Citizenship and Immigration Canada—Some Updates You Can Use

Citizenship and Immigration Canada

There is a new update regarding the Citizenship and Immigration to Canada. Recently, the federal government has made an announcement regarding the renaming of Canadian federal government department. Now there is a change in the name of the department and now the department will be known as the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC).

The renaming has been seen as a major positive step and it shows positive attitude of the federal government towards the acceptance of more applications related to immigration. The decision, related to the change of the name, was taken after the new government came to power. In other words, this decision was one of the initial decisions taken by the government.

About the Department
 The department which will now be referred as the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) will facilitate the following things:-
 It will facilitate immigrant’s arrival to Canada.
 It will look after the safety and security of refugees and will also provide them the required protection.
 It will offer immigration-related programs in order to assist the newcomers to get settled in the country.

The IRCC will also look after
 The extension required in the visa
 Granting of citizenship
 Travel documents and there issuing

The Use of the CIC as a short form will continue but only in special cases. Cases that are related to old programme related guides or even web pages where the CIC related information will be found.

After the new government took over the office, the term related to the Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada or the ‘IRCC’ will be used in all the publications and communications that are official in nature.

In order to evade any future misunderstanding, all the present stakeholders should now know that the CIC and the IRCC are one and should not be mistaken as two separate departments. The name of CIC has been upgraded to the IRCC for the betterment of immigrants and to facilitate immigrant’s arrival and settlement in the nation. They are one department and will work as the same. However, to avoid confusions, the CIC will still be used in the old related documents.

One important point to be noted here is the usage of the CIC. Like mentioned above, the CIC will be used in older documents, web pages and too old programmes and the term CIC will also be used by the provincial and territorial governments of Canada. There is no clarification for how long the term CIC will be used.

The biggest addition to IRCC is the term ‘refugees’. The inclusion of this term is a strong indication of the government’s effort towards accepting refugees on the humanitarian ground. The government has made it clear that they are open for accepting refugees and they are ready to make special efforts for that.

The federal government is ready to welcome immigrants and they at present are running several programmes. Among them, there are programmes of immigration for skilled immigrants and also family class programmes.

Not only is this, the current government is extremely focused on increasing the funding so that the funding can be allocated towards the IRCC department. This will impact the current immigration programmes and will certainly increase their delivery, processing, and also efficiency.

The current Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau is extremely excited about the changes made in immigration programmes. He as a person has many high expectations with the IRCC. As the prime minister, he himself is a strong advocate of the IRCC immigration programme.

Another positive step taken by the prime minister is the reduction in the age of dependant to 19 from 22 years. This was done to permit more Canadians to bring their kids to the country. Not only this, the PM is taking special interest to bring more changes in the Entry Express immigration selection system. This will create more opportunities for the applicants and their siblings.

At present, the nation faces a major demographic challenge and is looking for stronger economic growth. This is a strong indication that immigration to Canada will play an important role in the future.

For more information on the Canada Immigration please contact me at mustaqali@abhinav.com.