It was May 2013 and I was getting set to give a presentation at the Canadian Bar Association’s National Immigration Conference in Montreal.  Along with representatives from Citizenship and Immigration Canada, I was scheduled to speak to immigration lawyers from across the country on the topic of “family class immigration”. At the time, immigration lawyers were anticipating that the government would soon be announcing changes to family class immigration, particularly when it came to the sponsorship of parents and grandparents.

April 29, 2013: Business Immigration Update Important changes to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program were announced on April 29, 2013. Changes included the immediate suspension of both the Accelerated Labour Market Opinion Program and the policy that allowed for a small deviation from the regional prevailing wage if the wage was already being paid to the employer’s Canadian workforce.

Employers of Temporary Foreign Workers (TFWs) should be aware of increased responsibilities under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations (IRPR). As of April 1, 2011, several important amendments to the IRPR became effective. Highlights include: New criteria have been added to determine the genuineness of a job offer made to a TFW. Employers can be deemed ineligible to hire a TFW if, during the two years preceding a Labour Market Opinion application,