes.

As Minister Kenney announced:

The government’s number one priority remains the economy. We recognize the importance of immigration to our labour market and we value the contributions of skilled immigrants who add to our international competitiveness, said Minister Kenney. We are committed to facilitating the arrival of the best and the brightest to our country.

Read the full anouncement here.

In a unanimous decision dated June 10, 2011 (Canada (Attorney General) v. Mavi, 2011 SCC 30), the Supreme Court of Canada has confirmed that the sponsorship undertaking signed by a sponsor in a family class sponsorship application for Canadian permanent residence status is binding on the sponsor despite any change in the sponsor’s circumstances.

Canadian law allows Canadian citizens or permanent residents to sponsor certain relatives such as spouses, common law partners and parents to immigrate to Canada and become Canadian permanent residents. As part of such a sponsorship, the sponsor must give an undertaking to the government and thereby promise to provide financial and other support to the sponsored person for a certain period of time. As part of that arrangement, if the sponsored person obtains social assistance while the undertaking remains valid, the sponsor is deemed to have defaulted in the undertaking of support, and either the provincial or federal government may recover from the sponsor the cost of providing social assistance. As characterized by the Court, “Family reunification is based on the essential condition that in exchange for admission to this country the needs of the immigrant will be looked after by the sponsor, not by the public purse”.

In this case it was argued that the Crown (the federal or provincial government) has a choice about whether or not to collect reimbursement from a sponsor when there has been a default in the sponsorship undertaking. However, the Supreme Court of Canada found that the Crown does not have discretion to forgive this kind of debt. Instead, the only discretion that the Crown has is to delay enforcement action and enter into agreements respecting terms of payment after considering any relevant personal and financial circumstances that might militate against immediate collection. “In dealing with defaulting sponsors, the government must act fairly having regard to their financial means to pay and the existence of circumstances that would militate against enforcement of immediate payment (such as abuse)”.

• Read the full decision: Canada (Attorney General) v. Mavi