Canada Immigration and Citizenship News

When first introduced, subsection 11(2) of the IRPR stated that application for non-immigrant benefits, including temporary resident visas, work permits or study permits, must be made outside of Canada at an immigration office that serves the applicant's country of nationality or the country in which the applicant is present and has been lawfully admitted. Ever since the IRPR came into force in 2002, all immigration offices abroad were identified as serving all countries by CIC for the purposes of this provision, regardless of whether the applicant had been lawfully admitted to the country in which the application was being submitted or of the applicant's nationality. In other words, subsection 11(2) was not implemented by CIC in any way.

Recently, however, CIC has proposed to describe immigration offices that serve specific regions for the purpose of processing non-immigrant benefits, in the interest of enhancing program integrity and operational efficiency, beginning in the autumn of 2004. The director general of International Region has invited numerous stakeholders to make comments regarding the implementation of subsection 11(2) of the IRPR. In anticipation of implementing this policy, subsection 11(2) was amended to clarify that an application for a non-immigrant benefit must be made to an immigration office that serves as an immigration office for the specific type of application made, not simply an office that serves the applicant's country of nationality or the country in which the applicant is present and has been lawfully admitted. To date, however, nothing has changed in terms of implementation, as CIC still has yet to delineate which offices "serve" non-immigrant applications; all offices continue to "serve" for the purpose of non-immigrant applications.