Practicing Exclusively in Canadian Immigration Law
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Who we are
Steven Meurrens is a Partner at Larlee Rosenberg, a highly regarded law firm in Vancouver, British Columbia that practices exclusively in Canadian immigration law.
Practice Areas
Our firm practices almost exclusively in Canadian immigration matters, including work permit applications, provincial nominations, skilled worker applications, and more.
Immigration Blog
Citizenship Applications – Residency
Canadian citizenship carries significant rights and responsibilities, and as a result it is not granted lightly. Individuals seeking to become Canadian citizens must demonstrate that they meet several eligibility requirements set out in the Citizenship Act. These requirements are designed to ensure that applicants have established a meaningful connection to Canada before being granted citizenship. One of the most important requirements applies to adult permanent residents who apply for citizenship. To be eligible, applicants must show that they satisfy all of the criteria in subsection 5(1) of the Citizenship Act. These criteria include factors such as holding permanent resident status, meeting language requirements where applicable, filing taxes when required, and passing a citizenship knowledge test. A key component of eligibility is the residency requirement. Under the Citizenship Act, an applicant must demonstrate that they were physically present in Canada for at least 1,095 days during the five-year period immediately before the date of their citizenship application. In other words, an applicant must have spent at least three years in Canada within the relevant five-year window. This physical presence requirement is assessed based on the actual number of days that the applicant was in Canada. Applicants are therefore required to carefully ...
Introducing Express Entry
On January 1 2015, Citizenship and Immigration Canada ("CIC") is expected to overhaul its economic immigration programs with the launch of Express Entry. On December 1, 2014, the Government of Canada released detailed Ministerial Instructions regarding Express Entry. In this post I hope to provide an easy to read overview of the new program. Express Entry will significantly alter every economic immigration program, including the Federal Skilled Worker Program ("FSWP"), the Canadian Experience Class ("CEC"), the Federal Skilled Trades Program ("FSTP"), and the Provincial Nominee Program ("PNP"). Rather than first in, first processed for permanent residence applications Express Entry will feature a “selection” of candidates who the Government of Canada believes is most likely to succeed in Canada. Express Entry will consist of two steps for potential applicants: Completing an Online Express Entry Profile Receiving a Letter of Invitation CIC is touting that Express Entry is not a new immigration per se, but rather a way for CIC to manage economic immigration applications online. However, a quick review of Express Entry suggests that who will be eligible to immigrate to Canada under Express Entry will fundamentally change.
The Return of Incomplete Applications
I have previously written in this blog about how Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada ("IRCC') has adapted an exceptionally strict approach to returning applications for incompleteness. I have also written in Policy Options about how frustrating this approach can be, because one of its main purposes appears to be to allow politicians to boast about reduced processing times, while ignoring the fact that the experience of individuals who are actually applying is actually often longer than previously. I wrote: The current rigid triage system distorts a fair comparison of processing times. Suppose an individual applies to sponsor a spouse to immigrate to Canada and forgets to include in one of the forms the city where a non-accompanying brother was born. Previously, processing might have been delayed by two to three months while IRCC contacted the family, informed them of the mistake and requested they provide the information. Now, IRCC would instead return the application one to two months after it is submitted, and the family would have to resubmit. If some supporting documents have expired, they may have to reobtain them, and the process can easily take several months. Under the previous system, this delay would have added two to ...
