Canada Freezes New Applications Under Farm Management Stream

12 Mar 2018

The immigration authorities in Canada are not accepting fresh applications under the Farm Management stream in the Canada Self-Employed Program.

The stream was meant for issuing Canada Permanent Residence to the aspirants who were interested in buying and managing a farm in Canada and who possessed prior experience of two one-year stints in managing agriculture.

The feedback received by visa officers shows that the processing of applications under the farm management is time-consuming and many applications are rejected.

The statistics reveal that in 2015-2016, 99 percent of applications under the farm management were disallowed.

The officers in Visa department also reported that very few quality applications under farm management were submitted in the recent period. Many were submitted to the Visa Office located in New Delhi, even though there was a major inventory in other locations too.

Self-Employed Program: Required Experience

Cultural Activities Stream

• Two periods of one-year each as self-employed in the cultural activities, or
• Two periods of one-year each as a participant at a global level in cultural activities, or
• A combination of both the scenarios described above,

Athlete Stream

• Two periods of one-year each as self-employed in the athletics field, or
• Two periods of one-year each as a participant at a global level in athletics, or
• A combination of both the scenarios described above,

Farm Management Stream

• Two periods of one-year each as a manager of farms,

The Applications were received from small-scale farmers who did not possess the experience in managing a major mechanized farm. Applications were projected and patronized by immigration consultants who were unlicensed chiefly from India, who offered ready-made proposals which appeared promising on paper but were not good during the interview stage. All farm management cases have to go through a resource-intensive interview stage.

The Self-Employed Program includes a stream for candidates, who are presently involved, at the top level in cultural activities /athletics. Immigration feels that such streams are useful, to seek permanent residence to canada, for candidates who make a major contribution, to society in Canada, but fail to qualify using other immigration programs.

Statistics have also revealed that the Self-Employed Program has a huge rate of rejection. Only 21 percent applications were approved in 2015. The time required for Processing was high, with a present average of 62 months mainly of applications sent from New Delhi.

Canada has decided to reform and review the Self-Employed Program for ensuring that it is aligned with the objectives of immigration by Federal Government.

Immigration authorities in Quebec have their own version of the Self-Employed Program with a limited quota that is taken up rather quickly.