Canada attempts to remove vestiges exist in its in-Canada related policies and procedures

Despite few government Bills, such as C-17 and C-50, that are still pending in the Parliament of Canada and propose few controversial amendments in Canada’s current immigration laws, there are other significant developments side-by-side that drives government to review contentious immigration policies and fix them. Following are the details of such two important improvements occurred in last few days.

The Canadian Parliament has recently passed a legislative amendment in Canada’s immigration law that will end deportations of spouses, of Canadian citizens or permanent residents, having outstanding in-Canada applications until a decision is rendered on their cases.

Currently, the married couples living in Canada and who have outstanding in-Canada applications for spousal sponsorship can still be separated and even deported before a decision is made on their case.

The motion was moved by the immigration critic of New Democratic Party (NDP) Olivia Chow, which will help to remove the backlog of nearly 22,000 such cases waiting to be deported. In last year February, a similar motion by NDP forced government to change its policy that require gay immigrants to marry inside Canada for their marriages to be recognized and at least one partner had to be a Canadian citizen or permanent resident. As a result, same-sex marriages legally performed in Canada and in foreign jurisdictions are now recognized for all immigration purposes. The same-sex marriages were made legal throughout Canada in 2005.

On the other hand, the officials at the department of Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) are now seriously considering to simplify the landing process for those skilled workers and business immigrants who have filed their immigration cases to visa posts outside Canada but have moved to Canada in some lawful temporary status before a permanent resident visa is issued to them overseas. The new policy change, if implemented, will allow such applicants to get their landing without leaving Canada. Presently, applicants in skilled worker and business immigrant categories are required to drive or fly to the nearest Canadian port of entry to seek landing.