Canada to pause new applications for Federal Skilled Workers and Investors

From 1 July 2012, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) will place a temporary pause on new applications under the Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP) and federal Immigrant Investor Program. The temporary pause on FSWP applications does not apply to candidates with offers of arranged employment or those applying under the PhD eligibility stream. Normally you will need to have a positive labour market opinion from Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC) for the arranged employment to be valid for the purposes of the Federal Skilled Worker Program.

Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney explained that the pause on new applications is part of the department's ongoing reform of the country's economic immigration system.

"We have been making lots of changes to our economic immigration system," said Kenney. "We will take the next six months to do a lot of the heavy lifting to get us closer to a fast and flexible immigration system."

Kenney said that the pause on new applications will allow CIC to make important reforms to its economic immigration programs before accepting more applications. 

"This is an important step in moving towards a faster, more flexible immigration system, while immigration levels are at a historic high," said a CIC statement.

Since the launch of Canada's Economic Action Plan 2012, Kenney has announced a series of changes to CIC's economic immigration programs including:

• eliminating the backlog of old Federal Skilled Worker Program applications;
• improving the selection of Federal Skilled Workers;
• creating a new Federal Skilled Trades Program;
• modifying the Canadian Experience Class to help transition successful skilled temporary workers to permanent residence;
• changing business immigration programs to target more active investment in Canadian growth companies and more innovative entrepreneurs; and
• moving towards a new application management system, to develop a pool of skilled workers who arrive in Canada ready to begin employment.

"This temporary pause on new Federal Skilled Worker applications will allow us to set the program on a new course as we intend to launch revised selection criteria soon," said Kenney. "The pause has no impact on the number of workers Canada admits into the country, as CIC continues to process applications already received. We're not reducing the number of immigrants. We're just reducing the number of immigrants going into a queue."

CIC expects to begin accepting new Federal Skilled Worker applications again in January 2013, when the proposed FSWP regulatory changes are expected to be implemented. However the pause on new federal Immigrant Investor Program applications will remain in place until further notice.

In April, Kenney announced that CIC will be consulting with provinces, territories and stakeholders on ways to reform the current Immigrant Investor Program in order to maximize the economic benefit to Canada. The Department is also consulting on whether to create a new investor program on a short-term basis, to promote growth in the Canadian economy.