Immigration Canada

Nicholas Keung Immigration Reporter

Ottawa is stepping up its effort in combatting cheating immigrants who are selected under one province’s entrepreneur program but end up breaking the terms and moving to another. Cheaters will be issued a warning letter and may lose their permanent resident status, according to a new Citizenship and Immigration Canada operational guideline. Legal experts say this is just the beginning of Ottawa’s attempt to stamp out what they call “trampolining” by immigrants — being accepted by one province but settling in another. The enhanced enforcement begins in Quebec but is expected to expand to other provincially administered immigration programs. Provinces are increasingly taking charge of the selection of economic immigrants to serve the needs of their local labour market and economy, though the federal government is still responsible in issuing permanent resident visas. “These immigrants are selected on the strength of that province. They commit themselves to a province in exchange for an immigrant visa,” said Quebec immigration lawyer Richard Kurland. “It is not right if an entrepreneur or investor says they are going to go work and live in a province and then go to another.” According to Canada’s immigrant database, 11 per cent of the one million new immigrants who came to the country within five years and filed tax returns in 2006 had moved from their declared province of destination. More than 24,000, or 14 per cent, of immigrants originally destined for Quebec ended up filing taxes in other provinces. In recent months, immigration lawyers are seeing a surge of cases where newcomers landing in Canada are turned away at port of entry because they fail to show plane tickets or proof of arranged accommodation for their declared destined city, according to Kurland. The courts, so far, have sided with border officials, Kurland said. In the new department guideline, front-line immigration officers are ordered to “monitor” the entrepreneurs selected by Quebec who now live or have a mailing address outside of the province. It applies to all those admitted under the program after Oct. 16, 2006. A report “should be prepared detailing the allegation of non-compliance . . . (and) be referred to the Immigration Division for an admissibility hearing,” it said. To gain permanent resident status under the Quebec entrepreneur program, an applicant must own at least 25 per cent of a company in the province, with an investment no less than $100,000. Not only do they have to manage the enterprises’ day-to-day operations, they must also stay and live in the province for at least 12 months in the initial three years of residence. Kurland said other provinces will benefit from the new directive, especially if it is going to be expanded to other provincial immigration classes, such as investors and skilled workers programs. The federal government provides funding to newcomers’ language training and integration programs in each province based on the number of immigrants who declare it as their destinations in their immigration applications. The funding doesn’t take “secondary migrants” into account.

Image via WikipediaPrague, Dec 30 (CTK) - Canadian migration experts will arrive in the Czech Republic in late January to check how Czech authorities protect minorities and help them integrate into society, Petra Sedinova, spokeswoman for Canada's embassy in Prague, has told CTK.
The Czech Republic has called on Canada to lift the visas that were reintroduced for Czechs in July 2009 in reaction to high numbers of Czechs applying for asylum in Canada. Most of the asylum applicants were Romanies.
Czech diplomats have been unsuccessful in their effort to bring Canada to abolish the visas so far.
Prague sharply criticised the reintroduction of visas and it imposed visas on Canadian diplomats as a retaliatory step. Czechs asked the European Union to exert pressure on Canada in this respect. Ottawa has not met calls from the European Commission to lift the visas either, however.
Canadian representatives have set no deadline for the visa lifting.
Canada is to introduce a new asylum system in a year to prevent foreigners from misusing Canadian welfare benefits, speeding up the proceedings with unwarranted or fraudulent applications for asylum.
Czech Prime Minister Petr Necas said last month it was hardly acceptable for Czechs to only wait for Canada to fully introduce its new asylum system.
Further negotiations are to be held next year.
Canadian ambassador to the Czech Republic, Valerie Raymond, told daily Lidove noviny earlier that Canada's migration experts will deal with the possible reasons that contributed to the exceptionally high influx of immigrants from the Czech Republic. The experts will also be interested in the Czech government's plans and strategies that are to help stop the immigration, Raymond said.
Canada reintroduced visas for Czech citizens already once before for the same reason as in 2009: in 1997 after lifting them for a short period in 1996. The visa duty was finally abolished in November 2007, three years after the Czech Republic's EU entry.
However, since Canada became a target country for a number of Czech Romanies who were claiming refugee status there, it decided to reimpose the visas last year.

Copyright 2009 by the Czech News Agency (ČTK). All rights reserved.
Copying, dissemination or other publication of this article or parts thereof without the prior written consent of ČTK is expressly forbidden. The Prague Daily Monitor and Monitor CE are not responsible for its content.

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