The priorities outlined by the mandate letter will guide Sean Fraser and IRCC.
Justin Trudeau, Canada’s Prime Minister, has just released the mandate letters he submitted to his cabinet.
Canada’s Prime Minister issues mandate letters stating the priorities that they expect their ministers will pursue while the federal government is in power.
The priorities are then pursued by each minister and the respective departments. The mandate letter is Canada’s most important policy document. Canada’s new immigration minister, Sean Fraser, and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada will be tasked to implement the agenda Trudeau gave them today. Because the federal government is the one responsible for managing the country’s immigration system, this will have an impact on not only federal but also provincial immigration policies. Here’s a summary of Canada’s new immigration priorities
The new immigration mandate letter highlights priorities such as:
Application processing: Trudeau asks Fraser to “Reduce the processing time of applications, including to address any delays that have been caused by COVID-19.”
Express Entry: Express Entry is a way to create more permanent residence paths for international students and temporary workers.
Family reunification: Create electronic family reunification applications and implement a program to provide temporary residency to spouses and their children abroad while they wait for the processing of their permanent residence application.
Establish a new Municipal Nominee Program. The MNP’s purpose is to promote greater immigration in Canada. Although it was originally slated to be a priority after the 2019 election, it has been delayed by the pandemic. Fraser will also make sure that small and medium-sized communities are better supported by immigration.
Canadian citizenship application fees waived: Trudeau also identified this as a priority after the 2019 election, but it was another deliverable that was delayed by the pandemic.
Establishing a trusted employer system: Fraser will be asked to collaborate with the Employment Minister in order to create a trusted employer system for Canadian companies that hire temporary foreign workers. He is also being asked to enhance the Global Talent Stream (TFWP) for Canadian companies that hire temporary foreign workers by reducing the time it takes to renew work permits, preserving the two-week processing deadline, and establishing a hotline for employers.
Undocumented workers: Use existing pilot programs to determine how to regularize Canadian workers’ status.
Francophone immigration: Continue working with Quebec to help immigrants learn French in Quebec, and to promote the Francophone national immigration strategy.
Afghan refugees: Canada will help to resettle 40,000 Afghan refugees. Liberals have seen an increase in immigration since 2015. Trudeau’s Liberal party won a third consecutive term of office in September. They have been aggressively increasing immigration levels since they took power in 2015. They have increased immigration from 300,000 per year to over 400,000 per annum.
Trudeau announced his new cabinet after their win in October. Fraser, a Nova Scotian lawyer who was elected first to Parliament in 2015, is now Minister of Public Safety. He succeeds Marco Mendicino, who was the immigration minister from 2019 to 2019, and is now Minister for Public Safety.
The October 2021 meeting between IRCC, Canadian Immigration Lawyers and Consultants revealed that the department has three priority areas in the short-term: achieving the 401,000 newcomer goal for 2021, reuniting family members, and bringing Afghan refugees into Canada.
We can now expect IRCC’s new mandate letter to be unveiled. It will expand its priority list in the next few months.
