Canada has a New Minister of Immigration

                Today Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced his new cabinet for the next 4 years.

                This time around the new Minister of Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship will be Sean Fraser.

                Mr. Fraser is a former lawyer from Nova Scotia (my home province). He was elected as a member of Parliament in 2015 and he is to replace Marco Mendicino, who will be moving to a new position.

                Sean Fraser is from the Central Nova riding in Nova Scotia and includes Halifax who in his past was a litigation lawyer for international dispute Resolution.

                His education is to include a law degree from Dalhousie University, and a Master’s degree in Public International Law from the university of Leiden in the Netherland and to top it off a Bachelor of Science from St. Francis Xavier University.

                Now that the Prime Minister has his cabinet, they will continue to govern Canada going forward and focus on the recovery of Canada from Covid-19. The house will have it’s first sitting starting on the 22 of November.

                In Canada the cabinet represents a body of ministerial advisors who help to set federal governmental policies and priorities. Prime Minister Trudeau will send out a letter to each one of the Cabinet Ministers and each letter outlines the policies and priorities of his government sitting during its time in office.

                To date, Prime Minister Trudeau and the Liberals have made aggressive numbers increasing the immigration levels and will likely continue to work on targets they set out in the last election. They took an a very conservative approach when first elected in 2015 but in the coming months they changed their target numbers to a whopping 400,000 per year and it will help going forward to keep Canada strong and lead us out of the pandemic.

So, what do we expect to see coming from Immigration?

Well. The IRCC will continue to work with Express entry and Provincial, Rural and soon to be released Municipal programs to meet those numbers outlined by the Liberal government.

Currently Canada has a focus on helping individuals who are in very vulnerable positions in Afghanistan and that I can imagine will be expanded going forward as well to include other classes and situations.

It is a very exciting time in Immigration and we will see what the Prime Minister’s expectation with his new cabinet will be when he issues the mandate letters to the cabinet members. Remember the Prime Minister made some promises when it comes to immigration.

1. To end citizenship fees
2. Reduce application times
3. Reform Express entry system
4. New programs for temporary foreign workers and international students

The beginning of November is usually when the government releases updates and new mandates which will outline the new directives like target numbers but with the election being so close this is not likely to happen this year but we can likely bet on the 400,000 projected number to stay in place.

So, overall, we can likely bet on the Liberal government continuing with the aggressive numbers they want for immigration and when the budget comes out in the spring some more news on immigration will also come out with this budget. We are significantly behind on foreign skilled worker immigration and I can imagine that this will be a focus going forward as well.