Canada receives a very large number of short-term visitors every year, with around 20 million annual crossings of the Canada/U.S. border alone. There is no statistical breakdown of the particular motives for a visitor’s stay in Canada. A large majority of the many millions of business visitors entering Canada every year would not need visas as they are from visa-exempt countries, particularly the U.S. and Europe. Around one million visas are issued annually to visitors who do require them and, although a global breakdown is not available, it is learnt that the business caseload accounts for a substantial proportion of the total number of visas issued to visitors. Source: IOM Geneva.

Canada Calling: From Tourist to Business Visitor to Immigrant In the early 1990s, Andrew was working for a bioscience company in Oxford, U.K., a few years after completing his PhD in biochemistry. In 1992, he and his family took a holiday to visit his brother who was studying in Canada. Andrew combined his holiday with his participation in an international biosciences conference. At the conference he met a business contact who owned and ran a small image analysis company in southern Ontario, Canada, with whom he had been corresponding but had never personally met before. On returning to the U.K., Andrew remained in contact with the owner of the company in Ontario and, one year later, he was offered a job and invited to come and work there. On the basis of that job offer, Andrew and his wife decided to apply for permanent residence at the Canadian Consulate in London. The holiday they had spent in Canada the previous year had convinced them that they would like to live there. Their immi...

Rich world needs more foreign workers: report GENEVA — An international migration organization appealed Tuesday to countries to keep open their doors to immigrant workers despite the global economic crises. The International Organization for Migration said that, despite the current downturn, rich nations will continue to need foreign workers to fill jobs their shrinking work forces cannot or will not do. In its 4th World Migration Report, the Geneva-based intergovernmental body said there are more than 200 million migrants around the world today. Developed nations compete for highly skilled immigrants, but there is also a growing need for low-skilled workers in rich countries, the report said. Planning immigration is "especially important during downturns in the global economy such as the one we are witnessing today," said Gervais Appave, one of the editors of the report. Appave said the Asian financial crisis in the 1990s demonstrated that the need for immigrant workers cont...

Applicants for skilled worker category should be able to provide proof of sufficient settlement funds to support themselves and their dependents after they arrive in Canada. Failure to provide the evidence of sufficient funds may lead to refusal of application. The funds should be readily available and unencumbered from debt, i.e., they should belong to the applicant and cannot be borrowed from another person. The amount of money needed to support a family is determined by the size of the family. These amounts are updated every year. Number of Family Members Funds Required (in Canadian dollars) 1 $10,601 2 $13,198 3 $16,225 4 $19,700 ...

Introduction While Canada has always been known as a country which welcomes immi­grants from all parts of the world, applying for permanent resident status has become increasingly compli­cated and unpredi­ct­able. The Canada Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) and Regulations deal with all aspects of immigration; including the criteria for the selec­tion of immigrants; rules regarding medical and security checks; and terms and conditions of admission. The Immigration Act and Regulations are frequently amended, resulting in an ever increasi­ng need for a potential applicant to get competent and proper legal advice from those firms who are committed to staying current. The following is an overview of the various categories under which a person may apply for permanent residence in Canada. ECONOMIC CLASSES There are five categories of economic class immigrants. 1: Skilled Workers and Professionals Applicants whose occupations are in demand in Canada are assessed on the basis of a...

Canada has a new message for would-be economic immigrants from all over the world: if you belong to one of 38 occupations that are badly needed here, you can expect to receive a landing permit within six months of applying. In 2009, we expect to welcome about 45,000 such applicants. The list of occupations were announced by Immigration Minister Jason Kenney recently along with a promise to maintain immigration levels in the face of a looming recession and a global trend towards lower migrant flows. These changes were introduced by the Conservative government on February 27, freezing a waiting list running into 900,000 applications, including 600,000 in the economic category. If you were to include dependents, the number waiting to have their visa applications processed would be over three million. It marked the first time in 40 years that Canada substantially altered its own points system that for the first time gave equal weight to all applications, irrespective of gender, race and...