Sean Fraser is Canada's New Immigration minister in Trudeau's Majour Cabinet Shuffle

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau selected Sean Fraser as Canada’s new minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC).

Sean Fraser, a 37-year-old former lawyer from Nova Scotia who was first elected as a Member of Parliament in 2015 and re-elected in 2019 and 2021, replaces Marco Mendicino who is now in charge of the country’s leaner public safety department.

After last month’s election, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau passes over the keys to Fraser as a new Canadian government with a parliament that looks identical to the original one and yet another Liberal minority administration.

People from all over the world who want to immigrate to Canada, and those who are currently here and want to stay, will be referring to the new Minister of Immigration for various concerns. Federal skilled worker (FSW) hopefuls were amongst them, having waited almost a year after the last Express Entry lottery that would include them. Such candidates had already made practical, emotional, and economic sacrifices to join the Express Entry pool. The candidates joined with a reasonable chance that their overall score would be the primary determinant to welcome them and, certainly, favor to build lives and livelihoods in Canada.
To date, no official government has made a release declaration explaining why Canada prefers Express Entry individuals who are more likely to also be in the country while admitting visitors, temporary employees, and international students within specific pandemic-related criteria. Many FSW applicants have seen Canadian Experience Class (CEC) applicants with lesser scores be encouraged to apply. Applicants for the FSW program will be expecting a return to all-program Express Entry in the coming years.
Approved candidates with outdated Confirmation of Permanent Residence (COPR) credentials will turn to Fraser’s IRCC for an even more simplified document renewal process. Notwithstanding their evident intention to relocate to Canada, many COPR members stay outside the country. In the case of family sponsorship, there is seldom a day that the Canadian media does not cover painful stories about families waiting to rejoin in Canada. Due to administrative delays, many kids are living without either of their parents. These households will anticipate IRCC to complete their applications more quickly and provide them with additional information.
In addition, the next minister will face pressure to accept more refugees from international hotspots, including Afghanistan, where Afghans have supported Canadian diplomatic and military operations. Even though Marco Mendicino, the outgoing Minister of Immigration, was influential in leading recent attempts to assist thousands of Afghans move out of the country, numerous observers believe that such efforts should have helped more individuals if they acted quicker.
Applicants in the International Experience Class (IEC) program that encompasses the renowned Working Holiday category will be hoping for a lot more invites in 2022 than they have received so far in 2020 and 2021. The Working Holiday invitations have been a stream instead of a torrent despite removing the job offer condition. Internal cleaning will be a priority for the new Minister of Immigration. IRCC workers have been working away from home throughout most of the pandemic, which has been identified as a factor why response times have exceeded benchmarks.
IRCC will undoubtedly aim to please both workers and candidates when Canadians shift to office environments or a hybrid model in the following months. One item that could help is the department’s stated goal of transitioning to more digital application types. Whereas many techniques are now mostly or entirely digital, some, such as citizenship petitions and several family sponsorship applications, are still primarily paper-based.
Sean Fraser will also be in charge of implementing the government’s goal of admitting over 1.2 million legal residents from 2021 to 2023. Considering pandemic-related hurdles, Canada is on course to fulfill its target of accepting over 400,000 new legal residents by 2021. Thanks mainly to technologies that help temporary employees and graduates in Canada move to permanent residence citizenship. Candidates outside of Canada will expect IRCC invites and procedures to take a more global view in 2022 and 2023, with increased transparency and easy accessibility to client data.