Applying for Permanent Residence in Canada November 7, 2022 Applications for Permanent Residence in Canada are no longer paper-based applications. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) requires that applications for Permanent Residence be filed through an online website portal. The portal itself is a work-in-progress. IRCC is constantly changing the format, details, flow and requirements. …
Maintaining Temporary Resident Status in Canada Under section 47 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA), all temporary residents (visitors, workers, students) have an automatically imposed condition that they are required to leave Canada after their authorized period of stay ends. However, section 181 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations (IRPR) states that…
IRCC Announces Changes to Open Work Permit Program November 2, 2021 Canada recently announced changes to the Bridging Open Work Permit (BOWP) program that will make it more accessible to more people. BOWPs are available to eligible work permit holders who have applied for Canadian permanent residence. The purpose of the BOWP is to allow these workers to…
New Classification System for Express Entry and Temporary Workers November 1, 2021 Canada’s immigration system will overhaul the way it classifies occupations in fall 2022. The changes will affect some economic class and foreign worker applicants, although the federal government has yet to communicate which sorts of applicants will be affected. The Current National…
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada Challenges for 2021 & 2022 November 1, 2021 During the pandemic, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has accumulated a backlog of hundreds of thousands of applicants. This past summer, the Toronto Star reported there were more than 561,000 permanent residence applications to process, 748,000 temporary residence applications (visitor, workers and students), and 376,000 citizenship applications. These figures…
After Conviction, What are the Sentencing Options? March 28, 2021By Hans John Kalina Sentencing. Punishment. Penance. Conviction for a crime can happen in one of two ways. Either you plead guilty to an offence or you are found guilty after a trial. What happens after a conviction for a criminal offence? The Canadian system of…
Not Criminally Responsible On Account of Mental Disorder Contrary to popular culture, a finding of not criminally responsible (by reason of mental disorder) is not a free pass out of the criminal justice system. The concept of not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder (NCR), or what was at one time referred to as…
You’ve been arrested, Now what? If you are being investigated, you may soon find yourself being confronted, interrogated, or in handcuffs. You are going to be arrested by the police in one of two ways. Either you go to them or they come to you. The former is a surrender, the latter is a takedown….
Basic Trial Procedure A criminal trial begins with the formal arraignment (reading of the charges) to the accused(s). A plea of “not guilty” is required in most cases. Once the arraignment has begun, the Crown Attorney (prosecutor) commences producing evidence to demonstrate that the accused was the perpetrator of the offences for which they have…
What is your election, Jury or Judge Alone? In Canada, all criminal charges are classified into three categories: a) summary conviction offences, b) indictable offences, or c) hybrid offences. Pure summary conviction offences are those that are considered less serious, whereas pure indictable offences are those considered the most serious under Canadian criminal law. Hybrid offences are…
