Hope ends for pre-2008 Canada applicants

Published Sunday, April 21, 2013

By Majorie van Leijen

The Federal Court of Canada has refused to hear the lawsuit against the elimination of backlogged Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP) applications, it announced last week in an official ruling.

This means that the hopes of thousands of applicants who sent in their applications before 2008 have now officially been answered with a definite 'no'.

In 2008 the Canadian government started implementing a series of reform movements intending to bring back the waiting time of approximately 40 months to less than a year applicants had to endure when applying for Canadian residency.

At that point, a backlog existed of thousands of applicants, who had no choice but to wait patiently of a response to their applications.

The UAE hosts many of these applicants, who until today continue to hope for their chance to immigrate to Canada. With the ruling it became clear that this chance will not come, unless applicants are willing to file their applications again.

The decision is affecting applications to the most popular immigration programs; the Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP).

On March 29th, 2012, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) announced that all applications made to the FSWP before February 28th, 2008 would be eliminated without review.

Many applicants wished to challenge this decision, and several hundred added their names to a possible class action lawsuit.

The lawyers representing the applicants argued, among other points, that the decision to eliminate the backlog was in violation of two laws: the Canadian Bill of Rights and Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Justice Rennie, who issued the ruling, expressed sympathy for the plight of would-be applicants. In his official decision, he stated: “Applicants have waited in the queue for many years only to find the entrance door closed. They see the termination of their hope for a new life in Canada to be an unfair, arbitrary and unnecessary measure.”

However, despite his sympathy his ultimate conclusion was that CIC’s actions were in fact within the bounds of both the Bill of Rights and the Charter. As applications were ‘terminated by operation of law’, the court would not proceed further in challenging the government.

Apart from the option of an appeal, applicants who remained the wish to immigrate to Canada have the chance to apply again as soon as May 4th, when the FSWP will re-open.

The program has been closed for a year and important changes have been made over the years, such as the introduction of the priority occupation list and the education credentials assessment.

The priority occupations of this years' program have been announced last week and can be found here:

The number of applications that will be accepted under the FSWC of this year will be restricted to 5000, and there will be cap of 300 applications per occupation.

(Home page image courtesy Shutterstock)

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