December 2020

Applications are now being accepted for the Health-care workers permanent residence pathway.  This temporary program will grant permanent resident status to refugee claimants who worked in front-line health care positions between March and August 2020.  The purpose of the program is to recognize the contributions of refugee claimants working in the health-care sector during the pandemic.  The program was originally announced in August 2020.

November 2020

Especially these days, it seems that all we hear is frightening news.  Many countries are experiencing a second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.  Governments are running up deficits trying to provide financial support to businesses and individuals.  We are worried about our incomes, the impact on our children’s educations, and for the health of the elders in our communities. 

For those seeking to come to Canada, pandemic-related processing delays and travel restrictions are causing hardships.  Many with approved applications are waiting for permission to relocate to Canada.  Sponsorship applications are backlogged, causing families to remain apart.  And though essential temporary foreign workers are being allowed entry to Canada, that may mean leaving family members behind.

October 2020

After much delay, the 2020 Parents and Grandparents Program will launch on October 13^th. 

This highly popular program has gone through numerous changes over the past few years.  After being put on pause for two years while a backlog of applications was dealt with, the program re-opened in 2014 with a cap of 5,000 applications for the year.  From 2014-2016, interest in the program increased, leading to the yearly cap being reached within two days in 2016.  This led to the Canadian government moving to a lottery system for 2017 and 2018. 

September 2020

Yesterday, part of our day was spent moving large spousal sponsorship files from the office cabinet to our back room. Due to the slowdown in processing during COVID, spousal sponsorships are so backed up that we don’t have enough room in our cabinets for all our pending files. As an example, our office submitted a sponsorship back in March, and we have yet to hear back about whether the file was even received by IRCC over six months later. The couple has remained separated with no end in sight.