CANADA: An Introduction to Immigration

Contributors:

Howard Greenberg

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Naumaan Hameed

Greenberg Hameed PC

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Canada Continues to Lead Immigration Open Door Initiatives

Unique Opportunities for Multinational Businesses, Companies Expanding to Canada and Start-Up Founders

The Canadian government has implemented leading forward thinking and innovative immigration policies to support the needs of employers accessing in-demand and highly sought after global talent. Many foreign and local employers have embraced these general policies resulting in an increased investment and expansion of operations based on easy access to foreign talent to support business competitiveness and growth.

The current focus of foreign business is the development of sizable development centres in Canada in order to stimulate innovation based in large part due to the attractiveness of accessing foreign talent absent a lottery system, limited quotas or highly administrative processes.

Similar trends are evidenced by overseas companies that are also eyeing Canada as an innovation hub, with a predictable and immigration friendly outlook which is predicated on the long term dependence of immigrants, foreign workers and students to maintain and stimulate the local economy.

In short, from a policy perspective Canada is an ideal jurisdiction for employers in need of foreign talent, foreign expansion and innovative founders seeking to launch new start-up operations.

Increase in Immigration Levels and Significant Government Funding

As Canada moves forward into a post pandemic recovery mindset, immigration policy and programs continue to become incredibly important to employers, industries and key government priorities in Canada. Specifically, the implementation of appropriate economic immigration policies will have a significant benefit for employer growth, as well as the creation of new sustainable jobs, training and reskilling initiatives for Canadians.

To ensure Canada has the workers it needs to fill critical labour market gaps and support a strong economy into the future, the 2022–2024 Immigration Levels Plan aims to continue welcoming immigrants at a rate of about 1% of Canada’s population, including 431,645 permanent residents in 2022, 447,055 in 2023, and 451,000 in 2024. This plan builds on the previous levels plan, with an increased focus on supporting our economic resurgence and post-pandemic growth.

The Federal Budget supports this ambitious plan providing $385.7 million over five years, and $86.5 million ongoing, for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, the Canada Border Services Agency, and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service to facilitate the timely and efficient entry of a growing number of visitors, workers, and students. This will include a Trusted Employer Program which will streamline the process for fast tracking key workers to Canada. This will likely create an opportunity for certified employers to preapprove foreign talent and avoid scrutiny of individual immigration applications.

Pathways to Canadian Immigration Status

Accordingly, in an apparent recognition that Canada needs an expansive immigration system which offers many pathways to obtaining immigration status, emphasis is placed on the following key strategies:

● Federal immigration electronic processing system: merit-based on factors such as language skills, age, work experience and education as opposed to a first come first serve system;

● Global Talent Stream: expedited processing of in-demand technology occupations without the need for recruitment, but instead in exchange for employers entering into a labour market benefits plan (LMBP) to commit to training and creating new jobs for Canadians;

● Provincial and Municipal Immigration programs: permits regions and cities to develop bespoke immigration programs to meet the specific local needs of employers and industrial sectors.

● Start-Up Visa Program: facilitates innovative start-up founders and family members a pathway to obtain permanent residence status in Canada (and temporary work permit as needed) in order to launch a start-up in Canada with appropriate certification from government approved venture fund, angel group or business incubator.

● Mobility Provisions via International Trade Agreements:

● -Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA)
● -Canada-Chile free trade agreement (FTA)
● -Canada-Peru FTA
● -Canada-Colombia FTA
● -Canada-Chile FTA
● -Canada-Panama FTA
● -Canada-Korea FTA
● -Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA)
● -Agreement on Trade Continuity between Canada and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (CUKTCA)
● -General Agreement on Trade and Services (GATS)
● -Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP)

An increased trend particularly in the world of remote work arrangements, primarily for technology companies, is to increasingly consider Canada as a strategic jurisdiction to launch new operations or expand existing operations to attract key foreign talent. Key considerations include:

● Ability to provide services in Canada and the US in similar time zones;
● Greater predictability to support permanent residence status for workers seeking to transition to Canadian permanent residence status
● Strategic workforce planning to develop foreign worker mobilisation plans permitting legal work authorisation in both Canada and the United States (i.e. a “North American mobile resource”).
● Access to foreign graduating students who are eligible to work on a post graduate work permit and with a pathway to permanent residence status - Canada draws heavily on its foreign students and foreign student graduates to meet its immigration quotas.

Challenges Impacting a Successful Immigration Program

As with many global immigration programs, COVID-19 has impacted the ability to process immigration applications in a timely fashion. Initial cross border restrictions have now given way to shortages of staff, and the adjustment to remote work. The inflow of immgration applications has increased considerably - Canada's immigration doors are globally understood to be wide open.

Accordingly, significant backlogs have developed which present challenges to Canadian businesses attempting to meet their labour needs. Although the budget has allocated significant funding, it is commonly understood that there will be a lag time before pre pandemic efficiencies are achieved.

The government of Canada is allocating a significant amount of money and resources to support advancing internal technology capabilities to process applications more efficiently. Some efforts have been made to develop artificial intelligence in processing certain application types but there have been initial challenges in achieving successful outcomes.

There is evidence that immigration authorities have developed "efficiency tools" to allow large volumes of applications to be processed much faster. This approach has also raised concerns in legal circles about the balance between technology enhancements and transparency on the actual process involved when a decision is made to ensure procedural fairness is maintained.

It is likely that the modernisation of the legacy immigration processing platform will take time to develop and implement successfully. That being said, it can be presumed that in the near future immigration processing will become more advanced, leveraging automation and artificial intelligence to process applications more efficiently and perhaps even enhancing the ability to select immigrants based on economic need (i.e. highly required skills absent in the local labour market).

In terms of future planning, as the Canadian government continues to develop new policies to facilitate the faster entry of foreign talent, it is likely that there will be new employer compliance obligations introduced requiring employers to remain aware of changes in foreign worker related obligations. The key to Canada’s immigration policy’s success is identifying the balance between an open door policy and ensuring that the immigration rules are not abused.

Immigration Supporting Canadian Business

The more positive news is that the New York Times has recently rated Toronto as the third largest tech hub in North America, with Microsoft, Amazon and Walmart increasing their innovation ecosystems. Clearly, the positive immigration support by all levels of government in Canada together with generous, pro business immigration policies are fuelling the need to locate in Canada.

Increasingly companies are seeing the value of creating a Canadian talent hub and leveraging the facilitative policies to attract foreign talent and in some cases support US operations remotely. This included US companies expanding into Canada to create technology development centres and foreign companies from overseas seeking Canada as an initial springboard into the US marketplace.