Bill C-50 Changes
Bill C-50 introduces three dramatic changes to Immigration procedure.
Cases filed in the Economic classes (workers and businessmen) after February 27, 2008 will get a selection decision in six to twelve months.
Visa offices will get an annual quota and once that quota is filled they will return all surplus applications without comment and without taking the processing fee.
Worker cases will be placed in three categories and processed in priority, not in chronological order. those three categories are AEO first, GOL second, SAP last.
Cases filed before February 27 will not be subject to Bill C-50. However, they will continue to be subject to very slow processing times.
Family Class, Refugees and Provincial Nominees are exempted from Bill C-50.
AEO cases are those with an informal job offer that has been approved by Services Canada. For more information, see the article on this website under Programs.
GOL cases are who have work experience on a list of Occupations (the General Occupations List) published by the government. This GOL has not yet been published but will be at least by November this year.
SAP cases are those with 67 points but without GOL experience.
Most Visa office managers will begin each fiscal year presuming they will get enough AEO and GOL cases to fill their quotas. They will presume they will not need to process any SAP cases. They will hold SAP cases and as soon as the quota is filled they will return the SAP applications. They will also return any surplus GOL cases. The only year they will process SAP cases may be 2008 because the GOL is not published yet.
The only group where the visa office will expect less applications than the total quota will be the AEO class. Every AEO application takes priority over GOL and SAP and so all of these cases should be accepted for processing.
Because they will fill their quota from AEO and GOL, it is unlikely that they will have any surplus quota to process very many cases from the backlog. those cases will go even more slowly than they have in the past.
The software the government uses for the cases in the backlog does not allow them to search the data base by occupation and therefore even if the clients in the backlog have GOL experience, the Immigration Department would have no way of knowing this. There are provisions for allowing backlog clients to refile under certain conditions.
Bill C-50 introduces three dramatic changes to Immigration procedure.
Cases filed in the Economic classes (workers and businessmen) after February 27, 2008 will get a selection decision in six to twelve months.
Visa offices will get an annual quota and once that quota is filled they will return all surplus applications without comment and without taking the processing fee.
Worker cases will be placed in three categories and processed in priority, not in chronological order. those three categories are AEO first, GOL second, SAP last.
Cases filed before February 27 will not be subject to Bill C-50. However, they will continue to be subject to very slow processing times.
Family Class, Refugees and Provincial Nominees are exempted from Bill C-50.
AEO cases are those with an informal job offer that has been approved by Services Canada. For more information, see the article on this website under Programs.
GOL cases are who have work experience on a list of Occupations (the General Occupations List) published by the government. This GOL has not yet been published but will be at least by November this year.
SAP cases are those with 67 points but without GOL experience.
Most Visa office managers will begin each fiscal year presuming they will get enough AEO and GOL cases to fill their quotas. They will presume they will not need to process any SAP cases. They will hold SAP cases and as soon as the quota is filled they will return the SAP applications. They will also return any surplus GOL cases. The only year they will process SAP cases may be 2008 because the GOL is not published yet.
The only group where the visa office will expect less applications than the total quota will be the AEO class. Every AEO application takes priority over GOL and SAP and so all of these cases should be accepted for processing.
Because they will fill their quota from AEO and GOL, it is unlikely that they will have any surplus quota to process very many cases from the backlog. those cases will go even more slowly than they have in the past.
The software the government uses for the cases in the backlog does not allow them to search the data base by occupation and therefore even if the clients in the backlog have GOL experience, the Immigration Department would have no way of knowing this. There are provisions for allowing backlog clients to refile under certain conditions.