March 2023

I frequently get inquiries from individuals who want to re-apply for permanent residence because they have let their permanent residence card expire and live outside of Canada. However, these individuals haven’t lost their permanent residence status just because their permanent residence card has expired.

February 2023

On February 23^rd, IRCC announced new measures to support Iranian temporary residents in Canada.  The measures include:

January 2023

Last month, Immigration Minister Sean Fraser posed in a photo op with international students on the floor of a USP facility. The tweet that accompanied the photo boasted that letting international students work 40 hours a week instead of 20 would have a ‘positive impact on their ability to support themselves financially while studying in Canada.’

December 2022

First comes love, then comes marriage, and then comes an interminable wait for IRCC to process a sponsorship application.

Currently, Family Class applications have a processing time of 18 months. That’s a really long time for newlyweds to put their lives on hold.

As described in our previous newsletter, Visitor visas for romantic partners: tough to get, but not impossible; it can be very difficult for the romantic partners of Canadian citizens and permanent residents to get visas to come to Canada as visitors. For couples wishing to apply for a visitor visa for the sponsored spouse to come to Canada during the processing of the application, IRCC now has a policy applying the ‘dual intent’ section of our immigration legislation: