Recent changes to the Canadian immigration system, including new legislation, administrative changes and over $100 million in funding, have reportedly cut the waiting time for visa applications by 12 per cent.

Despite a rising rate of unemployment as a result of the recession, Canadian immigration minister Jason Kenney remains committed to ensuring that the country remains an aggressive recruiter of foreign skilled workers.

“It's been at least two decades - a generation - since waiting times went down rather than up,” Minister Kenney said. “We’re talking about highly skilled, economic immigrants and we’re competing with places like Australia, New Zealand and the United States for the best and the brightest.”

Kenney continued: “We were telling people to wait in the queue for five years. Where do you think the most competitive people are going to go - if they have to wait five years to come to Canada, versus six months for Australia?”

In contrast to other popular migration destinations, the Canadian government has decided that it will not slash the quote of its skilled migration program, as the country requires the high level of emigration to Canada to be maintained as the country strives to ease itself out of the economic downturn.

“Our economy is also impacted by the global slowdown but we will not be reducing the number of immigrants this year because of it,” Mr Kenney said.
He added, “If we find the downturn is deepened then we will certainly look at modifying the immigration policy to deal with it.”