April 2025

 Our law student, Songyun Lu, will be writing our newsletters this spring/summer. Songyun immigrated to Canada with her parents when she was 12 years old. This newsletter is grounded in her personal experiences.

The name ‘immigrant’ can entail various implications depending on who you are asking. Is there a difference between my friend, whose British grandparents immigrated to Canada decades ago, and me, who immigrated to Canada one decade ago? Then again, is there a difference between the 18th-century British colonial settlers in Canada and the newcomers settling in Canada today?

March 2025

In 2023, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruled that a section of the Canadian Citizenship Act was unconstitutional.  The section barred the descendants of some Canadian citizens from acquiring citizenship. Enacted in 2009, it limited the ability to pass citizenship by descent to the first generation born outside of Canada. This meant that a child born outside of Canada to a Canadian parent could obtain a citizenship certificate, but their children, the grandchildren of the Canadian parent, could not.

February 2025

The Government of Canada launched two new pilots on January 30, 2025: the Rural Community Immigration Pilot (RCIP) and the Francophone Community Immigration Pilot (FCIP). These two programs are launched against the context of the unique labour market and demographic challenges faced by the rural and Francophone minority communities in Canada.

January 2025

On January 4^th, the Canadian government posted new Ministerial Instructions regarding the Parent and Grandparent Program. The program is paused for 2025 until further Instructions are issued.