Canadian PM Reveals New Immigration Priorities

Key Highlights:

• Overview
• Mandate Letters from PM
• New Immigration Priorities

The Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, has revealed his new mandate letters to his cabinet. These letters outline the priorities that the PM expects his ministers to work on during their government’s rule.

Mandate Letters from PM

The mandate letters guide each minister and their respective department in focussing on their priorities, especially the Minister of Immigration, Sean Fraser and the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC).

It is the most important letter that guides the Great White North’s immigration system, impacting both federal and provincial policies.

New Immigration Priorities

The new priorities for Canadian immigration given in the mandate letter are as such:

• Processing Time: Reduce processing time for applications to tackle Covid-related delays.
• Express Entry: Create more PR streams for international students and temporary workers.
• Family Reunification: Introduce an online application system for family reunification and implement a stream for temporary residence.
• Municipal Nominee Program (MNP): Create MNPs to promote the wider distribution of immigrants across the country.
• Waive citizenship application fees: The task of waiving off the application fees for Canadian citizenship was set as a priority initially in 2019. 
• Trusted Employer System: Establish a Trusted Employer system for companies in the Land of Maple hiring temporary workers.
• Undocumented Workers: Taking insight from existing pilot programs to map out how to regularize the status of undocumented workers.
• Francophone Immigration: Continue operations with Quebec to support French knowledge of immigrants in the province and promote the federal Francophone immigration policy.