Citizenship and Immigration Canada will Temporarily Cease Accepting New Applications

By Andrew Rogerson LLB (Hons) TEP

Effective July 1, 2012, Citizenship and Immigration Canada will temporarily cease accepting new applications to the Federal Skilled Worker (FSW) and Immigrant Investor programs.

This temporary moratorium on new applications has been enacted so that the government can efficiently process applications already in queue. Candidates with offers of arranged employment, as well as those applying under the PhD stream, are still welcome to apply to the FSW program.

“We have been making lots of changes to our economic immigration system,” said Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason 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.”

Intake of new applications is expected to resume in January 2013, when additional proposed FSW changes are expected to become effective. Minister Kenney added that “the pause has no impact on the number of workers Canada admits into the country, as CIC continues to process applications already received. Current immigration remains at historically high levels”.