Ronald Poulton

Ronald Poulton is considered one of Canada’s leading immigration lawyers. He has acted as counsel at the Supreme Court of Canada, Federal and Ontario Courts of Appeal and Federal Court Trial Division in some of the most prominent cases in Canadian immigration law.  He has lectured in immigration law, testified before a Parliamentary Committee on Immigration issues and before an international human rights

HUMANITARIAN AND COMPASSIONATE GROUNDS

Applicants who do not qualify for any category or program and who are otherwise inadmissible
to Canada can seek permanent residency in Canada through humanitarian and compassionate
grounds.  The factors considered in such an application include; time in Canada, work history,
family in Canada, hardship in home country, best interests of any children, volunteer work in Canada and other associations to the community. Although no time period in Canada is
determinative, an application for a person who has lived  in Canada for less than 5 years would not be considered a strong application. Humanitarian decisions are highly discretionary and can also factor in the applicant’s conduct and observance of the law while in Canada.  Humanitarian
applications may take several years to be decided.  During this time period, an
applicant is not eligible for a work permit or other status document.

FEDERAL SKILLED TRADES

A number of trades are now recognized for permanent residency in Canada. Professions such as welders, plumbers, electricians, carpenters and 39 other trades are included in the list of eligible jobs. In order to qualify, the applicant must have at least 2 years of full time work experience in their trade within the last 5 years, meet all the job requirements of the trade and have either an offer of employment from a Canadian company or a certificate of trade issued by a provincial or territorial body.

Full time work is defined as at least 30 hours of work over 1 week or an equal amount in part time. Language testing is required and a cap of 3000 applications per year has been set.

CANADA EXPERIENCE CLASS

CANADA EXPERIENCE CLASS

An applicant who has worked full time in Canada for 12 months in the three years preceding the filing of the CEC application, is eligible for permanent residency in Canada as a member of the Canada Experience Class. Full time work is defined as a minimum of 30 hours per week or the equivalent in part time work. The work performed must fall within one of three categories: managerial jobs (NOC skill type 0), professional jobs (NOC skill type A), technical jobs and skilled trades (NOC skill type B).
In addition, candidates must prove their ability in English or French in these four areas:
•    speaking,
•    reading,
•    listening, and
•    writing.
Jobs in the A and O categories will require a higher language score of CLB 7, whereas NOC B level jobs require CLB 5.

Sponsorship into Canada

Canada has a long history of family reunification.  Permanent Residents and Citizens have been able to sponsor certain members of their family to come and live in Canada.  Those members have included spouses, dependent children, parents and grandparents.  In November 2011 Canada Immigration placed a 24 month temporary “pause” on all applications to sponsor parents and grandparents.  On May 10 of this year CIC announced that applications will be accepted for the new Parent and Grandparent program on January 2, 2014.  This new program differs significantly from the old.   Changes to the program include:

WORK PERMITS

In order to be eligible to work in Canada, a foreign national usually requires a work permit.
Persons from countries which have entered into international experience bilateral agreements with Canada will be issued work permits for limited durations under one of three possible programs: worker holiday, young professional, or international co-op student. The duration and requirements for each category vary from country to country. For citizens of Greece, an open  work permit will be issued to any applicant aged 18 to 35 for a duration of 1 year per program.

How to get workers from the United States with criminal records into Canada in a hurry in fulfillment of a contract with a Canadian company?

If the criminal record is limited to one, or in some cases, two “minor criminal” offenses, then border officers of CBSA have the jurisdiction to issue temporary resident permits in conjunction with work permits to nationals of visa exempt countries. A minor criminal offence is defined under section 36(2) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to include a conviction outside Canada that, if committed in Canada, would constitute an indictable offence, or of two offences not arising out of a single occurrence that, if committed in Canada would constitute summary offences. Impaired driving, or Driving Under the Influence (DUI), as it is called in most US states, falls within the category of minor criminal offence and as such can be temporarily “cured” by the issuance of a TRP at a border crossing.

Recently, we assisted a number of US steel workers in obtaining work permits into Canada and, for three of the workers, Temporary Resident Permits. The work permits were based on labour market opinions obtained without the need to advertise for the positions. The workers fell within a category of highly specialized technicians, having proprietary knowledge, experience and tools to perform the work and to oversee Canadians doing the work. Given the specialized nature of their work, no advertising or recruitment was required.

In addition, a very tight time table existed for the commencement of the project in Canada. As such, the application for the labour market opinions (LMOs) were expedited and obtained in under seven business days. The work permits and TRPs were issued at the Canada / US border in under an hour.

In the case of one of the US workers, although he had a criminal record, he qualified for rehabilitation as it had been over 5 years since his last conviction. A TRP was issued to allow him into Canada, but he was required to undertake to file a rehabilitation application within 30 days. Given the closing of the Canadian visa office in Buffalo, these applications can be submitted at the Windsor CBSA office on the Canada/US border. It takes approximately two months for a decision.