Canada believes that effective international cooperation is essential in order to address common challenges as well as harness the benefits of global migration.

Today, Canada announced it adopted the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM), the first global framework on all aspects of international migration. The Honourable Ahmed Hussen, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, made the announcement at the Intergovernmental Conference to Adopt the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration in Marrakech, Morocco.

The GCM acknowledges the serious challenges that irregular migration poses, while emphasizing the positive contributions of migrants, and the benefits of regular pathways and well-managed migration systems. Migrant and refugee flows are a growing phenomenon around the world. According to the United Nations, there are currently about 258 million people on the move. Of these, 68.5 million are forcibly displaced people – including refugees and asylum seekers – who are forced to flee their homes in search of new ones due to violence, discrimination and war.

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Canada is expanding its biometrics collection program and is now taking steps to prepare for December 31, 2018, when nationals from countries in Asia, Asia Pacific and the Americas will need to give their biometrics (fingerprints and a photo) when applying for a visitor visa, study or work permit, or for permanent residence.

Collecting biometrics provides many benefits: It stops those who pose a risk to the safety and security of Canadians, while also helping officials better manage applicants’ identities, facilitating application processing, and simplifying entry for travellers with legitimate identities.

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The Honourable Ahmed Hussen, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, announced the new multi-year immigration levels plan for 2019-2021. This new immigration plan will benefit all Canadians because immigrants contribute to Canada’s economic growth and help keep Canada competitive in a global economy.

The new plan builds on the strong economic foundation laid out in last year’s levels plan and continues to responsibly grow the number of permanent residents Canada welcomes annually to 330,800 in 2019, 341,000 in 2020 and 350,000—nearing 1 percent of Canada’s population—in 2021.

Minister Hussen highlighted the importance of economic immigration in spurring innovation domestically. That’s why the government’s immigration plan remains focused on attracting the best and brightest from around the world with the majority of the increase in 2021 allotted to high-skilled economic immigration. Newcomers are helping Canadian companies succeed and grow in the expanding information and communications technology sector, where one third of employees are immigrants.

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Supplementary information is available here.

Antigua has extended its current fee structure until October 31, 2019.

On Sep.21/18, the 100% Ownership, Partial Ownership, and Work Permit streams of the PEIPNP were consolidated into one Work Permit stream.  Clients invited to apply before this date are grand-fathered under the previous program.

IRCC has been able to reduce backlogs significantly and make family reunification a priority, thanks to a historic multi-year immigration levels plan. For example, the Live-In Caregiver Program (LCP) inventory was reduced from a high of 62,000 in May 2014, to less than 12,000 by April 2018. We are on track to meet our 2017 commitment to process at least 80% of the remaining LCP backlog by the end of 2018, and are processing new LCP permanent residence applications within 12 months.

IRCC also recently began using an improved method to estimate processing times for some new permanent residence applications.

In addition, we reduced the spousal sponsorship inventory from a high of 75,000 to 15,000 as of December 31, 2017, and are processing new spousal sponsorship applications within 12 months. To help spouses further, we extended the Open Work Permit Pilot for spousal sponsorship applicants and simplified the guides and checklists.

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St. Lucia will no longer  accept applications from Iranian citizens (regardless of their current country of residence), due to problems conducting due diligence checks in Iran.  Also, banks in St. Lucia will not accept funds from Iran.

This change is effective immediately.

The Honourable Ahmed Hussen, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, completed a successful week‑long visit to the United Kingdom (U.K.), Belgium and Germany, where he met with key European partners and stakeholders to discuss global migration trends and speak to how Canada is growing our economy through diversity and immigration.

Minister Hussen highlighted immigration as a powerful economic tool as he led a fireside chat at the University of Oxford, provided the keynote address at a luncheon with the Canada‑U.K. Chamber of Commerce, delivered a speech at the London School of Economics and participated in a roundtable discussion with U.K. businesses that have invested in Canada. Through these events, the Minister outlined how Canada’s multi‑year levels plan and economic programs work to attract top talent to help grow Canada’s economy and meet labour shortages, which are a result of our aging population. The Minister encouraged European leaders and employers to look to immigrants for their innovative perspectives, entrepreneurial spirit, global experience and unique skill sets.

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“Bulgaria will formally apply on Wednesday to join the European Union’s banking union as part of its bid to enter the “waiting room” for euro zone membership, the Black Sea state’s finance minister said.

The euro zone’s finance ministers and the European Central Bank have already given Bulgaria the green light for the move and for its plans to adopt the euro.”

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Focusing on how Canada can grow its economy and strengthen its competitive advantage through immigration, Ministers noted that success will depend on a fast, flexible immigration system focused on a skilled and adaptable labour force. Ministers supported exploring the opportunity to collaborate on attraction, recruitment and retention efforts. Ministers discussed the importance of ensuring rural Canada benefits from increased immigration and the importance of increasing francophone immigration outside of Quebec.

Ministers also discussed the importance of highlighting the positive benefits of immigration to both our economies and communities.

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