Stewart Sharma Harsanyi Immigration Law Firm Blog

Maintaining Permanent Residency Status While Working Abroad

All Permanent Residents of Canada must comply with a residency requirement. That requirement, as of now, is 730 days in every 5 year period. Many individuals want to have their cake and eat it too. Others are constrained by circumstances beyond their control. I have been consulted by both the former and latter regarding the residency requirements. In this blog post, I'll discuss one of the exemptions from the residency requirement. Section 28(2)(iii) allows a permanent resident to comply with the residency requirement even if they're outside Canada as long as they are employed on a full-time basis by a Canadian business or in the federal or public service (of a province). Regulation 61(1) provides additional guidance as to what constitutes a Canadian business (lest anyone start incorporating shelf/shell companies to allow them to skirt s.28). The business must be incorporated under the laws of Canada or of a province and have an ongoing operation in Canada or it can be an enterprise that has an ongoing operation in this country and is capable of generating revenue and is carried on in anticipation of profit and in which a majority of voting or ownership interests is held by Canadians, permanent... Read more →

Interviewed on UK and Canadian Immigration

It was my pleasure to accompany Mr. Harjap Bhangal, famed UK immigration lawyer to Calgary's top South Asian radio station, RedFM. The interview was conducted by Mr. Rishi Nagar. The interview is mostly in Punjabi and is embedded below. Besides this interview, Mr. Bhangal and I attended at Chakde TV (interviewed by Devinder Toor), Radio Awaaz with Harbans Buttar, Radio Sursangam, Loksat with Dan Sidhu, Sabrang Radio with Rajesh Angral and gave a presentation at a Sikh Senior Centre during his whirlwind tour of this city. Read more →

Canada Cracking Down on Marriage Fraud

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 5, Scene V This is one of my favourite lines from Shakespeare and applicable to a lot in modern life, particularly the bloviation of politicians. I have discussed the scourge of marriage fraud in previous articles. Marriage to a Canadian citizen or Permanent Resident is one of the easiest and fastest ways to get permanent residence in Canada. There is no income requirement on the sponsor; there is no requirement that the applicant pass a language exam or show any particular skill or funds to assist in settling in this country. That meant that people were deceiving their sponsors, or sponsors were complicit and taking money to facilitate fraud on Canada's immigration system. Where the sponsor was an innocent, fraud led to tragic consequences. In at least one case, a sponsor committed suicide after learning that he was used by his wife. Marriage fraud is not ad hoc or simply one off in many instances. Our government has had... Read more →

Blog Posting: The Opaque New World of the Express Entry Program

Those who value transparency, predictability and functionality, were left shaking their heads after recent comments from Citizenship and Immigration Canada spokeswoman Sonia Lesage who recently stated that Express Entry ensures that "only candidates who are most likely to succeed- not simply the first to submit their application - are able to apply to immigrate to Canada." This statement, coupled with a strange "matchmaking function" the government will play between employers and potential Express Entry applicants as well as lack of clarity relating to the assessment of points in the Comprehensive Ranking System for "other factors we know will help immigrants prosper in Canada" may leave both practitioners and Applicants befuddled as to the prospects for successful immigration under this program The system, as currently set up, also could potentially result in unfair and discriminatory practices and non-optimal solutions. For example, what if country of origin is used by the government as an "other factor" to assess points in the system. This government has shown a proclivity towards favouring immigration from European or other Western countries (see work permits issued for tradesman from Ireland or young people from Australia). Could that same bias work its way into the system based on... Read more →

The Benefits of Hiring an Immigration Lawyer - Courtesy the CBA

Blog Posting: Rhetoric and Reality in Canada's Protection of LGBT Refugee Claimants

On August 1, 2013, Foreign Minister John Baird denounced legislation passed in Russia which targets homosexuals stating: "This mean-spirited and hateful law will affect all Russians 365 days of the year, every year. It is an incitement to intolerance, which breeds hate. And intolerance and hate breed violence." The cornerstone law, which caused such consternation with Minister Baird, was a law which outlawed propaganda of nontraditional sexual orientation. The law stated that: Propaganda is the act of distributing information among minors that 1) is aimed at the creating nontraditional sexual attitudes, 2) makes nontraditional sexual relations attractive, 3) equates the social value of traditional and nontraditional sexual relations, or 4) creates an interest in nontraditional sexual relations. Interestingly, earlier this year, in March 2014, our firm worked on a case where the government actively deported a gay man from Canada to India, a country which outlaws same sex sexual relations. Recently our firm represented a client from a Caribbean country which also outlaws same sex sexual relations at a refugee hearing. Our client was successful in his claim, however in his reasons for accepting the claim, the Board was quick to state that the claim was not accepted because they... Read more →