taleodor said:
Why do you guys spend so much time writing these posts, but don't want to do a simple fact checking?
This is plain false for study and work permits. It is normal for an applicant for a Work/Study Permit, that they want both to work/study in Canada and to immigrate. This is called 'Dual Intentions', and is officially acknowledged by CIC, and work/study permits also give an easier path to immigration. The officers are not checking that a potential student/worker is not going to settle down in Canada. Instead, they need a proof that an applicant will return to his/her country in the event that say (s)he doesn't have job or study any more, of if their PR application is turned down.
@ just_do_it Needless to say, that since your base assumption is false, all subsequent implications are false as well. But still, let me walk you through couple of points.
This is also false. After 5 years in Canada, I know more than a few Canadians, PRs, temp workers and students. The only question people ask is 'How long have you been in Canada?'. No one even thinks to ask 'How long have you been in Canada with PR?' People in general are smart enough to realize that there's no difference between PR-time and pre-PR time. On the contrary, they feel that something is wrong with the Immigration, when they see a person who is for so long in Canada, and his/her case was delayed for years, and this person cannot apply for citizenship. I.e., I met a Police officer in Montreal, who couldn't believe that Immigration was processing my case for more than 3 years.
None of Canadians I talked to cared about the time. This is also why you cannot provide any proof to your statement. In my experience, people here care about these things regarding immigrants: 1) preserving jobs for Canadians, 2) fraud prevention, 3) not letting terrorists/criminals slip through the system, 4) avoid immigrants who come here to get on welfare and use Government services, while doing nothing. Eliminating pre-PR time from citizenship consideration doesn't make any positive effect on any of these. On the contrary, as I wrote before, it would probably have negative effect towards a) preserving jobs, b) increasing share of welfarists among immigrants, c) bringing less money for Canadian education system, d) less taxes collected (since highly-skilled workers and students may prefer to go elsewhere being replaced by low-skilled immigrants).
regarding 'dual intent', i very much doubt what you are saying is true. If you have it documented somewhere, i would love to read it.
As far as i know, when you apply for a student/ work visa, the intention is to study/ work in Canada for the approved time and return home. Yes, there are immigration options available here but the intention of those is to try and keep the cream of crop aka highly skilled people in Canada. You think Canada intends to give PR to every tom dick and harry that comes here as a student? i very much doubt it.
Do you know anyone who has explained to the VO in their student application that their future intentions are to settle in Canada after finishing school? I dont. why? because thats an automatic rejection right there. What they are looking at is that a student will return home after finishing their study.
regarding your second point, Yes I do believe it is unreasonable that it can take years to process a routine application that could have been completed in a reasonable time. Unfortunately, this unreasonable delay in application processing is not counted towards your residency requirements for citizenship. I think the issue here is that processing times need to be brought down to acceptable levels and CIC needs to act to reduce backlogs and process applications faster. so, if there is ever a petition for this, i will gladly sign up. But thats not what we are talking about here.
regarding your third point, it is completely irrelevant. Increasing pre-PR time before citizenship does not affect any of these points since you can still do what every canadain citizen can with a PR card, except vote. And for those crying about not being able to apply for govt jobs, it is mostly federal govt jobs and trust me, you dont want to work for the feds when they are cutting jobs all over the place. I know many who got provincial govt jobs as PR's but then it had mostly to do with their skills rather than what passport they had.
I fail to understand how increasing time spent in canada before Citizenship can (as per your arguments):
1.
preserve less jobs for canadians (no idea how this is affected)
2.
increase welfare recipients (really? how so? are PR's not allowed to work?)
3.
Letting criminals slip through the system (no idea how this is related as criminal checks are done when applying for PR)
4.
Less money going into canadian education system (how? the education system runs off of taxes. it is only the schools and universities that benefit solely from international student tutions. None of that money goes into the Canadian education system)
5.
less taxes collected (again, i dont agree with this. PR options are still available to students and workers. Once they get PR, they can do 99% of the things that citizens can. As far as highly skilled workers are concerned, they will go wherever they get paid most. and frankly, a lot of them use Canadian PR and citizenship as a stepping stone to make it easier for them to travel and work in other countries (mostly US). A lot of foreign students from the US get canadian PR because their options of getting a green card are limited and then move back to US to work.
The fact is, a lot of people are coming to Canada because of their still available family re-unification program i.e. being able to bring your family, including parents and grandparents, siblings etc over to canada. And someone with a PR status can do that, dont need to be a citizen. thats why so many apply to immigrate to Canada. Take that option away and the number of applications will drop. But making it harder/ longer to get citizenship will not affect the # of people applying to come to canada.
Go to CBC website and read comments on any immigration article and it will tell you what a lot of Canadians think about immigration policies. You may have spent 5 years in Canada but i dont think you have a good grasp of things related to Canada. What i do think is that if this bill passes, it affects you as in it will take you 2 extra years to get citizenship. which is not that big of a deal to me to be honest because i think a PR card is sufficient to do everything in canada (unless you really want to vote in which case you wont be able to vote in 2015 anyways and you should have your citizenship by the 2019 elections, even with the new rules).
So, no need to call people who have different views 'sheep' or 'slaves'.
Let me ask you this, if you get your PR, why is it so important to have citizenship right away? What is it that you cannot do as PR card holder that you need citizenship for? Honest question, i am very intrigued to find out.
