In the Know.

Things to know this week

                Well Canada has opened up to US travellers as long as they can prove they are fully vaccinated. The lineups coming across the border have been up to 6 miles in length and people wait for hours.

If you are looking for Canadian visitation as international traveller other than the US then you will have to wait until the 15^th of September. Here is will it gets tricky for travellers.

If you plan on a visit to Canada, make sure you are fully vaccinated and have proof of your vaccination. Now the big issue is which vaccines are accepted by Canadian standards.

Canada has 4 vaccines that they recognize and if you do not have one of those then do not plan on coming to Canada. CBSA will not allow those visitors who have vaccines outside of the 4 recognized.

1. Moderna
2. AstraZeneca
3. Pfizer
4. Janssen (Johnson and Johnson)

If you do not have any of these 4 you will not be able to get in no matter how much you argue with CBSA at the border or airport. Plan on your return ticket because you will be refused.

                Canada has long expected to have a vaccine passport for Canadians who travel internationally and it is in the works at this time.

                Quebec has taken the first step requiring all visitors to have been vaccinated to enter Quebec so be prepared.

Canadian Election. So, the liberal party with Prime Minister Trudeau at the helm is planning on a election in the coming weeks. Currently the liberals have a minority government and they feel that an election at this time will certainly give them a majority.

In my opinion it is one of the smartest moves that they could do. They have really stepped up to the plate for Canadians during the pandemic and there is very little negative news against the party at this time. They have shown strong leadership and it will likely show at the polls.

                The opposition parties are saying that having a election at this time is bad news because the pandemic is not over. Well, this certainly is the only event they have in their belt to try to make the Liberals look bad.

                I am without a doubt a strong supporter of the Liberals especially because of immigration. They have vision on how Canada needs growth through immigration to both offset the declining population because of the passing of the baby boomers and their retirement and they know that immigration is badly needed to increase the population in Canada going forward so we can have the economic growth.

The Liberal Parties main opposition who are the Progressive Conservatives are no real friend to immigration. The PC policy really does have some support to Immigration but if feel if they could get the votes of Immigrants without immigration they would. Only my opinion of course.

Immigration Canada is due for a face lift in the way it processes applications and the federal government has announced major funding to overhaul the system over the next few years.

Currently Immigration Canada is in chaos because covid-19 has brought out all the problems with the system. Backlogs for applications are substantial and could take a few years to be straightened out. During the pandemic we are all aware that overseas offices were closed and all the officers were sent back to Canada to work from home.

Well one of the problems immigration Canada did not consider is are these agents set up for work in Canada. Many who did not even have a laptop. Now they have returned to their offices overseas to a huge backlog of case files.

Immigration Canada has also started to use AI in the processing of applications. What does that mean to applicants? Well, this is meant to help speed up the processing of applications that met certain key areas when a search is done. In other words. If Immigration Canada has a certain criterion it wants in a applicants profile the AI will do a search and find those applications with a search.

 This could be really challenging for processing of applications because a individual’s application could be left in limbo for a very long time if the key words in their application do not meet key words in the AI search. Let’s see how that works out.