Stewart Sharma Harsanyi Immigration Law Firm Blog

No advantage to Business Class

Business class immigration applications have dropped signficantly since 1993. In that year, 7,217 entrepreneurs landed in Canada compared to 3,341 in 2005. Generally speaking, there are no immigration processing time advantage to a business class application. Processing times are approaching 5 years - including over 39 months for the UK and somewhere in the 60 month range for India. As noted in the Toronto Star article: "They [business class applicants] are not going to put their money and business plans on hold for five years to wait for a decision". The article goes on to note the loss of investment given the drop in numbers. Toronto Star article accessed 31 July 2006 at here. It does not appear (at least in this writer's opinion) that business class is CIC's priority; given the labour shortage provincial nominee programs, foreign workers, and skilled workers with approved employment in Canada are the only immigrants coming to Canada with less than a year/year-and half processing times. Read more →

Harkat ordered deported

CBSA has moved against Harkat, the Algerian national accused of having terrorist links. A deportation 'decision' was provided to his counsel late last week, ordering his removal notwithstanding his fear of being tortured in his country of origin: http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/07/18/canada.terror.deport.ap/ The CNN article is short on the legal specifics of this 'deportation' decision. It's clear that Harkat's counsel will be applying for leave and judicial review by the Federal Court with respect to the '55 page' decision. Additional details are found on Canadian sites, which note that Harkat won't be deported 'anytime soon': http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=afc5a2b8-ab66-4676-8528-29a1dc39475a&k=70139 http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060718/Harkat_ordered_deported_060718/20060718?hub=TopStories Read more →