Canadian Immigration Minister proposes eliminating refugee class

Canadian Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney has submitted a proposal to remove one of the three refugee classes in Canada. The class which would be eliminated is the source-country class, which has a list of specific countries from which people can apply to Canada for refugee status while still within the country’s borders.

The empty refugee spots that would have been taken up by this class would be moved over to the convention-refugee-abroad class, where Canada works with the UN to resettle refugees outside of their home country. Applications already approved will be processed, but those not yet approved would be deferred to the other classes. The Canadian Council for Refugees responded, saying that, “They are proposing to close one of the few options Canada has which allows people who face persecution to avoid smugglers.”

Canadian Government announces new regulatory body for immigration consultants

After it became apparent that the current non-government regulatory body, the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants was unable to properly oversee the number of immigration consultants in Canada nor adequately deal with “bad apples” who have scammed immigrants out of money or provided false information to prospective immigrants, the Canadian government has made their own.

The new body, the Immigration Consultants of Canada Regulatory Council will now deal with ghost consultants and unlicensed immigration consultants.

Bill C-35, which punishes shady immigration consultants, in effect this week

Bill C-35 officially comes into law sometime this week, and will make it a crime for anyone who is not a licensed immigration consultant or immigration lawyer to offer immigration advice or services for money. Large fines and jail time will be handed out to any unscrupulous consultants, but it will have to be enforced in order to be effective.

Oops! We could not locate your form.