managersonline said:
Dear All,
Is there anyone who has requested from CIC to execercise “Substituted Evaluation” for his application for FSWP because of having less than 67 points?
And what was the result?
It is a very important clause in CIC manual, if someone will share his experience about "Substitued Evaluation", it might benefit several candidates.
Regards,
George
The Canadian federal skilled worker program is geared to attracting skilled workers who are able to demonstrate an ability to become economically established in Canada. Under a points-based process, applicants are assessed under six factors and numerous sub factors which are designed to gauge, in theory, the likelihood of a candidate’s prospects of settlement in Canada.
It is readily acknowledged by the Canadian immigration authorities however that the points based assessment does not always accurately measure the likelihood of successful economic integration. Immigration officers are therefore afforded a wide discretionary authority to override the points’ assessment and exercise discretion to accept or refuse a candidate irrespective of the points awarded. The legal title under which this discretionary authority is exercised is called a substituted evaluation or exercising positive or negative substituted evaluation.
The Two Sides of Substituted Evaluation: Positive and Negative Discretion
Through this discretionary authority, a visa officer, after concluding that an applicant is likely to succeed economically in Canada, may admit the applicant regardless of the fact that the applicant received less than the required 67 point threshold currently in place. This is commonly referred to as exercising positive substituted evaluation.
Conversely, an immigration officer may also exercise negative discretion or negative substituted evaluation. As one might imagine, this can occur where the immigration officer believes that an applicant is not likely to successfully integrate into Canada even though the applicant may have received 67 or more points under the applicable selection criteria.
In the case of exercising negative discretion, an officer must provide sufficient opportunity for an applicant to respond to their intention to exercising substituted evaluation either through correspondence or through an interview. the officer must also obtain the written concurrence from another designated immigration officer.
In the period between 1997 and 2002, substituted evaluation was used in 2.3% of all cases of skilled worker applications. Of this figure, positive discretion was used an average of 16 times more often than negative discretion. However, this frequency and proportion between positive and negative discretion is not part of any public policy directive. That is to say, the government does not officially outline how its immigration officers around the world should proceed when using either form of substituted evaluation. This relationship of 16 times more positive cases than negative was not written in stone, and can very easily be reversed.
That said, substituted evaluation can be seen as a very wide discretionary power that can be calibrated differently and used to respond quickly to varying circumstances and developing issues within the scope of the skilled worker immigration program.
Link: https://secure.immigration.ca/permres-independent-substitute.asp