During the second reading of bill C-31, Minister of Citizenship, Immigration, and Multiculturalism Jason Kenney has been quoted as saying, “Stand up for the immigration lawyers!”

So far it’s been a quiet 2012 for the immigration bar, except for one area that is heating up: the myriad issues facing the Temporary Foreign Worker program and new temporary foreign worker audits.

On Nov. 4, the Canadian government announced it was taking immediate action to cut the backlog of parent/grandparent sponsorship applications by suspending any new applications for the program. It vowed to decrease the backlog of 165,000 files by increasing the number of those backlogged applications processed during 2012. In addition, the government will be introducing a new “Parent and Grandparent Super Visa,” which will allow eligible applicants a 10-year visa valid for multiple two-year stays in Canada. This Super Visa will become available on Dec. 1.

The United States is one of the only major countries in the world to tax its citizens regardless of where in the world they live. And the taxation issues with U.S. citizens who live abroad has never been a more active topic in immigration law than it is right now.

In my last column, I looked at the Fraser Institute’s report on proposed changes to Canada’s immigration system. Many of those proposals focused on the need to have foreign workers in Canada and what Canada needs in relation to family versus business immigration. For this column, I want to discuss what the business client seems to need with respect to immigration.

As an immigration lawyer, I have seen first-hand stories of individuals who arrived to Canada as skilled workers, highly trained and very well educated, who find themselves unable to find work in their field. Lack of Canadian experience, “foreign” accents, and great expense for accreditation of foreign credentials all become insurmountable barriers for many of the world’s foreign skilled workers who come to Canada.

Working in the legal profession for almost 10 years now has, I would think, taught me a thing or two about client relations. I’ve always felt the balancing of client expectations with the practical realities of lawyering was a fine line that I mostly get right — though when it does go wrong, it tends to go very wrong! But, for the most part, I thought I had this client-relations thing in the bag.

In law, as in most things, sweeping changes cause serious consternation. This unease isn’t just for clients, however. Lawyers also face considerable challenges when facing regulatory changes.

Once again, as an immigration practitioner, I am explaining sweeping immigration changes to my clients. Recently, the minister of Citizenship and Immigration announced new changes to the temporary foreign worker program that will drastically alter the temporary foreign worker landscape when they come into effect on April 1, 2011. The new regulations were gazetted on Aug. 18.

 

Economies shift, tides turn, and in the immigration world, sweeping changes to a major national program is announced on a Saturday. In the summer.