What Canada's new immigration updates mean for you

By Ilya Brotzky

“Have you heard of the new immigration announcements?” asked Brenda Bailey, the BC Minister of Jobs, Economic Development, and Innovation, as she stood at our booth on the first morning of Collision.

“Immigration announcements?” I said, excited at the prospect of real progress finally happening.

“I think you’ll be quite pleased with them,” she said with a smile. “Make sure to go to center stage at 11:30 a.m. to see Minister Fraser’s speech.”

And so I ran over as the clock struck 11:25 a.m., ready to hear what the Canadian Minister of Immigration had in store.

Quickly pulling out my phone, I recorded this video of his talk.

As I listened to the announcement, I couldn’t help but have mixed feelings about the news.

Overall, it was definitely a positive step, and if everything Fraser promised actually happens, Canada’s tech scene will be much better off for it.

The common theme, however, was that there were very few real details shared and a lot left to be explained in the future. It’s understandable given that the Minister only spoke for four minutes, so let’s see how things go moving forward.

Anyway, here are my thoughts on each of the six points he made that morning.

New permanent resident stream for tech talent

This is definitely interesting. Express Entry has been notoriously slow these last few years and a lot of great professionals were not getting invited to the draw. They therefore had to rely on getting a job offer while abroad to immigrate to Canada, which is often very hard to do (unless of course they use VanHack!)

The interesting part will be what criteria is used to determine “tech talent” and how the government is going to ensure these are actually qualified professionals.

For example, does someone need to have a degree in software engineering to qualify for this? If so, a lot of great self-taught software developers will be excluded.

How will the government know this person can actually code or is good enough to get hired in Canada? Hard questions to answer. Let’s see what they come up with.

Global Talent Stream processing times back to normal

I almost laughed out loud at this one. Only the government can be proud of getting back to where it was six years ago. Yes, you heard that right: the government is boasting that it is back to the stage it was in June 2017, when the program launched.

Imagine a private company making a similar announcement on stage at the biggest tech conference of the year.

“We’re really excited to be launching the same product we launched over half a decade ago. Get ready to use iPhone 8!”

Tim Cook would be booed off stage, but our government officials are cheering themselves on.

Okay, okay, I get it: there was a pandemic and they had to figure out how to, gasp, work remotely and whatnot. But come on, guys. It’s been three years since COVID hit and you’ve had plenty of time to get back to your promised processing times. Oh well: at least they’re back. Hooray!

Startup Visa applicants get three-year work permits

I won’t spend much time on this as it doesn’t affect VanHack’s business too much and is not my area of expertise. It’s nice to see they’re doing something to help attract more entrepreneurs to Canada, I guess.

I had heard from many people that this program was completely broken and full of grifters trying to exploit rich people who had $200,000 or more to invest in Canadian companies, rather than actually bringing real startups to Canada. But I don’t know the details and can’t comment much further.

The Minister said they’re going to prioritize companies that have capital committed or have received an endorsement from a trusted partner, which I believe will make it really hard for people who don’t already have strong connections to Canada to apply for the program.

Here’s to hoping it brings more businesses here and creates more jobs.

Ability to come to Canada with a job offer or not

Now, this announcement was the shortest — and to me, the most interesting.

“Over the course of this year, Canada's going to be developing a specific stream for some of the world's most highly talented people that will be able to come to Canada and work for tech companies, whether they have a job offer or not,” said Minister Fraser.

That’s it. One sentence.

It left a lot of questions in my head. What does “the world's most highly talented people” mean? Who defines this?

What visa will they use if they don’t have a job offer? How long can they stay?

I hope it means that if you’re a software engineer you can come to Canada and quickly get a work permit at the border or point of entry. Let’s see…

Canada to launch a Digital Nomad visa

Now this one I had to say was my idea!

I shared the fact that Canada needs a Digital Nomad visa to Benjamin Bergen of the Council of Canadian Innovators at a launch meeting they held about a year and half ago in Vancouver.

A few months later, the idea appeared as one of the 13 recommendations of their 2022 Talent and Skills Strategy.

And here it was being shared from centre stage at Collision by the Minister of Immigration.

I don’t actually have evidence that this visa was born during that conversation, but it’s something I like to believe, and will say it until someone proves me wrong.

However, there is one big flaw in the way that the government is rolling this out. They’re only giving digital nomads six-month visas to come to Canada.

How is that any different from a visitor visa?! Right now, any digital nomad can come to Canada under a three-month visitor visa, and — in theory — extend it as many times as they like.

This half-baked Digital Nomad visa is basically the same thing. In order for the person to stay in Canada long-term — meaning to become a permanent resident or citizen — is to get a job offer at a Canadian company.

Now, if you’re a senior tech worker making a great U.S. or European salary working a job you like, why would you want to change employer just to do that? I mean, unless you really want to live in Canada long-term, in which case you can just use the existing streams. No need to create a whole new stream and use limited resources to process these visa applications.

If it were up to me, I would not have this unnecessary six-month limit and just tell the world’s tech talent that if you are earning over the median salary of a Canadian citizen, which is around $50,000, you can come to Canada and stay here as long as you want. You’ll essentially be on a work permit that then can turn into a permanent residency after you live in Canada for one year, and citizenship three years later.

We need as many skilled workers (a.k.a taxpayers) in our country as possible, and this six-month limit will stop immigrants from coming here.

I hope I’m wrong. Let’s see.

Automatic visas for 10,000 H1B workers (or however many actually move north)

Finally, the Minister shared that the government has created a new pathway opening July 16 that’ll give H1B holders automatic open work permits in Canada.

That sounds great, but I’d be very surprised if even 1,000 of them actually made the move.

Think about it. H1B holders are already settled in their new American cities and have jobs. Why would they take a pay cut and move to Canada?

The only ones I can think of who will actually do this are those who get laid off and are not able to transfer their H1B in time to stay in the U.S.

And that in all likelihood won’t be very many.

Also, if they do get the visa and come to Canada, they’ll be coming up without a job offer, which might be a risk they’re not open to take. It might be safer to move back to their home country where they have a support network and then re-evaluate from there, rather than move to Canada and hope to find something before their savings run out.

In my opinion, it’s an illusion to think that tech workers who are already living in the U.S. will happily move north if given the chance.

Again, I hope I’m wrong, but let’s see.

Final Thoughts

Overall, it’s a positive sign to even see the Minister of Immigration at a conference like Collision talking about new policies and breaking news.

But in my opinion, a lot of the focus was on the wrong policies, or missing the mark on executing the right ones.

Oh, and they still haven’t removed the Labour Market Benefit Plan.