May 2025

Written by our law student, Songyun Lu, who is spending her summer academic break learning to love immigration law as much as I do! Songyun immigrated to Canada as a tween, and shares her personal experiences in the newsletters she writes.

 

From my personal experience, I have seen disproportionately more immigrants who found jobs outside of their profession than those who found jobs in their profession after immigrating to Canada. I have many friends whose parents had to either restart their professional education in Canada or give up on their profession completely, due to the lengthy and costly process of re-education or obtaining licensing in Canada. This occupational mismatch is a commonly accepted and often anticipated reality amongst immigrants.

 

It makes no difference if one’s immigration is approved based on skills and education to their employability in Canada. The issue lies in the complicated and often unfair licensing process in Canada that bars them from finding a job in their profession. A friend told me that her father was a dental surgeon in Iran, but when he immigrated to Canada, he was unsuccessful in the certification process. The certification process for foreign-trained dentists is costly and requires multiple examinations that take years to complete. An article from 2023 reports the frustration with the registration backlog for foreign-trained dentists looking to be certified in Canada. In addition, there are issues such as a lack of examination seats, unfair assessment methods, a lack of transparency and an unwillingness of the dental board to communicate with the candidates.

 

Similar frustration can be found in nursing. In this CBC article, a nurse (non-Ontario registered), Razan Suliman, discusses the painful wait, knowing Ontario patients are in need of medical providers. The same article states that a 2020 report found a backlog of 14,633 international nurses were pursuing a licence through the Ontario College of Nurses. Only approximately 2,000 nurses became fully registered members that year. The queue is now estimated to be near 26,000. On the other hand, registered nurses can also get stuck in Immigration limbo, awaiting Permanent Resident status.

 

Even with the implementation of Practice-Ready Assessment programs, there are still systematic barriers faced by foreign-trained doctors. According to RBC statistics, immigrants with a medical degree are six times more likely to work in jobs that do not use their training. An article published by the Canadian Medical Association summarizes some of the barriers existing for foreign-trained doctors. Foreign-trained doctors must have a medical degree from an accredited school in the World Directory of Medical Schools to practice in Canada. Unless you are already licensed to practice family medicine in Australia, Ireland, the UK and the US, you must undergo examinations to be certified. Certain examinations only run a few times a year, making the certification lengthy and costly, especially if you need to retake the exam. Many foreign-trained doctors spend years and thousands of dollars to even begin securing a residency spot. Many provinces also require foreign-trained doctors to sign a “return of service” contract, which obligates them to work in under-serviced communities for several years after their residencies, limiting their ability to choose where they practice at the start of their careers—an obligation not placed on Canadian medical graduates. Considering many immigrant doctors with families, this limitation could have significant implications for their spouses' and children’s lives. Thus, between the cost and the time spent waiting for the certification, many foreign-trained doctors find work in other fields instead.

 

As we step into the second half of 2025 with the new liberal government, we may anticipate hopeful changes in some of these barriers for skilled immigrants. As part of his plan for Canada Immigration, Mark Carney promises to partner with provinces to streamline and speed up foreign credential recognition, particularly in healthcare and skilled trades. It would be interesting to see how this policy will be practically implemented, and whether it will ease the burden of many skilled Canadians currently facing barriers due to their foreign-trained background.

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? How about between the Chinese immigrants who had to pay the Chinese head tax under the Chinese Immigration Act in the late 19^th to early 20^th century and Chinese immigrants like my family today? Didn’t we all leave our birthplace, lured by the promise of a better life, and migrate to a foreign land? Yet, we are not all ‘immigrants,’ or at least not immigrants of the same sort.  

After two years in law school, I have learned a crucial yet unconventional truth: the duality of law as a powerful tool to both liberate some and exclude others, all under the veil of objectivity and neutrality. Immigration law, on one hand, invites newcomers and provides refuge for those in need. Still, on the other hand, it excludes those whom Canada deems to be unfit for Canadian society or unworthy of Canada’s protection. In one of the first few classes of my Immigration Law course, we looked at the objectives of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) including: “to protect public health and safety and maintain the security of Canadian society” and “to promote international justice and security by fostering respect for human rights and denying access to Canadian territory to persons who are criminals or security risks.” Then we learned about inadmissibility, where it is a low threshold for a foreign national to be found inadmissible on grounds including health, financial ability, and misrepresentation. The whole class was shocked to learn that someone could be found ‘inadmissible’ because they would be a ‘burden’ to Canadian society due to excessive medical needs, or they had innocently mispresented information. Anyone who has tried navigating the IRCC website would understand how incredibly confusing and complicated it can be to find clear instructions at times, even for lawyers! It is very easy to misunderstand an instruction and therefore innocently commit misrepresentation—how relevant is this in protecting public health and safety and maintaining the security of Canadian society? This is just one of many examples of the immigration system affirming the narrative that immigrants must be guarded against the resources and safety of Canadian society. While it is a very reasonable and valid objective to protect the security of Canadian society, many people are found inadmissible for trivial matters that can hardly be argued to be a ‘danger’ or ‘threat’. I realized then that one can be legally admitted into the Canadian borders, yet without being welcomed into Canadian society. This distinction is reflected in the bureaucracy of the immigration system, the unnecessary complications in the process, and the uncertainty of immigration policies. Everywhere in the immigration system, a foreign national is treated with the level of caution that is closer to a criminal than a mere stranger. The effects of this, with the intersectionality of racism, is why the label of ‘immigrant’ is forever attached to certain Canadians and even to their descendants, and why some others never get asked ‘where they are really from’ even if they had landed in Canada just yesterday.  

My parents immigrated to Canada from China when I was 12 years old—an age when the conscious identity begins to take shape in the bluntness of a child. Normally, we only take on the responsibility of finding our identity in relation to the world when we already know who we are as an individual. But many immigrant children are burdened with this question while figuring out who they want to be, before ever even having met their grandparents. I am now 24 years old, and I just finished my second year of law school with only one year left before graduating. Once a burden, my immigrant identity is now a valuable experience that led me to immigration law and this fabulous job. I am grateful and have decided that I am even grateful for the Canadian immigration system, even if it is far from perfect. The flipside of immigration law is the wonderful stories of finding freedom and refuge in Canada. I often hear about these stories, my parents’ being one of them, and I think, humbly, I am drawn to this area of law because I want to hear more of them.

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. The 2009 amendments also restored citizenship to individuals born in Canada who had lost their status due to the impact of older Canadian citizenship laws, such as those who had acquired citizenship in another country and subsequently lost their Canadian citizenship. However, only the children of these ‘Lost Canadians’ could obtain a citizenship certificate; subsequent generations could not.

The Canadian government decided that rather than appealing the court judgment, it would amend the Citizenship Act to bring it into compliance with the Constitution. Bill C-71, An Act to Amend the Citizenship Act (2024), was intended to address the problematic issues with the law. However, political shenanigans have delayed the passage of the Bill, requiring the government to ask the court for extensions of time to bring the Bill into law. The most recent extension is until April 25, 2025.

Bill C-71 would amend the Citizenship Act by establishing a test of “substantial connection” to Canada, allowing Canadian parents born outside of Canada to pass on their Canadian citizenship to their foreign-born child if they had spent at least three years physically residing in Canada before their birth.

On March 13, 2025, then-Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Marc Miller announced an interim measure for individuals impacted by the delay in enacting the Bill. The interim measures enable individuals affected by the “first-generation limit” to be considered for a discretionary grant of citizenship. If you belong to the following groups, which were previously barred by the ‘first-generation limit’ to receive citizenship by descent, you are now offered consideration for a discretionary grant of citizenship:

• You were born or adopted before December 19, 2023 and are currently subject to the first-generation limit
• If you were born or adopted on or after December 19, 2023, and your Canadian parent had at least 1,095 cumulative days of physical presence in Canada before your birth or adoption, you will be offered consideration for a discretionary grant on a prioritized basis
• Certain individuals born before April 1, 1949, who remain affected by the first-generation limit
• You lost your citizenship under the former Section 8 of the Citizenship Act due to unmet retention requirements

 

Like many of my colleagues, I am seeing a surge of interest from American citizens interested in moving to Canada or, if they are already living here, in applying for citizenship. However, immigration to Canada is highly competitive, and many applicants will not be selected. Obtaining citizenship by descent is a way for Americans with ancestors who were born in Canada to avoid the competitive immigration process. Once in possession of a Canadian citizenship certificate, the individual can sponsor their spouse and dependent children, and the entire family could move to Canada once the applications are processed. In rare cases, the Canadian ancestor may have made a formal declaration of alienage, thereby renouncing their Canadian citizenship. If so, their ancestors would not be entitled to Canadian citizenship. Unfortunately, unless records were passed down through the family, the only way to know if this applies is to apply for a citizenship certificate. Historical records are searched as part of the application processing, and the issue would likely arise during this search.

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.