On October 19, 2015, the Canadian electorate handed Justin Trudeau and the Liberals 184 out of 338 seats in the House of Commons. As a result, the Liberals are now a majority government, meaning that they have the legislative power to push through their promises in regards to immigration.
Here are some of their promises:
- The Liberals will repeal a much-criticized part of the C-24 bill, which made it possible to strip dual citizens of their Canadian citizenship if they are convicted of either terrorism, high treason, or other crimes of a similar magnitude.
- Time spent as either a student or a temporary resident will be counted as part of the 4-year residency requirement to become a Canadian citizenship.
- Express Entry will be reviewed to ensure that it is processing applicants in a timely manner. On a related note, the Comprehensive Ranking System used for Express Entry will see a minor change in that applicants with siblings in Canada might receive extra points.
- Family class immigration will receive a doubling of its budget for faster processing times. Furthermore, family sponsorship will become easier. For example, the maximum age of dependent children will be raised to 22 from 19, the annual number of parents and grandparents will be raised to 10,000 from 5,000, and new spouses will receive permanent residency right away.
- The Temporary Foreign Worker program will be reviewed by the Auditor General. At the same time, it will have better monitoring so that it can keep an eye on complaints as well as the jobs being offered to participants.
