The news about much awaited proposed changes in the Canadian visa laws have finally started flowing in. The new liberal government aims to make Canadian visa system more effective and sensitive to the requirements of the local aspirations. This, as expected, would bring around a much-required relief to the immigrants in waiting.

The government has proposed following amendments:

• Providing due priority to the applicants having siblings already in the country by allocating them more marks to them for purpose of assessment of their applications under the Express Entry system;
• Raising maximum age for dependents from 19 years to 22 years and allowing Canadians to bring their children to the country;
• Raising the number of fresh requests per year for parents and grandparents from 5,000 to 10,000;
• Allocating double the amount of funds for family class immigration screening system for reinstating of processing times procedure to levels that existed before the coming of harper’s government;
• Offering permanent residence permit of Canada to the new spouses arriving in Canada immediately and not applying any two-year conditional residence that exposes spouses to adverse conditions.
• Modifications in the Express Entry system – the authorities are committed to bringing about substantial changes in the Express Entry processing system, as well as revising provisions of CEC to remove statutes that pose barriers for international students in terms of Canadian inwards migration.
• Extend CAD $100 million to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees for missions aiming at providing critical relief;
• Fully reinstate Interim Federal Health Program;
• Set up an Expert Human Rights Panel for identifying allocated nations of origin; and for extending a privilege to appeal refugee decisions for nationals of such countries;
• Phase out the procedure of appointing people without any objective specialization to immigration and Refugee Board of Canada;
• Reinstate temporary residential credits for foreign students and other people residing in the country on temporary residence permits;
• Shelving of certain harsh provisions of C-24 that led to establishment of second class citizen category and posing impediments in way of migrants gaining nationality of the country;
• Shelving visa eligibility parameters for Mexican and ending visa requirements for other countries;
• Ending $1,000 LMIA fee for families requesting for caregivers;
• Regulating foreign money transfer industry and reducing transaction fees in coordination with territory and state governments; and
• Applying better controls on service providers in Canada caregiver industry.