FSW WORLDWIDE

[taah]

"Mr. Mendicino may or may not remain as Immigration Minister after a new cabinet is sworn in Oct. 26. His and other departments struggled to extricate Canadians and those who had served Canada when the Taliban swept to power in Afghanistan in August.

But overall the country’s immigration performance on this minister’s watch has been impressive. And Canadians should congratulate themselves on remaining an open and welcoming society, even as so many others have closed their doors."

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-no-one-considers-canadas-immigration-record-to-be-a-big-deal-and-thats/

Pray for the “may not“ scenario

 

[GandiBaat]

Those are working holiday visas. How do they offer you a pathway to permanent residency? If I'm not mistaken, none of these visas can be converted into permanent residency in any of those countries. Am I wrong?

Oof. I think I hit a nerve with you guys. I agree with you about Canada, Mr. Kangaroo. I'm not sure why I am being insulted. There are good and bad people everywhere in our failure of a country. I wouldn't say that Alberta is the only place with racism. It happens everywhere.

Let me put it in this way, on the balance of probabilities, Canada is reasonably better than my own country. There are places better than Canada but not many are more easily accessible to immigrate.

 

[GandiBaat]

Integration of systems is a very essential element of data processing systems. Why the hell did they introduce the online portal if the data entered couldn't be electronically transferred and automated? If this was my company, the IT manager would have been fired a long time ago.

Because, most likely, there is no IT manager to be exact. Its different solution for speeding up different parts of the beaurocratic processes done at different times. I was once an architect for a massive bank and it was a similar story. Express Entry, the PR processing platform we know today came into existence for a slightly different reason : to allow Canada prioritise application of those who are better suitable. Before this processing system, the FSW program was about meeting basic minimum score of 67 or something. This is why there are two scores today. One FSWP score for eligibility and another CSR for ranking applicants. Express entry helps in solving the ranking problem to be honest. "Speeding up" processing is more a side effect if at all. The system's main objective does not seem to be aligned with fast processing of application.

If you dig into threads on this forum, you will find references to milestones like "Draft Cashed" in it. Basically, once you applied back then (before 2014) one major way to track if your application is in process was to verify if CIC had cashed the draft of fee you sent with your application. The upshot is that even in 2014 these people were using drafts for accepting fees.

 

[EscoBlades]

And this is the reason, why I just find it hard to believe when people point out Canada doesn't have a STEM industry, when they are essentially within top 10 in the list of having the most jobs in one of the most high-tech industries in the planet. Not diversified, yes, maybe, can't comment on that since I don't know how other the categories work out, but non-existent, that's a strong word.

There is a fair bit of hyperbole in the thread, driven somewhat understandably, by emotion. Once you view some of the comments through that lens, you’ll be able to spot the exaggeration here and there.

 

[Deleted member 1006777]

The 70% thing is absurdly general. In engineering NOCs you literally start at 50-60% because of the diversity in these fields.

I know it doesn't make sense, but think about it from my perspective. IRCC is known to reject applications for the smallest reason. Except TR to PR, they can make as many mistakes as they want of course. My situation may sound irrational from the outside looking in, but I'm fairly certain I'll have issues with eligibility post ITA.

 

[dankboi]

No one considers Canada’s immigration record to be a big deal, and that’s remarkable
OPINION

With a little more than two months to go, Canada is comfortably on track to meet its goal of welcoming 401,000 new permanent residents this year, despite closed borders and other pandemic restrictions.

That Canada is on the cusp of achieving such a goal in such times is remarkable. Even more remarkable is that no one seems to consider this a big deal.

“We’re in the home stretch,” Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino told me. “Our goal of landing 401,000 new permanent residents in 2021 is well within sight.”

And the Liberal government remains committed to setting immigration records every year, with 411,000 new arrivals slated for 2022 and 421,000 in 2023. Canada is now taking in well in excess of 1 per cent of its population of 38.5 million annually.

The Immigration department has been meeting these targets by converting temporary workers, graduated international students and asylum claimants already in Canada to permanent residents. Those measures, however, are winding down. Visa offices are open once again around the world and fully vaccinated travellers are allowed to enter Canada.

The COVID-19 pandemic revealed hard truths. One is that some of Canada’s most essential workers aren’t in high tech or trades; they’re supermarket workers and truck drivers and others who keep the wheels turning. Immigration policy must recognize their importance.

Another is that immigration will account even more for labour-force growth after the pandemic than it has in the past. Canada’s total fertility rate in 2016 was 1.6, short of the 2.1 children per woman needed to keep a population stable. Today it’s down to 1.4.

Don Kerr, a specialist of demography at King’s College at the University of Western Ontario, shared with me data on fertility rates by census metropolitan area, based on Statistics Canada’s 2020 birth data. Many major cities have fertility rates below the national average.

Vancouver’s fertility is 1.09, comparable to the ultra-low fertility rates of Pacific countries such as Japan and South Korea, while Victoria has fallen to a remarkable low of 0.95. Edmonton (1.41), Calgary (1.33) and Montreal (1.41) are at or close to the national average, but Toronto is only at 1.21, and Halifax is at 1.1.

“Canadian women are delaying their first birth further and further, having fewer children and opting for childlessness to a greater extent than ever before,” Prof. Kerr observed. Thirty-two out of 33 census metropolitan areas saw a decline in fertility over the past decade, even prior to the pandemic.

“Canada’s natural increase is at an unprecedented low,” said Prof. Kerr. “If the smaller cohorts to follow the millennials continue with this very low fertility, we can expect even fewer births.”

If so, then immigration is the only route to filling labour shortages and sustaining the economy. The good news is that new polling data provided to The Globe and Mail by the Environics Institute and Century Initiative show that attitudes toward immigration remain positive and stable.

Sixty-five per cent of those polled disagreed with the statement: “Immigration levels are too high.” Only 29 per cent agreed. Flipped around, 57 per cent agreed that “Canada needs more immigrants to increase its population” (37 per cent disagreed) and 80 per cent agreed/16 per cent disagreed that “the economic impact of immigration is positive.”

(The survey was based on landline and cellphone interviews with 2,000 Canadians from Sept. 7-23, and has a posted margin of error of 2.2 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.)

In the recent federal election, every major national party supported an open immigration policy. Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party, which would ratchet the numbers down, received 5 per cent of the vote, but even that modest level of support was probably based mainly on the party’s opposition to vaccine mandates.

Far from opposing immigration, provinces such as Ontario are asking Ottawa to increase the numbers they can bring in under the provincial nominee program.

Mr. Mendicino may or may not remain as Immigration Minister after a new cabinet is sworn in Oct. 26. His and other departments struggled to extricate Canadians and those who had served Canada when the Taliban swept to power in Afghanistan in August.

But overall the country’s immigration performance on this minister’s watch has been impressive. And Canadians should congratulate themselves on remaining an open and welcoming society, even as so many others have closed their doors.

 

[Deleted member 1006777]

Maybe I'm looking at this from a different perspective, but I just find it hard to believe that Canada does not have a high level of technology, maybe not as high or diverse as say the US, but it should have reached some level of it.

I am a microelectronics engineer (NOT an IT in any way, shape or form), my job specializes in designing integrated circuits that goes to practically any modern electronic device you can find, from TV remote controls, to smartphones, to supercomputers, to missile guidance systems and everything in-between. That said, these items are typically what's being heralded as "high-tech", whether its the latest AI, fast cellphone CPU/GPUs, 5G networking, all of those stuff. It won't be possible without actually having a chip doing all of that.

Before I decided applying to Canada, I did a research on the general labor market and compared it with other nations, since well it's pointless to immigrate to a country and end up not doing anything there. At that time, the results were that Canada has the 4th largest job opportunity in this category after US, Japan and UK among first world nations. In addition, if you include non-first world nations then Canada will be 6th after US, Japan, India, China, and UK. Individual countries in the EU has a slightly smaller size which counts them as lower than Canada's, but of course, if you count the EU market as a whole, then it's way way larger than what Canada has.

Just for comparison, in Australia the demand for this kind of job was abysmal about 70% LESS than what Canada has, and in New Zealand it's practically non-existent. By the way, I'm only talking here about is chip design, for chip manufacturing, countries like Taiwan, Norway, Indonesia, Malaysia would be in the forefront.

What I'm saying here is that if you were a microelectronics engineer, which is a very niche, less talked, but definitely high-tech line of work, relative to the popular "tech" industries like software engineering, IT, etc. and you look at the global labor market; you can see Canada will stand out as an opportunity, and the companies hiring in Canada aren't just startups, most of the them are coming from AMD, Qualcomm, Synopsys, you might not know the latter, but these are companies working at the very edge of IC technology. And this is the reason, why I just find it hard to believe when people point out Canada doesn't have a STEM industry, when they are essentially within top 10 in the list of having the most jobs in one of the most high-tech industries in the planet. Not diversified, yes, maybe, can't comment on that since I don't know how other the categories work out, but non-existent, that's a strong word.

You're right Canada has jobs. They don't pay as much as the US and people using Canada as a B-tier US are salty about it. Personally, I never even considered Australia or NZ because I don't believe in their tech industries at all. Canada, if for no other reason than its proximity to the US, will continue to offer opportunities for a while.

Edit: 1000th page woo. I win the FSW worldwide thread. Now I can celebrate this achievement to counter my lack of immigration prospects.

 

[dankboi]

You're right Canada has jobs. They don't pay as much as the US and people using Canada as a B-tier US are salty about it. Personally, I never even considered Australia or NZ because I don't believe in their tech industries at all. Canada, if for no other reason than its proximity to the US, will continue to offer opportunities for a while.

Edit: 1000th page woo. I win the FSW worldwide thread. Now I can celebrate this achievement to counter my lack of immigration prospects.

i was about to say it.
good job bois!!

 

[Deleted member 1006777]

You have a very narrow view of where Canadian citizenship can get you. If you move to the U.S. on TN status, your company can successfully apply for a Green Card at some point in time. I personally have met people who had done this and they are green card holders nowadays. You can also easily get transferred on L1 status to the US, which is a dual intend, and also gets you a green card. A lot of people use Canada as a backdoor to the U.S.; which many U.S. employers would happily prefer to hire than other nationalities from other countries around the world. Right now, there are lots of Canadians moving to the US because the labor shortage is so acute south of the border that every Canadian who wants a TN job, gets one. THAT SIMPLE!

Lastly, once you are a Canadian citizen, you would never need a visa stamp on your passport, unlike ALL other nationalities. Of course, there are few exceptions to this rule but 95% of the occasions, you can cross the border without a visa stamp, which saves you a visit to the consulate.

I'm pretty sure a TN visa is non immigrant. Maybe your hypothetical company can move you to the US on an H1B and you apply for a greencard from there. But the US uses country of birth for green card/citizenship prioritization, so Indian/Chinese nationals (the ones who are most likely to want to use Canada as a backdoor to the US because of the decades long green card processing times) will not benefit from acquired Canadian citizenship if they apply for a US green card. Unless the rules are significantly different for L1 to greencard, your anecdotes may be lacking some finer details.

 

[dankboi]

 

[Alysson]

I'm pretty sure a TN visa is non immigrant. Maybe your hypothetical company can move you to the US on an H1B and you apply for a greencard from there. But the US uses country of birth for green card/citizenship prioritization, so Indian/Chinese nationals (the ones who are most likely to want to use Canada as a backdoor to the US because of the decades long green card processing times) will not benefit from acquired Canadian citizenship if they apply for a US green card. Unless the rules are significantly different for L1 to greencard, your anecdotes may be lacking some finer details.

Nah, H1B, L1, TN are all temporary visas that don’t carry on to a GC. The company will have to sponsor your GC anyways which will be capped. Your options are wait for lifetime in EB3 or EB2 and hope for immigration change which will never happen. Become a big shot in a Canadian industry at a very specific niche market(like the guy’s microchip job) and claim EB1 manager of managers (this is “easier” for popularity roles like models, like Trump’s wife, sports stars, and journalists, where if you are popular, then you have a good shot). For tech people, you might qualify if you are a company director or CEO. In the end, living in canada or Europe makes it easier to get a role in a multinational company for experience and then try to raise yourself to a eb1 level. Or you can just have a kid south of the border while on temporary visa and in 21 years he sponsors you. Much faster than waiting for eb2 or eb3.

 

[shockr]

1000-page party!

Here's to another 1000 pages of speculation IRCC does whatever the hell they feel like.

 

[dankboi]

Nah, H1B, L1, TN are all temporary visas that don’t carry on to a GC. The company will have to sponsor your GC anyways which will be capped. Your options are wait for lifetime in EB3 or EB2 and hope for immigration change which will never happen. Become a big shot in a Canadian industry at a very specific niche market(like the guy’s microchip job) and claim EB1 manager of managers (this is “easier” for popularity roles like models, like Trump’s wife, sports stars, and journalists, where if you are popular, then you have a good shot). For tech people, you might qualify if you are a company director or CEO. In the end, living in canada or Europe makes it easier to get a role in a multinational company for experience and then try to raise yourself to a eb1 level. Or you can just have a kid south of the border while on temporary visa and in 21 years he sponsors you. Much faster than waiting for eb2 or eb3.

oh melania, everyone knows how this female got the GC.

 

[Deleted member 1006777]

Nah, H1B, L1, TN are all temporary visas that don’t carry on to a GC. The company will have to sponsor your GC anyways which will be capped. Your options are wait for lifetime in EB3 or EB2 and hope for immigration change which will never happen. Become a big shot in a Canadian industry at a very specific niche market(like the guy’s microchip job) and claim EB1 manager of managers (this is “easier” for popularity roles like models, like Trump’s wife, sports stars, and journalists, where if you are popular, then you have a good shot). For tech people, you might qualify if you are a company director or CEO. In the end, living in canada or Europe makes it easier to get a role in a multinational company for experience and then try to raise yourself to a eb1 level. Or you can just have a kid south of the border while on temporary visa and in 21 years he sponsors you. Much faster than waiting for eb2 or eb3.

Careful with the terminology. People here like to cherry pick one thing to invalidate everything else. H1B is an immigrant visa, while L1 is non-immigrant but dual intent. TN is non-immigrant and applying for a GC on TN jeopardizes you TN status and will be used against you in future visa applications to the US.

 

[Psyoptica]

It's nice to have the option to live and work in other countries without necessarily having to move there permanently. Afterall, people move to Canada for better work opportunities amd if they can find opportunities elsewhere without too much effort and have Canada as home to fallback to, I think it's great.