Stewart Sharma Harsanyi Immigration Law Firm Blog

Immigration Policy in the time of COVID-19 -November 6, 2020

Mr. Marc Serré: Great. Thank you very much. … Mr. Sharma, you mentioned modernization, digitalization and biometrics. The department has, especially with COVID now, realized the importance of this, but it's been an issue over the last 20 years, and I want to ask you, because you touched upon this a bit, in a minute or less here, what more we can be doing by IRCC to further digitize and modernize the system. Mr. Raj Sharma: There have been great strides by IRCC to digitize, so APRs, applications for permanent residence, and express entries are already electronic. As Mr. Waldman said, there are many applications that are not. We've already moved the TRVs, the temporary resident visas, online as well. We've moved most APRs online as well. There are still paper applications for spousal sponsorship, and for humanitarian and compassionate applications. There is probably a good 20% to 25% more that can be done here, but we've made good progress, I think, on digitization. … Mr. Marc Serré: I want to thank the witnesses for their balanced approach and their continued offer to work with the federal government to improve this. This is not an issue involving party lines. We... Read more →

Immigration Policy in the Time of COVID-19

It was an honour appearing before the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration on November 6, 2020. As was the case in my previous appearance before this Parliamentary Committee (in 2017) I spoke just before Lorne Waldman -the Dean of Canadian immigration lawyers. Here are some of the responses from the first round of questioning (my opening statement can be found in an earlier post). Mr. Jasraj Singh Hallan (Calgary Forest Lawn, CPC): Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to all of the witnesses for coming today and sharing your thoughts and experiences. I want to touch on some of the points that some speakers highlighted. We know this pandemic has brought many things to light. I was always taught that work is work. Work carries a lot of dignity and honour, and we should recognize people's work as such. Now, as to whether work is defined as “skilled” or not, we've seen throughout this pandemic that industries such as some of the ones that were listed—transport, caregiving, manufacturing and processing—carry so much importance. Before the pandemic, they sometimes weren't given the respect they deserved. We've learned that not only is this work important and considered front-line work, as... Read more →