For the New Year, our first article will focus on some updates on the execution of programs.

First on December 31, 2020, Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) announced the renewal of the public interest policy under which temporary residents have more time to apply for the restoration of their legal status in Canada. Indeed, any temporary resident (student, temporary foreign worker and visitor) whose status has expired / will expire between January 30, 2020 and May 31, 2021 will have until August 31 to submit an application for restoration of status. If you have employees or candidates in this situation, you can also accompany them through the process of applying for a temporary authorization pending the finalization of the examination of the work permit application, provided you meet the requirements of the two applicable programs (Temporary Foreign Worker Program and International Mobility Program).

Second, on January 8, 2021 IRCC released a new measure to facilitate the maintenance of temporary resident status and ultimately, access to temporary residence for some post-graduation work permit (PGWP) holders. Thus, any holder of a PGWP which expires on January 30, 2020 or after (within 4 months or less on the day of the request) will be able to submit a new request and he will be granted the extension of his permit for 18 additional months. For this, applicants must be in Canada and submit an application between January 27 and July 27, 2021. This will allow some of these applicants to restore their status as workers according to the measures presented above and why not, for those who wish to settle in Quebec, to become eligible for the Programme de l’expérience québécoise and take advantage of the transitional measures.

The third news is related to the requirement to present a test for COVID-19. This new measure, applicable starting January 7, applies to travelers of any citizenship, aged 5 and over, traveling to Canada by air. Screening should be done using one of the two types of tests for COVID-19 – either a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) or loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) – and should be completed within 72 hours of the traveler’s scheduled departure for Canada. Transitional measures have been planned for travelers from certain countries, the full list of which can be found in the same press release. It should also be noted that the new measure does not replace the quarantine plan, on the contrary, from now on, border services officers will pay increased attention to this document presented upon arrival.

Please make sure that your future employees have access to all these new requirements regarding their entry in Canada, as they are strictly enforced. We encourage you to be vigilant and to revise, if necessary, the arrival schedule of your new recruits if your future colleagues do not have access to one of the recognized tests within the prescribed time.