With no shortage of migrants hoping to relocate to its shores, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) is set to implement a new policy whereby immigration applications will be processed according to the demand for particular trades, replacing the traditional ‘first come, first served’ approach.

Skilled workers are the most skilled any highly educated migrants that Canada accepts; they are selected for their ability to contribute to the economy and establish themselves successfully in the country and earn the highest incomes on average. Currently, some 700,000 skilled workers are waiting to migrate to Canada, and such is the demand for Canadian skilled visas that processing times have increased by 20 per cent since 2004.

In order to combat the significant backlog of skilled migrants awaiting their chance to relocate to Canada, CIC has proposed a new system whereby migrants possessing the most sought after skills in Canada will be pushed to the front of the immigration queue, thus reducing the lag time for them to receive their visas.

The government aims to cut the waiting time for migrants with essential skills to just six to twelve months from the date of their application. Currently, an applicant with a high level of skills in demand, such as a doctor, would have to wait for up to five years before being granted the right to live and work in Canada.

Anyone will still be able to apply for Canadian immigration under the new law; however, the flexible nature of the system will allow the government to select applications which will be of greatest benefit to the country as a whole.

Canadian migration expert Eric Katz voiced his support for the policy changes, telling OE Visas:

“In My opinion these changes are long overdue. Processing every type of Canadian visa application has just lead to huge backlogs that have made the system collapse on itself. Waiting times around the world can be six years in some visa posts. In the UK they might be anywhere between two and four years depending on the type of application and that is just too long.

Canada is losing out to other immigration countries such as Australia, New Zealand and even the UK. This new legislation would come as a breath of fresh air especially for those employers in the booming parts of the country such as Alberta, British Columbia and parts of Ontario.
 
In essence, we are moving to a more market driven system of immigration that will be directly influenced by the supply and demand of the labour market. I think this makes a lot of common sense as the newcomers to Canada would be coming faster to support the economy in its time of need and would be contributing as taxpayers to the building and maintenance of the country's infrastructure which is growing exponentially.”