Eligibility criteria for federal skilled worker applications as of July 1, 2011

Under changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, federal skilled worker applications are assessed for eligibility according to the criteria listed below. Note: This does not apply to applicants intending to live in the province of Quebec.

These criteria affect you only if you applied on or after July 1, 2011. If your application was received before July 1, 2011, it will be processed according to the rules that were in effect at that time.

Note: If you are applying under one of the 29 eligible occupations, as of July 1, 2011, a maximum of 10,000 Federal Skilled Worker applications will be considered for processing in the following 12 months. Within the 10,000 cap, a maximum of 500 federal skilled worker applications per eligible occupation will be considered for processing each year.

These limits do not apply to applications with an offer of arranged employment.

Is my application eligible for processing?

For your application to be eligible for processing, you must include the results of your official language proficiency test, and fall into one of these three categories:

1. Skilled workers with a valid offer of arranged employment.
2. International students enrolled in a PhD program at a provincially or territorially recognized private or public post-secondary educational institution in Canada who:
   
   • have completed at least two years of study towards a PhD
   • are in good academic standing at the time they apply
   • are not recipients of an award requiring them to return to their home country to apply their knowledge and skills, OR
   International students who graduated from a PhDprogram at a provincially or territorially recognized private or public post-secondary educational institution in Canada who:
   
   • graduated no more than 12 months before the date their application is received
   • did not receive an award which required them to return to their home country to apply their knowledge and skills (or did, but have satisfied the terms of the award).
   (A maximum of 1,000 applications from this category will be considered for processing each year. This will not be included in the total for any other cap. Applications will be considered in order they are received. The first cap year for the PhD stream begins on November 5, 2011.)
3. Skilled workers with one year of continuous full-time or equivalent part-time paid work experience in at least one of the following eligible occupations within the last ten years:
   • 0631 Restaurant and Food Service Managers
   • 0811 Primary Production Managers (Except Agriculture)
   • 1122 Professional Occupations in Business Services to Management (Cap reached)
   • 1233 Insurance Adjusters and Claims Examiners
   • 2121 Biologists and Related Scientists
   • 2151 Architects
   • 3111 Specialist Physicians
   • 3112 General Practitioners and Family Physicians
   • 3113 Dentists
   • 3131 Pharmacists
   • 3142 Physiotherapists
   • 3152 Registered Nurses (Cap reached)
   • 3215 Medical Radiation Technologists
   • 3222 Dental Hygienists & Dental Therapists
   • 3233 Licensed Practical Nurses
   • 4151 Psychologists
   • 4152 Social Workers
   • 6241 Chefs
   • 6242 Cooks
   • 7215 Contractors and Supervisors, Carpentry Trades
   • 7216 Contractors and Supervisors, Mechanic Trades
   • 7241 Electricians (Except Industrial & Power System)
   • 7242 Industrial Electricians
   • 7251 Plumbers
   • 7265 Welders & Related Machine Operators
   • 7312 Heavy-Duty Equipment Mechanics
   • 7371 Crane Operators
   • 7372 Drillers & Blasters - Surface Mining, Quarrying & Construction
   • 8222 Supervisors, Oil and Gas Drilling and Service

NOTE: the occupations above are all Skill Type 0 (managerial occupations) or Skill Level A (professional occupations) or B (technical occupations and skilled trades) on the Canadian National Occupational Classification list.

If you are not sure if you should apply as a skilled worker, you can use the Come to Canada Wizard to get an idea of whether your application would be eligible for processing.

If you apply and do not meet the above criteria, you will be informed of this and  your processing fee will be refunded.

There are many ways to immigrate to Canada. If you don’t meet the criteria to apply under the Federal Skilled Worker Program, you may qualify under another category. Learn more about your options.

Source: CIC, Canada

Consumer Courts

MRI, CT scan centre fined Rs 20 lakh for negligence 

Chandigarh, November 13
The State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission has directed Sector 8-based Suparb MRI and CT Scan Centre to pay Rs 20 lakh as compensation to the complainant.
The complainant, Kanav Chopra, complained of severe headache in November, 2006, when he was nine-year-old. He was examined by a doctor in Sirhind, who advised him to go for an MRI. On January 13, 2007, the MRI was got done at Suparb MRI and CT Scan Centre and as per report, everything was normal.
Following which the family approached Grewal Eye Institute, Sector 9, Chandigarh, for some other tests, but on January 16, Kanav complained of loss of eye sight to a certain extent.
On January 19, the doctors at Grewal Eye Institute stated that the medicine they had prescribed had no side-effects.
Due to the negligence of Suparb MRI and CT Scan Centre, the left eye optic nerve of the complainant had damaged, and it could not be treated.
The complainant said on February 5, when he took his son for the second MRI scan, the doctor at the Suparb MRI and CT Scan Centre asked him to bring the medical report of the first MRI.
The doctor then made some corrections and returned the same.
Directing the centre to pay Rs 20 lakh to the complainant, the commission comprising Justice Sham Sunder, president, and members Neena Sandhu and Jagroop Singh observed that it had given a wrong medical report in the case.
Had the centre given a correct report, eye sight of the complainant could be saved.
Thus, due to the sheer negligence, the bright career of the complainant, was ruined.

U.S. drawing in Canada's rich immigrants

United States looks to compete against Canada for wealthy immigrants

If you have $500,000 laying around, you can buy yourself a Green Card through a little-known immigrant investor pilot program in the United States.

The EB-5 Regional Centre program,  allocates 5,000 visas a year for individuals who invest $500,000 into one of over 200 US Government designated investment funds across the country.
With job creation now a top political issue and traditional sources of capital hard to find, U.S. Congressman Rick Larsen is sponsoring a bill that would permanently authorize the program, currently set to expire on September 30, 2012.
"(The EB5 program) is one way to seek direct investment into our communities in order to create jobs," Larsen told a press conference in Bellingham, Washington, Tuesday, noting that there over 20 countries around the world, including Canada, with similar types of programs.
"If we aren't in a position to receive this capital investment, it's going to go somewhere else because other countries recognize how important it is to bring in that overseas investor with their dollars."
By comparison, Canada's immigrant investor program provides visas to affluent foreign nationals who invest $800,000 into the Canadian government coffers for a period of 5 years.  Under the Canadian scheme, applicants can finance their investment through an accredited financial institution so most investor immigrants end up spending only about $200,000 for the privilege of becoming a Canadian.
The popularity of the Canadian program however, has lead to long wait lists and slow processing times - something Larsen says the U.S. can take advantage of.
"(Canada is) actually backlogged which means there are folks looking to move their dollars somewhere for investment. That's created demand for the EB5 program. " Larsen told Yahoo! Canada News.
"Other countries are marketing (their immigrant investor programs) oversees. And those dollars are going to end up invested in a country and I would prefer those dollars end up (i