Canada Is Working On Faster Approval Of Skilled Migration

09 Jan 2014

A new report by the Ontario Chamber of Commerce shows that in order to attract the best and brightest talents from the world, Ottawa needs to process applicants for the new system of selecting skilled immigrants within two months.

To replace the decades-old ‘first-in, first-out’ mechanism of processing applications for the Federal Skilled Worker (FSW) Program, Chris Alexander, the Immigration Minister of Canada is about to launch the brand new ‘EOI (Expression of Interest)’ processing system in early 2015.

Alexander says that the system will reduce the processing time to six months. The report said that the single most important factor to know if Canadian employers will take part in EOI will be the speed of the EOI system.

The Government of Canada has indicated that, from Invitation to Apply to arrival in Canada, the approximate time of processing applications through the EOI system is six months, which the report says is too long compared to the 52 days processing time of Australia.

However, the proposed system is a huge opportunity to reverse the reduced skilled immigrants to Ontario. Due to federal policy changes, Ontario has seen a drop of 49 per cent, from 95,091 in 2001 to 48,930 in 2012.

The number of skilled immigrants to Ontario, who were pre-screened and nominated by the employers in the state, was capped to 1,300 per year, which a just 4.8 per cent of the overall migration to Canada. There is an anticipation that employers in Ontario can tap into the talent pool to address the labor shortages through the EOI system.

Josh Hjartarson, vice president of the Ontario Chamber of Commerce and the author of the report said that the present system is hurting the ability of Ontario to attract talent. The Ontario Chamber of Commerce represents 60,000 businesses many of which are small and medium-sized operations eager to make use of the EOI system.

Hjartarson said that the new system presents a huge opportunity for businesses, but only if it is created in a way that helps employers of small and medium-sized businesses.