After a more than two (2) year moratorium on new Applications, which took effect on November 5, 2011, Citizenship and Immigration Canada will resume accepting applications of Canadian citizens/permanent residents, wishing to sponsor their parents and grandparents to immigrate to Canada, on January 2, 2014.

Application forms, guides and information on how to apply to the new Parent Grandparent Sponsorship Program became available, today, Tuesday, December 31, 2013.

The relaunched Parent Grandparent Sponsorship Program differs from the old in several respects:

1. The sponsorship undertaking period has been lengthened from ten (10) years to twenty (20) years.

2. The minimum necessary income to sponsor has been increased from “low income cutoff” to “low income cutoff + 30%”.

3. The period for demonstrating the minimum necessary income has been increased from one (1) year to three (3) years.

4. Income evidence has been limited to official documentation from the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA).

5. Immigration officials have the authority to request updated evidence of income.

6. A maximum of 5,000 new complete Applications for the sponsorship of parents and grandparents will be accepted, beginning January 2, 2014.

Because of the quota and the high demand for this category, individuals who are interested in sponsoring their parents and grandparents to immigrate to Canada with Abrams & Krochak’s assistance are encouraged to contact the law firm at http://www.akcanada.com/contact.cfm with a request for assistance as soon as they can or to complete Abrams & Krochak’s Parent Grandparent Sponsorship Program Online Eligibility Assessment Questionnaire at http://www.akcanada.com/assessment4.cfm.

May we take this opportunity to wish you and yours a very Happy New Year!

Citizenship and Immigration Canada has announced that new Kits and Application forms for the Federal Skilled Worker Program, which reopens on May 4, 2013, will be released and available to the public later today, May 3, 2013.

Once these new Kits and forms become available, they will be sent to all of Abrams & Krochak’s Federal Skilled Worker clients who meet the new eligibility requirements to take effect on May 4, 2013.

If you have not received an e-mail from Abrams & Krochak by 12:00 noon, Eastern Daylight Time (GMT-4) on Saturday, May 4, 2013, with the new Kit and forms, please send an e-mail to info@akcanada.com with a request for same.

On Thursday, April 18, 2013, Citizenship and Immigration Canada made a major announcement, concerning the Federal Skilled Worker Class.

Once again, there will be a General Occupations (Demand) List for the Federal Skilled Worker Class; however, the jobs on the List, the number of jobs on the List, the overall quota for the category and the quota per job on the List WILL change.

To be eligible to apply for Permanent Residence in Canada in the Federal Skilled Worker Class, an applicant must:

score at least 6.0 in each of Listening/Reading/Writing/Speaking on the IELTS (International English Language Testing System) exam, AND

have his/her foreign educational credentials favourably assessed by one (1) of four (4) designated Canadian assessment agencies; AND

have a valid offer of arranged employment, OR

have one (1) year of continuous full-time paid work experience or two (2) years of continuous half-time paid work experience in at least one (1) of the following twenty-four (24) occupations:

0211 Engineering managers

1112 Financial and investment analysts

2113 Geoscientists and oceanographers

2131 Civil engineers

2132 Mechanical engineers

2134 Chemical engineers

2143 Mining engineers

2144 Geological engineers

2145 Petroleum engineers

2146 Aerospace engineers

2147 Computer engineers (except software engineers/designers)

2154 Land surveyors

2174 Computer programmers and interactive media developers

2243 Industrial instrument technicians and mechanics

2263 Inspectors in public and environmental health and occupational health and safety

3141 Audiologists and speech-language pathologists

3142 Physiotherapists

3143 Occupational Therapists

3211 Medical laboratory technologists

3212 Medical laboratory technicians and pathologists’ assistants

3214 Respiratory therapists, clinical perfusionists and cardiopulmonary technologists

3215 Medical radiation technologists

3216 Medical sonographers

3217 Cardiology technicians and electrophysiological diagnostic technologists, n.e.c. (not elsewhere classified)

A maximum of five thousand (5,000) Federal Skilled Worker applications will be considered for processing between May 4, 2013 and April 30, 2014. Within the five thousand (5,000) cap, a maximum of three hundred (300) Federal Skilled Worker Applications per eligible occupation (any one (1) of the twenty-four (24) occupations that appears on Canada’s General Occupations (Demand) List) will be considered for processing between May 4, 2013 and April 30, 2014.

2. What does this mean?

 

a. Existing Clients of Abrams & Krochak

 

(i) Application already filed

 

If you are already a client of Abrams & Krochak and your Application for Permanent Residence in Canada was filed with and accepted for processing by Citizenship and Immigration Canada BEFORE May 4, 2013, the new quotas do NOT apply to you.

(ii) Application not yet filed

If you are already a client of Abrams & Krochak and your Application for Permanent Residence in Canada has not yet been filed with Citizenship and Immigration Canada, we will be sending you an e-mail shortly to advise you as to your eligibility based on the information that we have on file for you. Please ensure to check your Junk Mail folder as well as your Inbox for our e-mail over the coming days.

b. Non-Clients of Abrams & Krochak

 

(i) Eligibility already assessed

 

If you had your eligibility to immigrate to Canada in the Federal Skilled Worker Class already favourably assessed by Abrams & Krochak prior to April 19, 2013 and wish to have your eligibility reassessed, please send an e-mail to askus@akcanada.com with your request. You will receive your reassessment within one (1) business day.

If you had your eligibility to immigrate to Canada in the Federal Skilled Worker Class already favourably reassessed by Abrams & Krochak OR you are certain that you meet the eligibility requirements and you wish to apply for Permanent Residence in Canada as a Skilled Worker with our assistance, it is IMPERATIVE that you retain/engage our services AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE so that we can file your Application for Permanent Residence before the quota for your particular occupation and/or the quota for the Federal Skilled Worker Class is/are reached. Otherwise, you may have to wait until next year’s List is announced; however, should you do so, you run the risk that your particular occupation might no longer appear on that List or that selection criteria will have changed, thereby rendering you ineligible to immigrate to Canada as a Skilled Worker. If you no longer have instructions on how to retain/engage Abrams & Krochak’s services, please visit http://www.akcanada.com/resources/ind.cfm.

(ii) Eligibility not yet assessed

If you are interested in immigrating to Canada as a skilled worker but you have not yet had your eligibility to do so assessed by Abrams & Krochak, we invite you to complete our Free Online Assessment Questionnaire at http://www.abramsandkrochak.com/skilled-worker. You will receive your assessment within one (1) business day.

On January 24, 2013, the Honourable Jason Kenney, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Canada, announced a pilot Immigration program, which will likely permanently replace the former Entrepreneur Category of the Business Class, which ceased to accept new Applications as of July 1, 2011.

The new pilot program, “The Start-up Visa Program”, will run for up to five years. According to Citizenship and Immigration Canada, initially, the number of Applications will be limited because of the program’s narrow focus.

The Start-up Visa Program will link immigrant entrepreneurs with experienced Canadian private sector organizations that have expertise in working with start-ups and who can provide essential resources.

Foreign entrepreneurs will require the support of a Canadian angel investor group, venture capital fund or a business incubator before they can apply to the Start-up Visa Program. In addition to that, foreign entrepreneurs will also have to meet certain criteria regarding language proficiency and educational qualifications.

According to the Government, no longer will entrepreneurs be able to limit investment to small, safe enterprises. Instead, they will now be required to invest in “innovative”, “dynamic” ones that “can compete on a global scale”.

The full set of criteria will be published in the spring of 2013. The Program will open for applications on April 1, 2013. As soon as the criteria are published, they will appear on our website.