Sean Fraser discussed in a meeting with the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration his promise of considering a speedy processing time for work permits.
This previous week, The Immigration minister of Canada stated to the committee that IRCC has been allotted $85 million funds to utilize in an efficient manner to reduce the processing time for work permits. The delay in the processing of the work permit has been caused due to the pandemic. The immigration minister had also announced earlier that the procedure for services like work permits, citizenship proof, and study permits will get back to normal b this year-end.
The work permit applications that are submitted from various countries around the globe are not able to match up with the processing time on the IRCC webpage. Nevertheless, the IRCC is continuously trying to increase the number of work permits. This previous year, the province of Canada had issued 4,20,000 applications under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program and International Mobility Program. Whereas the province of Canada had issued a total of 4,05,000 applications.
The TFWP gives responsibility to Canadian employers to eliminate the shortage of labor by giving jobs to foreign nationals in the specified fields. While, IMP tries to expand the economic, social, and cultural interests of Canada.
Work permits that are submitted externally from the province of Canada can accept the processing time period of 2 months. Whereas International Experience Canada work permits will take the processing time period of 56 days.
Work permit extension requests that are submitted in Canada will take the processing time period of 4 months. Pre covid times, IRCC was able to match the standards by 87% of the time.
When the world was hit by the pandemic in 2020, the working of IRCC was impacted globally and tempered its processing time. This caused a huge backlog in the processing of applications. On the very first day of February, the IRCC revealed that there are more than 85,000 applications pending for the work permit.
The Assistant Deputy of IRCC Daniel Mills contradicted that the $85 million funds will not directly help in lowering the processing time for Canadian PR but will rather assist the IRCC in enhancing its online application tracking and applying facilities. The immigration minister Fraser had observed earlier that the processing time for Spousal sponsorships has gotten back to its track of 1 year.
The Standing committee on Citizenship and Immigration is a joint group of representatives of major political parties of Canada whose motive is to present recommendations of policies to enhance the immigration work on the basis of conducted studies.
Why does Canada require a speedy work permit processing system
The job vacancies report of Canada revealed its data that there were around 90,000 job vacancies available this past November. Immigration has been lately used as a tool for growing the labor market of Canada.
The employers of various industries have portrayed a strong demand of requiring high skilled workers that the province of Canada lacks. As a result, few work permit procedures have been accelerated. Like, The Global Talent Stream has transitioned its processing standard of 10days which is for employers to hire foreign talent.
The province of Quebec provides a complete record for those occupations that exclude the employers from the advertising requirement of the Labour Market Impact Assessment. Although an LMIA is required to get the position without the need for advertising for a job opening.
The assessment of LMIA is required for employing workers from abroad. This is a labor market test through which the Government of Canada tries to show the incompetency of the Canadian workers regarding doing a job.
The previous year, only 25% of the total work permits required an LMIA whereas the rest 75% of the work permits did not ask for an LMIA.
Living in Canada
If any foreign worker who has applied for the extension of their work permit status before it expires can reside in Canada with a tag of maintained status until IRCC passes a decision. By the time the decision is announced, the workers are free to work under the same conditions. The tag of maintained status is also applicable for visitors applying for an extension of their temporary status and for international students holding study permits.
But if the applicant applies for Canadian PR, they become eligible for getting a Bridging Open Work Permit which will give them the power to reside in Canada until their application is processed.
