Canada's Immigration Targets for
2008
How long will it take for my Permanent Resident Visa
to be
issued?
One of the most common questions in the Canadian
immigration application process is, “How long
will it take for my Permanent Resident Visa to be
issued?” The answers provided by Citizenship and Immigration Canada
(CIC) are widely variable and based on historic
information.
It is difficult for CIC to provide future processing times
due to the annual variations in the number of applications in every
immigration category and at each of the many overseas Canadian
Immigration Visa Offices.
What CIC does provide as more concrete indicators of
application processing activity, is the annual targets for each Canadian
Visa Office. Included in these targets are Economic and Non-Economic
sub-targets. The Economic category comprises skilled workers, investor
immigrants, entrepreneurs, and provincially-selected applicants. The
Non-Economic category is made up of spouses and dependants, parents and
grandparents, refugees and humanitarian cases. The annual assignment of
targets for each Canadian Immigration Visa Office is among the most
important annual decisions that CIC undertakes.
In 2007, CIC aims to welcome somewhere between 225,000 and
265,000 new Canadian Permanent Residents. Of those, 66% will be economic
immigrants, and will 33% be non-economic immigrants.
Highlights from the CIC 2007 targets by
region
Africa/Middle East
Damascus will continue to be the leader in the number of
Canadian Immigration Visas issued in the region with 10,190, up three per
cent from last year. The most prominent increase in the region is at the
Rabat visa office, where the number of visas issued in 2007 will be up by
46 per cent since last year to 4,315. Rabat will have the highest
economic to non-economic ratio in the region at 3.71. Nairobi will be
concentrating on non-economic immigrants, issuing visas to 2,300
refugees, the largest number of any Canadian visa office.
Asia/Pacific
Though the strongest growers since 2006 will be Taipei and
Kuala Lumpur (at 33% and 17% respectively), New Delhi remains the
front-runner at 22,380 visas to be issued. Next in line are Hong Kong and
Manila, Manila being the visa office in the region where most applicants
will take advantage of provincially-sponsored and live-in caregiver
programs. Seoul and Taipei will have very strong economic to non-economic
ratios at 10.51 and 8.73 respectively.
Europe
The region with the highest economic to non-economic ratio
(at 4.12); London, Berlin, Paris, and Bucharest will be the strongest
concentrations of economic immigrants with 7 or 8 economic visas issued
for every non-economic. Vienna will have the largest growth in the region
at 27 per cent, mainly due to non-economic immigrants. Paris, second in
the number of visas to be issued after London, will issue 9,000 visas
under the economic sub-category of provincially-sponsored immigrants,
mainly due to immigration to Quebec.
Americas
Far and away the leader in this region, Buffalo, U.S.A.
will issue 36,075 Canadian Permanent Resident Visas this year, 8,000 of
which will be under the economic sub-category of provincially-sponsored
programs. The Buffalo visa office's economic to non-economic ratio will
be 9.09. The targets for Sao Paulo, Kingston, and Port of Spain will have
the largest increases at 44%, 38%, and 26% respectively, Sao Paulo being
the only one in which the majority will be for economic immigrants.
Bogota will issue 1,550 refugee visas to Canada.
Though the CIC targets do not provide estimated waiting
times for visa applications to be processed, the regional and global
trends are useful indicators of what Canadian Visa Offices around the
world are working with.
Source: Lexbase
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