In a recently released report, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) outlined its goals and priorities for 2000-2001.
Most importantly, CIC intends to achieve its target of 200,000-225,000 newcomers to Canada this year. CIC plans to make the selection of business and skilled worker immigrants more effective by adopting simpler, more comprehensible selection criteria and by helping provinces and territories in their attempts to develop a standardized method for assessing foreign credentials. Together with Human Resources Development Canada, CIC will also be implementing the revamped Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) Program, a program geared to ensure the speedy and efficient processing of employment authorizations for workers whose occupational skills are currently needed to fill labour shortages.
Another goal for the current year is to facilitate family reunification by embracing a modern definition of the family that will include same-sex and common-law partners as well as foreign-born adopted children. Furthermore, CIC intends to simplify admission policies for visitors and foreign students, ultimately making it easier for those students who meet the selection criteria to obtain permanent residence.
In line with Canada’s humanitarian tradition, CIC plans to expedite refugee claim processing and bring in anywhere from 22,000-29,000 refugees by 2001. At the same time, CIC intends to reduce the waiting period for Convention refugees whose applications for permanent residence are unnecessarily delayed by their inability to comply with regulatory requirements (e.g., the possession of regular travel documents).
Finally, in keeping with its mandate to manage access to Canada, CIC plans to improve medical surveillance in order to determine which applicants and refugees are medically inadmissible to Canada, thus limiting excessive demands on Canada’s public health care system.