Following the cancellation of the PEI Immigration Investor Program due to “mismanagement”, the investigation has taken a new turn as the federal government requested that the RCMP and CBSA investigate allegations of fraud and bribery in the program. Officers responsible for assessing applications accuse managers of the program of travelling to China on trips paid for with fees charged to immigration applicants, then receiving cash in exchange for pressuring the decision-making officers to approve applications that would have otherwise been refused or that had already been refused.

Two domestic servants who had worked in their entire life with their employer overseas have now received visas to continue their employment with their employer while the latter heads a major Canadian corporation. Mr. Asim Ghosh, the president and CEO of Husky Energy employed the domestic servants, two brothers of Nepalese descent, to provide for the upkeep and maintenance of  Mr. Ghosh’s home in India for the better part of their lives. Once Mr. Gosh relocated to Canada, the two brothers applied for work permits to accompany their employer. The New Delhi visa post at first refused to issue the work permits, indicating that high income received in Canada would induce the brothers to remain here permanently. The Federal Court, however, overturned that decision indicating that the higher wages earned in Canada would be the very reason for coming.

Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA) Conference and Exhibition

October 3 – 6, 2011,

Vancouver Convention Centre, Vancouver, BC

We are pleased to announce that our firm will once again be participating at this year’s CanWEA conference and exhibition.

Please visit us at Booth #1131 where several of our Canadian immigration lawyers and US attorneys will be on hand to answer any questions you may have relating to your organization’s immigration objectives.

Further information about the conference can be found at www.CanWEA.ca.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) has announced new guidelines enabling intra-company transferees to recapture time spent outside of Canada, thereby facilitating work permit extensions beyond the 5- and 7-year caps currently in place for work permits issued under this category.

Background
The intra-company transfer work permit category allows eligible specialized knowledge workers, senior managers and executives to obtain a Canadian work permit without requiring their employer to first obtain a positive Labour Market Opinion.

Under Canada’s current immigration laws, specialized knowledge workers may hold a work permit under the intra-company transfer category for a maximum duration of 5 years, while senior managers and executives are limited to a maximum 7 years. After intra-company transferees have held a work permit for the maximum time allowed, they must complete one year of full-time employment in the company outside of Canada before they may re-apply under this category.

New Guidance – Recapturing Time
Normally, the duration of the work permit is used to calculate the maximum five- or seven-year time limit that an intra-company transferee is allowed to work in Canada. As such, a specialized technician who has held a work permit for 5 years but only worked in the country for a cumulative 3 years would previously still be required to complete one year of work outside of Canada before reapplying under the intra-company transfer category. However, with CIC’s new guidelines, this has changed. While the caps are still in place, foreign workers who work in Canada on a periodic basis may now ‘recapture’ any documented time spent outside Canada for the duration of the work permit.

For example, if a senior manager intra-company transferee holds a work permit for one year and spends two 2-month stints over the course of the 12 months working in the U.S., then only 8 months would count against their seven-year limit. In summary, documented time spent outside Canada can be “recaptured” to allow the intra-company transferee five or seven full years of physical presence in Canada.

Recommendation
This new guideline, which echoes the recapture provisions utilized by US immigration authorities, comes as welcome news to many companies that rely on the services and expertise of intra-company transferees. In order to fully benefit from this new provision, however, all periods and locations of work must be documented.

For further details and updates regarding this and other Canadian work permit categories, contact the Bomza Law Group.

In a speech to the Calgary Chamber of Commerce, Minister Jason Kenney announced upcoming consultation sessions on the temporary foreign worker program will take place in Calgary next month. Human Resources and Skills Development Minister Diane Finley will co-host this consultation. Invited participants will include employers from the oil and gas, construction, agriculture and hospitality sectors, as well as labour representatives. The stated goal of the consultation sessions is to make the foreign worker program more responsive to Canadian labour market needs, protect employment opportunities for Canadians and support overall economic growth.