LATEST CAIPS NOTE UPDATE FOR PRE JUNE 2008 WHOSE FILE GOT REJECTED BY LAW

[kau_shik_patel]

Good Day,

On November 14th after close of business, Justice Barnes set January 14th-16th for the hearing date for those challenging the Minister's treatment of skilled worker applicants. This shorten time-line has forced applicants' counsel to revise how they had intended to proceed.

First, Justice Barnes' manoeuvre obliged the lawyers, who were seeking a class-action, which if granted would have governed all the applicants whose file s s. 87.4 closed, to abort that effort. The motion was to have been heard on November 23rd and 30th. However, twice Justice Barnes, who was to decide the case, stated that he did not want to certify a class. If he ruled that way, an appeal to the Federal Court of Appeal could not be heard before January 14th. Moreover, if he had certified a class, there would not be enough time to organize it effectively before January 14th. Therefore, there will be no class-action lawsuit but only managed litigation governing those who retained a lawyer to represent them.

The result is that a decision on these proceedings will only directly affect those who have signed on with one of the groups. Therefore, one needs to decide whether to participate in the litigation.

Second, by setting the hearing date for January 14th, Justice Barnes has given himself the out he needed to justify his refusal to rule on the motion I had filed on June 29th, asking the Court to enforce the February 3rd Agreement. We will now have to wait for the January 14th-16th hearing.

If the Court declares s. 87.4 (the provision closing the files) to be unlawful, all the closed files will, of course, be resurrected. However, because the litigation seeks an order requiring litigants' files to be processed within a specified time-frame, the litigants' cases -- if successful -- will move to the head of the queue. Whichever way the Court rules, the decision is expected to be appealed. So, the matter to be finally settled when that decision is made following the January hearing.

The unfairCIC.com litigation, however, is different because we are also seeking enforcement of the Agreement DoJ and I signed and filed with the Court on February 3rd. If the Court, agrees that the Agreement is enforceable, s. 87.4 will not have to be declared unlawful for the unfairCIC.com litigants to have their files processed. If he does rule in our favour, the judge will also have to decide whether the Agreement covers only those who applied before the June 14th decision was issued or whether it applies to all the litigants in the unfairCIC.com group, as Justice Barnes directed on June 26th.

The judge appointed to preside on January 14th-16th is Mr. Justice Rennie, the same judge who ruled in the unfairCIC.com litigants' favour on June 14th, at which time he stated that the Agreement was to govern disposition of the other litigants' files. However, CIC has refused to do so, using the excuse that, because the Minister closed the files, it would be unlawful to honour the Agreement.

But, on November 29th, the Minister confirmed what I have been saying -- and CIC has been denying -- since June 29th; namely that the statute gives the Minister the authority to override s. 87.4. On November 29th, the Minister issued Operational Bulletin 479-B, wherein he ordered visa posts "for reasons of public policy" to re-issue visas to applicants who had been assessed after March 29th and who had been issued visas unlawfully after June 29th, when 87.4 closed their files.
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/manuals/bulletins/2012/ob479B.asp

The Minister's doing so confirmed the position which I have been arguing. It should not, therefore, be difficult for Justice Rennie to see his way clear to order CIC to use this same provision in order to honour the Agreement we signed on February 3rd and he held on June 14th meant that the other litigants' files were to be finalized in a manner similar to his order which required CIC to finalize the lead litigant's file within 120 days. (They did so within sixty day.) Assuming he rule in a manner consistent with his June 14th ruling, he will have to decide whether the Agreement applies to all the unfairCIC.com litigants or only to those who applied before June 14th. If he limits his ruling to those who had joined before June 14th, the others' fate will turn on the ruling on s. 87.4.

When Justice Barnes set the hearing date, he said that any counsel who had filed written submissions by November 30th would be able to argue the case on January 14th-16th. Therefore, I served and filed four lead cases for the four unfairCIC.com groups: viz., FSW applications (1) lodged before 27 February 2008 and (a) never assessed, (b) assessed before March 29th or (c) assessed after March 29th and (2) lodged between 27 February 2008 and 25 June 2010. Thus, anyone in each of these four categories who joins the unfairCIC.com group before January 8th will benefit directly from Justice Rennie's ruling.

Sincerely,

Tim Leahy

 

[kau_shik_patel]

Latest Entry in IMM-7502-11.

Letter from Applicant dated 04-DEC-2012 seeking clarification re: direction of Barnes, J. regarding his litigant's inclusion in the 14-JAN hearing; seeking further clarity from the Court regarding what conditions are to be met for the Emam litigants to be heard with the other mandamus matters. (Scanned to Court 04-DEC) received on 04-DEC-2012

 

[kau_shik_patel]

Latest Entry in IMM-7502-11.

Communication to the Court from the Registry dated 04-DEC-2012 re: Applicant's letter of 04-DEC sent to Court for directions.

 

[kau_shik_patel]

Latest Entry in IMM-7502-11.

Oral directions of the Court: The Honourable Mr. Justice Barnes dated 04-DEC-2012 directing "I have Mr. Leahy's letter of Dec. 4, 2012. It isn't apparent that this letter was copied to the other counsel. Please ask Mr. Leahy to verify in writing that his letter went to all of the counsel involved in the case management group. If not, he is directed to do so." Communicated to Mr. Leahy via telephone on the afternoon of 04-DEC-2012. received on 04-DEC-2012.

 

[kau_shik_patel]

Abolishing the immigrant applications backlog is a slap in the face of Canada’s fundamental values

(Gabriel Yiu)

I wrote this article on July 1 when we’re all supposed to be celebrating Canada.
In regard to the Conservative government’s decision to abolish the 105,491 skilled worker immigrant applications (each applications could have more than one person) which have been waiting in line for eight years, I feel ashamed and frustrated. What the Conservatives have done flies in the face of the spirit of contractual and procedural justice. It is against the values that Canadians cherish: compassion, justness and fairness. It also undermines Canada’s international integrity and reputation.

Canada is built up by immigrants and we open our door to people around the world, beckoning them to join us. The federal government sets the rules and requirements for selecting those who want to immigrate to Canada. Our rules are impartial and non-discriminatory because irrespective of the applicants' origin, skin color, religion, sex or sexual orientation, once they meet our set criteria, the government will accept their application.

The skilled worker immigrant applications which are going to be abolished come from those who applied in and before February 2008 (some as early as 2004). These people filed their applications according to the rules and requirements set by Canada. When they submitted their applications, they were promised that their applications would be examined within 24-30 months. They waited year after year and when they inquired about their applications at our foreign consulate or embassy, our representatives there reaffirmed Canada’s commitment to assess their files. The applicants were asked to be patient.
When Jason Kenney became immigration minister in 2008, he declared that he would deal with the huge application backlog. He put the blame for the backlog on the former Liberal government and at the same time established a new skilled worker immigration category to solicit applications. He suspended the processing of the applications filed before 2008 under the old system. Seeing the unusual practice, the immigrant backloggers asked our consulate staff whether they should follow the new system to re-file their application but the reply they got was, “No, your application will be processed. Please be patient.”
Until March 29th this year, in response to the queries about the status of their application, the Canadian Consulate General in Hong Kong replied with the assurance that the applications were not forgotten. They would be processed according to the rules in place when they were submitted, and urged the applicants to be patient.

Then the Conservatives tabled a legislation to abolish the pre-2008 skilled worker immigration applications as a way to resolve the accumulated backlog.
Instead of blaming the Liberals, the Conservatives must bear the biggest responsibility. First, it was their decision to suspend the processing of the pre-2008 skilled worker applications and therefore to let the new applications jump the queue.

Second, if we take a look at the numbers in the skilled worker application inventory and cases our immigration department has processed in recent years, we can see that the government has the capacity to resolve the backlog problem, provided the minister has the will to do it.

Number of Federal Skilled Worker Files Finalized
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
79,447 70,900 72,326 114,549 93,242 57,253


Federal Skilled Worker Inventory, 6 January 2012 2004 to
26 Feb '08 27 Feb '08 25 Jun '10 26 Jun '10 30 Jun '11 1 Jul '11 6 Jan '12 Total
105,491 43,994 9,371 5,495 164,351

If the Conservative government had maintained the level of processing witnessed in the year 2009 in recent years, they would have cleared the entire backlog already. It is unfortunate that the minister’s will was only shown during the 2009 election. Once the Conservatives formed the majority government, the processing numbers dropped. The latest announcement is that the government would stop processing all the skilled worker and investor classes of immigration applications.

In order to deal with the backlog issue, rather than refunding the application fees, the government should use the fund (estimated at over $100 million) to increase the staff to process the accumulated applications. It’s unfortunate that Conservatives did not look for a decent honorable way out.
It appeared that the Conservatives had been planning to abolish the backlog for quite some time. In 2008, the government legislated to change the word “shall” to “may” in terms of processing immigration applications, plus granting the power to the minister to shelve, destroy and return the applications and thus opening the door for abolishing the pre-2008 applications. The Conservatives waited until they formed the majority government to implement their plan. Under the recently passed Bill C-58, the government further removed the right of applicants to appeal their case in court.
The Conservatives might choose to pass a law forbidding the victims to appeal their case in court, but like the head tax and the Chinese or East Indian exclusion acts in the past, these discriminatory laws may not be subject to legal ramifications, but an act that violates the contractual spirit, fairness and justice would be subject to condemnation by history.

Since many of these backloggers filed their applications with the assistance of professional immigration consultants, they knew their case met the requirements and they have been preparing to migrate to Canada. Many people put aside their career and business opportunities (when your superior knows that you’re going to immigrate, he/she will pass you in favour of someone else if they want to promote one staff member.) There are even cases of women waiting to get to Canada before they will give birth; they have waited for eight years.

Like us immigrants who have settled in Canada, the backloggers are from different parts of the world (with a large proportion in China and India). They yearn for the Canadian way of life; they appreciate our democratic, free and just society. They have faith in our country and trusted that Canada would act according to its set rules, commitment and principle. They waited year after year, but in the end, their applications and dreams are tossed to the garbage bin.

The Conservatives' abolition act destroyed the dreams of some 105,491 applicants and their family members at one fell swoop. It also tarnished Canada's international reputation and integrity which it has taken years for successive governments to build up.

 

[kau_shik_patel]

This is the latest update regarding "FSW Processing" that could be found in Tim Leahy's website.

30 November 2012
Lead cases were served and filed for each of our four categories: FSW applications (a) lodged before 27 February 2008 and (i) never assessed, ii) assessed before March 29th or (iii) assessed after March 29th and (b) lodged between 27 February 2008 and 25 June 2010. Thus, anyone in each of these four categories who joins the unfairCIC.com group before January 8th will benefit directly from Justice Rennie's ruling.

29 November 2012
The Minister confirmed what unfairCIC.com had been saying -- and CIC has been denying -- since June 29th; namely that the statute gives the Minister the authority to override s. 87.4. He did so by issuing Operational Bulletin 479-B, wherein he ordered visa posts "for reasons of public policy" to re-issue visas to applicants who had been assessed after March 29th and who had been issued visas unlawfully after June 29th, when 87.4 closed their files. The same provision allows him to honour the February 3rd Agreement and process to visa-issuances our litigants' files.

23 November 2012
Mr. Justice Rennie was appointed to preside at the January 14th-16th hearing. Justice Rennie presided at the first hearing on June 5th and issued the June 14th decision where he ordered CIC to finalize the lead cases within 120 days. (His visa was issued sixty days later.) He also held that the February 3rd Agreement would govern disposition of the other files, but CIC has refused to do so.

22 November 2012
Counsel seeking class certification abandoned that effort because Justice Barnes mooted the motion when he order the matter to be decided on its merits on January 14th-16th. If he had certified a class, a class-action lawsuit could not be properly prepared before January 14th; if he denied the motion, the Federal Court of Appeal could not have disposed of an appeal before January 14th.

The effect of Justice Barnes' action is that those who do not sign onto one litigation group or another before the January 14th hearing will not directly benefit from a favourable ruling. Those who do sign on, however, should have their files moved to the head of the queue if the applicants win in Court.

 

[kau_shik_patel]

This is the latest update regarding "Stalled Investor–Class Processing" that could be found in Tim Leahy's website.

3 December 2012
The six original Chinese litigants have been joined by additional Chinese litigants and well British, German, Spanish, South African and Venezuelan investor applicants.

 

[kau_shik_patel]

This is the latest update that could be found in Bellissimo Law Group's website.

New Deadline to Join the Federal Court Challenge Regarding the Return of FSW applications Filed Before February 27, 2008!
In light of the number of requests our law firm has been receiving, we will re-open the acceptance of applicants who have filed a FSW application before February 27, 2008.
We will be accepting new applicants until 9 January 2013.

 

[kau_shik_patel]

Buffalo immigration backlog leaves new Canadians in limbo

by Tobi Cohen, Published: December 4, 2012, 4:04 pm, Updated: 4 hours ago

OTTAWA — The closure of a visa office in upstate New York last spring has meant extra long delays for thousands of increasingly cash-strapped would-be permanent residents and Canada could risk losing the very immigrants it wants most as a result.International students and foreign workers — young, educated newcomers with so-called Canadian experience, the kind of people Canada's revamped immigration system is increasingly keen to court — comprise the vast majority of the nearly 10,000 files that were transferred to Ottawa from Buffalo, N.Y.

Some say they have waited as many as two years for their papers while they watched others who applied later get their permanent residency before them. A number of them are now on the hook for expensive new medical tests since their previous ones expired, while others are growing desperate as their savings runs out.

Many self-described “forgotten ones of Buffalo” have even taken to Facebook to voice their concerns and swap status updates.

Alireza Saberi, a 28-year-old McGill University electrical engineering graduate from Iran, is one of the organizers. He estimates he's among some 4,000 students and recent grads in the Montreal area now in limbo.

“I am jobless and looking to find a job. Just spending my personal savings,” said Saberi, who applied to the federal skilled worker program after receiving the okay from Quebec in December 2011, about a year after he graduated.

He received a post-graduate permit that allows him to work and has applied to hi-tech companies like Cisco Systems and Qualcomm, but each time it's the same refrain.

“I passed the qualification but it's the last level of HR where they request you to be a permanent resident at least,” he said. “By default, I was rejected.”

He figures he's got enough savings to survive another three or four months and isn't sure what he'll do if processing takes any longer. Returning home is certainly an option and he knows of others who are already considering it.

It's the situation Loic Kerbrat now finds himself in. The 29-year-old from France came to Quebec three years ago on a holiday working visa, found a girl and a new calling and would like to stay.

The childcare worker with a degree in nursing, however, has spent the last nine months doing volunteer work, trying not to cut too far into the money he's saved for a down payment on a house.

He can't work, pending his permanent residency, and says he's already decided to return to France in January if there's still been no movement on his file.

“I followed all of the rules, I did everything I was told to do. Mostly I was disturbed by the lack of information from the government. I just want this to be over” he said.

“I don't understand how this kind of thing could happen in Canada.”

Canada closed its Buffalo visa office in May after announcing foreign students and workers living in Canada would no longer have to leave the country to renew a visa or apply for permanent residency. At the time, about 9,508 permanent residency applications and 700 temporary resident applications were packed up and sent to a new office in Ottawa for processing.

Citizenship and Immigration spokesman Remi Lariviere said the packing started around June and the files were received in Ottawa in July. The files spanned all immigration streams and involved applicants across Canada, though it appears a good number of them involved Quebec skilled workers.

When the office closed, processing times were around 15 months, though Lariviere said new files now received in Ottawa will take only nine months to be finalized. He said the Buffalo backlog should be completed by next summer.

“By centralizing more processing in Canada, particularly for files that are more straightforward and with lower risk, we can be more efficient and create jobs in Canada,” he said.

The opposition has raised the issue on several occasions in the House of Commons over the last few weeks.

In an interview Tuesday, NDP immigration critic Jinny Sims said she suspects overworked, understaffed citizenship officers “just forgot” about the boxes of Buffalo files sitting in the corner as many of them haven't even received a file number or been assigned a case worker yet which means they're still in the very early stages of processing.

“It creates a lot of instability. I think my fear is we're going to have people not trusting their government and beginning to look somewhere else for places to go to and that is a real concern,” she said.

In response to repeated questions in the House of Commons, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney merely noted that the “new central processing office in Ottawa is processing applications more quickly than they were in Buffalo.”

http://o.canada.com/2012/12/04/buffalo-immigration-backlog-leaves-new-canadians-in-limbo/

 

[kau_shik_patel]

22. CIC has imposed moratoria on submission of new entrepreneur
applications and on parental sponsorships so that. according to CIC. it
can eliminate existing inventories. Why could ele not do the same for
FSW applicants? If not, why not?

22.1 I have been advised not to respond to this question.

30. If not, what assurance is there that the Minister will not change
his mind the next time he spies a microphone? In other wordsJ why
should anyone rely on anything elc says?

30.1 I have been advised not to answer this question.

51. How does ClC view the impact this arbitrary closing of 100,000
files will have on the iwillingness of those seeking to immigrate to be
willing to stand in an immigration queue as opposed to jumping on the
smugglers' next ship to Canada?

51.1 I have been advised not to answer this question.

57. If the answer is ~'no'" what assurance can anyonet have that elc
will keep its word? Aff:er all, ele enticed applicants with the promise of
processing files on a ~FO basisJ giving an estimated process time upon
receipt of each application, but abruptly changed it position on 27
February 2008. CIC, lafter instituting iis queue-jumping processing
policy, promised to prpcess the earlier applications; vide your Exhibit
; bUt, four years later, announced, effective the day before, that it
would close all un-asspssed FSW fiUs lodged before 27 February 2008;
vide your ~32; that it wpuld break that promise, too. ele stated that files
lodged after 27 February 2008 would be processed in under one year,
but breached that prpmise as well. So, why should anyone trust
anything CIC on this issue?

57.1 I have been adviJd notlo answer this question.


TIM HAS DONE A GREAT JOB!!!!

 

[kau_shik_patel]

Vancouver 5th Place in Global Quality of Life Ranking

Posted on December 4, 2012 by CICS Immigration editor

Vancouver once again ranked at the top among Canadian cities in a global quality of life index thanks to its temperate climate and the quality of its infrastructure.

The Mercer 2012 Quality of Life Ranking has again placed Vancouver as the top spot to live in Canada and the Americas. Beating out the West Coast city globally were Vienna, Austria (1st), Zurich, Switzerland (2nd), Auckland, New Zealand (3rd), and Munich, Germany (4th).

Other Canadian cities lost points to Vancouver because of their colder climates which according to the index affects quality of life. Calgary (32nd), which has experienced an economic boom over the last two decades thanks to Alberta's expanding oil production, also lost points to Vancouver, and other Canadian cities, due to a lack of an international airport.

The Mercer index also ranked cities by the quality of their infrastructure, an area where Vancouver also ranked well in, placing 9th worldwide and first in the Americas. The top spot for infrastructure went to the South East Asian free market bastion of Singapore, followed by the Northern European metropolises of Frankfurt (tied 2nd), Munich (tied 2nd), Copenhagen (4th), Düsseldorf (5th) and London (tied 6th).

Three other Canadian cities ranked in the top five in the Americas in the quality of life rankings: at second Ottawa (14th), at third Toronto (15th), and placing fourth Montreal (23rd). Honolulu, Hawaii (28th) rounded out the top 5 in the Americas.

http://www.cicsimmigration.com/news/

 

[umerrais79]

Can anyone tell me that I have applied for my Caip Notes 1 month ago, but there is no reply from them until now could you please tell me that how I contact to CIC and ask them about the status that where is my Caip notes and when I got them. Plz give me any related email address.

 

[kau_shik_patel]

Latest Entry in IMM-7502-11

Letter with attachments from Applicant dated 04-DEC-2012 pursuant to the oral directions issued 04-DEC, the Applicant has sent all recent correspondence for this file to all parties in the case management group. received on 04-DEC-2012.

 

[kau_shik_patel]

Can our Justice System be compared to the Canadian one?

18 June 2012, By KNews

Dear Sir,
A few months ago the local press publicized that the Canadian Government will refund processing fees to all skilled workers applicants who filed their applications for Permanent Residence in Canada before 28th February 2008 in order to get rid of the backlog applications. They also quoted press releases from the Canadian Minister of Immigration, Mr. Jason Kenney.
However, the local press failed to publish that over nine hundred skilled workers applicants had filed a class action lawsuit against the Minister of Immigration and the Canadian Government against this move, sued Immigration Minister Jason Kenney for violating the pledge to assess and finalize decisions in a timely fashion.
They asked the court to order the Immigration Department to process their applications within a reasonable time frame.
In a decision released Thursday June 14th 2012, Justice Donald Rennie rejected the Minister's argument that the delay is justified because he has the authority to make policies.
Ottawa has suffered a major setback in eliminating its immigration backlog after the federal court ruled the government is obliged to process all applications it accepted into the system.
“The minister can set instructions that permit him to return some applications without processing them at all, and thus obviously there is no further duty in respect of those applications,” the judge wrote in a 24-page decision.
“However, for those that are determined eligible for processing, the duty to do so in a reasonably timely manner remains.”
What lesson does the above scenario have for Guyana? Can our Justice System be compared to the Canadian one? It only takes a few months for this case to be heard and a decision made.
Balwant Persaud

http://www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/2012/06/18/can-our-justice-system-be-compared-to-the-canadian-one

 

[kau_shik_patel]

umerrais79,

My views about your case:

1.You applied in 2005 and send updated documents along with application.(Eventhough you send updated documents, your updated documents will not be reviewed until visa officer is in a position to review your file ie, your file comes out of queue)
2.Visa officer was about to review your file only on june 2012. so they send you request to update documents. This request they sends to updated applicants and not updated applicants alike.
3. You were not needed to provide those documents you provided along with your application.But recent PCC, addition in family composition, change in family status may be needed again.
4.Job growth......act cancells all applications which a visa officer could not make a selection decision before march 29,(this is done after updation request ,in your case after june )
5. You got a letter stating that your application is terminated by job growth...act.
6.You joined litigation so that your file could be saved.
7.You did not get Ontario nomination.To receive Ontario nomination you should have selected Ontario in your application as the province you would like to settle. If you had selected other provinces, you are eligible for that province's backlog reduction programme only.(Very funny!!!!)
8. They are not responding to your CAIPS request. I have seen many people receiving CAIPS after 45 days.

9.My perception is that since you joined litigation, you are able to ask caips notes through your lawyer . That will be more reliable.