Colleges and Institutes Canada calls to exempt international students from hotel quarantine
Denise Amyot, the chief executive officer of Colleges and Institutes Canada, said a $2,000 hotel bill is the cost of half of a semester for many students. Amyot called on the government to exempt international students from the three-day stopover requirement. The office of Transport Minister Omar Alghabra said in a statement that any decision to ease or modify border measures in Canada will be based on scientific evidence. Canada's schools draw fewer international students due to pandemic travel rules. Fewer international students in Canadian post-secondary schools means less revenue for these institutions, which will affect domestic students. Amyot said the decrease in international student numbers will eventually create a gap in the labour force in Canada.
#international_students, #study_in_Canada, #quarantine, #self_isolation, #travel_restrictiom, #COVID_19
April 2, 2021
Canada updated instructions regarding several immigration-related aspects
On March 31, 2021, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) published an update regarding the validity of the medical examination for applicants for temporary residence. Some applicants may be unable to travel before the expiry of their medical examination. Thus, port of entry officers may use the facilitation letter and include the expiry date as a means of informing applicants of their medical examination expiry date. In addition, IRCC released new instructions on the exemptions for biometric information collection for those who are unable to collect one or both pieces of biometric information. The government also updated the step-by-step guide for biometric collection.
#IRCC, #biometrics, #medical_exam, #temporary_residents
April 1, 2021
IRCC to offer refunds to applicants in several programs
On March 31, 2021, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) announced the implementation of the new policy in accordance with the Service Fees Act. The new policy which comes into force on April 1, will provide partial refunds to applicants for the Right of Citizenship fee, the International Experience Canada (IEC) program participation fee, and certain passports-related fees if the internal IRCC processing standards have not been met. The refunds will be automatically provided to the clients by July 1. The refund for the Right of Citizenship fee will be 25% if the delay is less than 4 months and 50% if more than 4 months. The Right of Citizenship service standard time is 4 months. As for the IEC, the refund will be 25% for the delay of 28 calendar days or fewer, and 50% for the delay over 29 days. The service standard for IEC is 56 days.
#IRCC, #Citizesnhip, #IEC, #immigration_policy
April 1, 2021
Service Canada approved 40,690 LMIAs in the fourth quarter of 2020
The Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) has updated the official data on the number of temporary foreign worker (TFW) positions on positive Labour Market Impact Assessments (LMIAs) in the last quarter of 2020. In the fourth quarter of the year, Service Canada issued 40,690 LMIAs, 13,792 more compared to the third quarter. This number is almost equal to the last quarter of 2019 when there were 40,863 approved LMIAs. In total, ESDC issued 123,312 positive LMIA decisions in 2020. Despite the pandemic, Canada issued only 6,246 LMIAs less compared to 2019. At the same time, this data includes the number of LMIAs issued in support of work permits and counts only the number of LMIAs and not the number of positions under one application. ESDC also excludes LMIAs in support of permanent residence from these statistics.
#LMIA, #TFW, #Work_in_Canada, #ESDC, #Service_Canada
