Canadian Immigration Podcast Episode 136: The Future of Immigration in Canada 2024
Mark Holthe: Welcome back to another episode of the Canadian Immigration Podcast.
I'm Mark Holthe, and this is my fearless compadre, Alicia Backman-Beharry. How are you, Alicia?
Alicia Backman-Beharry: I'm doing well, Mark. We're running with all hands on deck these days.
Mark Holthe: Indeed, it is a very, very busy time within our practice and within immigration, including our dear Minister Miller and some of the decisions he's making and the future of basically immigration in Canada. There's this is a real turning point, especially as we close in on an election. And you know, whether or not immigration itself is going to become some kind of a wedge issue in that election. But the minister right now has made a number of different announcements. One of them, if I flip my screen over here, for those who are watching this on the YouTube channel. Yesterday, actually March 21, he had delivered a speech which just got released the speaking notes recently, on some of the intentions, the rationale what they're planning on doing. And I'll be honest, Alicia, this really really looks like they're planning to rip the band-aid off. And today, what we're going to do, you guys, is we're just going to go through kind of a list of not top 10. But just some key takeaways that you absolutely need to know and understand. As you plan your future and whether or not one, you even decide to come to Canada, or two, what your options are and what you can do now to position yourself to hopefully get one of those precious spots for permanent residence. And I guess three, even on the whole temporary residence side, where we're at with that whole world of temporary residence that's work permits study permits, and where the Minister is headed. So that's what we're going to talk about today. All right, let's slide over here, Alicia. And right off the bat, the first one on our list is the breakdown of the TR numbers by category. So do you want to share with the listeners and the viewers where we're at right now in terms of the breakdown of temporary residence in Canada?
Alicia Backman-Beharry: And this is one of the reasons I thought that Minister Miller's speech was so interesting was because we can see that they are analyzing this and they're looking at what they're going to be doing for the rest of this year and for next year. And so they have taken a look. And they said, well, wait a minute, our temporary residence numbers. So just like Mark said, anybody who's here on a work permit, anybody who's here as a visitor, anybody here who's here on a visitor status, so that could be an actual visitor record, or it could be, you know, you've just come in and you're visiting, if you're a US citizen or something like that, where you're visa-exempt. So they've taken a look and they see a huge amount of different categories of people who are not under the levels plan, right? Because the levels plan only looks at permanent residents and they're saying, okay, where are we at on temporary residents? So they said, right now we've got temporary resident numbers. 42% are international students. So we have this giant amount of temporary residents who are here on study permits as international students. The next thing is they have a fairly small amount 9% here under the temporary foreign worker program. So this is anybody whose employer has gone and received an LMIA. And then the person has applied for an employer-specific LMIA-based work permit 44%. And that's a big umbrella number. This is going to be anybody who's under the international mobility program. So not under the temporary foreign worker program with an LMIA. It's somebody who has an LMIA exemption, it includes a lot of different people. So that's your post-grad work permit holders, spousal work permits for students or workers, people under IEC programs, people under COA, etc. So the Ukrainian pathways, there's a lot of different folks that are falling under this 44% umbrella, and then they give you a further breakdown. So 26% are post-grad work permit holders, so people who've completed their studies, then have applied and were in an eligible program for PGWP 9% are spouses of students. And so we'll talk about this really soon, because we know that that number is going to start shrinking drastically. 10% are part of reciprocal exchanges. So IEC, and if you'd asked me, I don't think immigration can really reduce that figure because it's reciprocal with another country. So those youth exchange programs, those are probably going to be okay, because it's a bilateral international agreement 12% spouses of skilled workers, and hopefully those will also not be cut, because it's somebody who has to have proven that they are working, the principal applicant is working, and then the spouse proves that they are coming.
Mark Holthe: One thing Alicia, I want to point out with this is they could very well, right, like one of the things one of the areas where I could see them changing this is moving it back to high skill workers. So spouses of anyone at a tier three or higher are the only ones eligible that could easily do that, because it was only recently that they expanded it to include spouses of all work permit holders who had job offers. So it would not surprise me at all if if low wage, or low skilled individuals are not going to be able to bring their spouses but we'll see.
Alicia Backman-Beharry: Because again, that's just a temporary policy, right? So they just allowed that recently. But you're right Mark, they could take it away. So it might only be high skilled or high wage workers who have a job and are working in Canada that had the ability to bring their spouse under an open spousal work permit 26% of arrivals, I think this is now going to get clamped down upon as well, because we're looking at people who are coming under COA visas or other humanitarian pathways, and it says that number is growing. And whenever immigration looks, and they see a stream that's starting to grow significantly, and they are wanting to clamp down, there's probably going to be adjustments that they're going to make for that. And then we've got 17%, intercompany, transfers, trade agreements, those ones, those are largely labor market driven. And everything that we're hearing from the minister as they want to tie those temporary figures, the temporary residence in Canada, they want to make sure whoever's here temporarily, there is a darn good economic reason for them to be here. And so I don't think they're going to be touching the intercompany transfers. Just that our Canadian and US are international and Canadian, that are moving employees back and forth. So and then the last one is asylum seekers. And that's a 5%. On the asylum seekers, which, you know, Minister Miller is talking about what's going on globally. And it is possible that the that asylum seeker figure might decrease as well. Alicia,
are you surprised that the temporary foreign worker program only comprises 9% Of this total allotment? I was actually quite surprised with this. And, you know, and I guess when you're looking at overall work permit numbers, you know, that that is, you know, we were just looking at that it would be different because international students, you know, it's almost, you know, it's a massive number 42%. But, but this is a number that I was actually quite surprised. And then as we will get into it, the minister has talked about their intentions very quietly with the temporary foreign worker program.
Alicia Backman-Beharry: Yeah. And I was trying to do some digging, because I was trying to figure out where this was announced. And it it doesn't seem to have been announced for the temporary foreign worker program. But we'll we'll get to that. It's it's in the fine print within each of the individual pages.
All right, let's talk about these international students, Alicia. So there's been lots of discussion a little over two months ago, I guess when the minister I guess dropped the hammer and said, Look, we need to reduce by at least a third the total numbers we know that Ontario and British Columbia are going to be the hardest hit but I think was Nova Scotia on that list. I can't remember there's one other province that was likely to expect a reduction in numbers. But for international students, this is a you know, they've implemented lots of measures including increasing the minimum funds that you need to be able to study in Canada. And, you know, and to a large extent even restricting the number of schools that are going to be eligible for post grad work permits, and, and putting caps overall. But, you know, do you want to touch on this now? Yeah, and
Alicia Backman-Beharry: maybe mark, you can actually pull up. Igor, from our firm wrote a really great article on what's happening for international students, and specifically with the restrictions on international students, their spouses are not now going to be eligible for open spousal work permits, which is going to reduce how many people want to come here. And also, it's going to reduce immigrations overall numbers on that. So just like you mentioned, Mark, there's an overall cap for international students, that cap is now going to be allocated amongst the provinces. So every province is now going to have a certain allocation of study permits that they can then divvy up amongst the designated learning institutions within their province. So basically, the federal government is trying to mandate that the schools that are getting those study permit allocations are ones that are credible, that are schools that are of a high caliber, and that are not just, I guess, he said the equivalent of puppy mills for turning out diplomas or degrees. So now there's basically a reduction in how many people can get study permits within that province, and within that school. And so now we have these provincial attestation letter this these pals that have to go out. So Igor wrote this article about, you know, also what's going to happen for study permits open spousal work permits associated with a principal applicant study permit. So now, you can't just get an open spousal work permit unless you are coming up on a Master's or PhD or you are in one of these professions. So dentists, lawyers, doctors, optometrists, pharmacists, that's nurses, people who have bachelors of education or engineering. So if the principal applicants in there only in those cases, can the spouse apply for an open spousal work permit. So that's a big shift. The other thing that's shifting is that they wanted to crack down on Public Private Partnership Schools. And they had said that they were going to not allow post grad work permits from Public Private Partnership Schools, as of September 2024. They just put a news release out in the last few days saying, Oh, actually, we're moving that up. And it's going to be May. So as of May 2024, it is no longer going to be an eligible post grad work permit program, if it's a public private partnership, which is a big deal. So those are some of the key changes that are happening for international students right now.
Mark Holthe: One of the things I want to point out is some comments that the minister made in let me just, I'll just share this quickly. This just came out, I didn't get a chance to listen to the whole thing here. But he did appeared on a private podcast, this, you know, this channel that's got a whopping 668 subscribers. I'm sure they had a reason for doing it here. But essentially, this this message that the minister has posted, the Immigration Minister on cutting immigration, one of the very interesting comments he made, once again, is, you know, that schools need to be prepared. And there was some discussions about how the schools were blindsided and he said, No, that's garbage. Like they knew since Fraser, Minister Fraser That, that we were going to have to do something about this. And that now they need to basically, what did he describe it as a come to Jesus moment, and realize that you as a school, you may have to reduce your programs, you're gonna have to tighten that tighten your belt, you're gonna have to look at focusing on programs that are going to be contributing and producing, you know, workers for the workforce, essentially. And, and so he said to the, to the schools that look, we're going to watch what you're doing even you graduate schools, because right now, a master's PhD, those programs are not subject to caps. And he said that if they're not happy with how the schools are, are, you know, bringing everything you know, tightening up their belt and in reining in the programs, that they are going to do even more drastic measures in the fall. And he said, they will have an announcement, which I'll be honest, Alicia, I don't think they believe the schools are actually going to do it or be able to do it. I personally feel like they're gonna roll something out in the fall once again, to further tighten things. And does it have something to do with an election? Yeah, I think it does. Does it have a lot to do with our economy? Yeah, it does. And the housing Yes, and everything else, and they've really taken it on the chin lately because of the you know, the fact that they did not track temporary resident numbers, at least in terms of caps, like they do for permanent residents. And so now they're realizing and this is something else they've talked about is that they're gonna IT NOW Institute these kind of levels planning for temporary residence, which only makes sense, it makes sense to do that. So schools are you guys need to be on alert, because the way the Minister is talking here, he's clearly giving the impression, at least to me that, you know, that he doesn't believe you're actually going to be able to deliver and what they want you to do. And if that's the case, we are likely going to expect further restrictions. And I could even see in terms of spousal open work permits and things like that, which are also still eligible for Master's PhD and like we looked at in the course blog, that, that he could easily reduce those as well as a further disincentive for people to come. And the goal once again, and I'll actually I'll share one other thing here, that from the speaking notes, and I think you may have alluded to this before, Alicia, but, you know, Minister, there's a reason in his speaking notes, he addresses this employment is 1.2 million jobs above its pre COVID. Great, but the unemployment rate is at 5.8%, as of February 2024, we've done better than recover all the jobs lost during COVID. And now at 130% of that number. And so they're, they're, you know, they're doing good, but they still recognize that, you know, there's still people that are looking for jobs, and with a market that saturated with open work permit holders and things like that, you know, they're they have to listen. And if the general population in Canada's, whether it's real or perceived has certain perceptions, you cannot dissociate these decisions from the fact there's an election coming up. And so people need to be aware of that.
Alicia Backman-Beharry: Yeah. And they have we've heard rumblings mark, and we'll have to see how this plays out as well. But, of course, the federal government is working closely with the provincial governments. And so they are talking more and more about streamlining their temporary resident numbers to economic goals. And that's going to mean PNPs. Right. So the PNPs are looking at this, and they talk about that. And so, you know, most of this is fairly bleak. But we do have a little bit of a ray of hope that's coming later in this sequence of of high points. But one thing that might be the downside is that we've heard rumblings from some of the PNP is that there's probably going to be tightening on eligibility for certain PNP streams that are linked to education programs within the province. So currently, many provinces have programs where like it's an international students dream, or you've gone to the school in that province graduated with at least a two year degree from an eligible institution. And then you can apply for PNP. Well, we've heard rumblings that a two year diploma or certificate program is no longer going to cut the mustard. And they're looking at restricting not to potentially a full bachelor's degree. So we'll have to see how that rolls out as well. But for sure, changes with with schools and students. So Mark, do you want to turn to the next high point that we're going to cover quickly here?
Mark Holthe: All right. Okay, quit visa holders. And this is one that the minister has addressed very clearly. And the reality is Canada, as he's indicated, would not be too happy. If we just said, Look, all of you quiet visa holders with work permits, you can no longer extend. And once your work permits expire, then you have to go home. And you know, as well, as I do, Alicia, that there are very few pathways currently for quit visa holders to become permanent residents in Canada. And, and there if the if the war, you know, in Ukraine is not resolving within the near future, I would be very, very surprised to see the Department not extend and offer an ability to extend these these work permits for people that are in Canada. And you know, if I slip back here to the messaging, you can see that they talk about the fact that with all of the 300,000 arrivals in Canada by essentially by the end of this month, that's what they expect. In Canada, they have important global commitments, right? And they say here, they're the commitments are important to Canadians and Canadians should not be abashed and you know, should should unabashedly be proud of this. And at the same time, there should be an honest conversation about what the rise in international migration means for Canada's, we plan ahead. So I think they're saying, Look, we are in a situation now and we're gonna get to this in one of our later bullet points, but with with respect to the, quote, visa holders, we're committed to these people. And so the ones that we've committed to we're going to support and we're going to continue to facilitate, but we're going to maybe give a little sober second thought as to as to you know, instituting any large scale programs like we have with no caps in you know, in these types of circumstances. So, so I don't know what if you have any thoughts Alicia, do you think they're going to create a separate PR program for quiet visa holders or, or do you think they're going to hold off on that? Aside from the family, the family program that's that's in existence now for, for, you know, for individuals who have family in Canada.
Alicia Backman-Beharry: Yeah, like they might hold off on it because I don't know if they're gonna have room in their their federal levels plan for PRs if they create a new category for Ukrainians, and so I'm guessing that they're hoping that if they extend the Couette work permit long enough, you know, over the next, so some people have been here for a couple of years. And if they extend it for another three years, right now, people could have extended up until the end of the month for another three years. So hopefully, these people who are currently in Canada have at least three years. And if they can start to get their Canadian work experience up, if they can start to get their English up, I'm guessing that they're hoping there will be some way to scoop from Canadian residents who have Canadian work permits. So it remains to be seen if there will be a specific PR program for all Ukrainians. But there is simply the family one right now. So hopefully, if you are Ukrainian, make sure that you are increasing your language skills, English is so important to make sure that you can get those CLB levels that would make you qualify for express entry. So try to get CLB, five for everything to qualify for CEC and make sure you get your one year Canadian work experience.
Mark Holthe: So I did a list. Yeah, go ahead, do
Alicia Backman-Beharry: you want to talk about LMIA restrictions, because this is something that just got slipped in there. And you'd have to dig down and go to LMIA validity periods. And you will notice that during COVID LMIA validity periods were actually 18 months, so a company could apply for their LMIA. If they had unapproved LMIA, the validity would be 18 months, meaning that a worker can submit their work permit application anytime within those 18 months, it doesn't mean that the work permit duration is 18 months. So just keep those two things in mind. But what happened with the LMIA restrictions is quietly last fall, or the end of the year, last year, they turned that 18 month period into a 12 month period. And then very quietly, as of beginning of May, May 1 2024, that 12 month period is going to go to a six month period. And so this is significant, because it will mean that companies have to be very, very spot on their recruitment, they have to have whoever they want for those LMIA A's, some of the companies have had bulk LMIA A's where they just have, you know, five unnamed workers, and they can slot in the employees as they find them, it's going to mean that they have to be quick on the recruitment. And so that anytime they get somebody who's approved on that LMIA, that person has to submit their work permit within the six month window, otherwise, that spot is gone the LMIA they'll just lose it. And it does force employers to make sure that they are carefully timing their recruitment efforts, and they have rolling LMIA A's if if they need to have ongoing recruitment.
Mark Holthe: And right now, like we can see that they're they're posting low wage stream business days processing, I'll be honest, Alicia, I don't know how accurate these are. Whatever they say, for February 2024, we're into March, because I've got one myself that is we're over 120 days, you know, calendar days, but we've blown past this. So this is a
Alicia Backman-Beharry: we just, we just yeah, we just submitted an LMIA with a corporate client on the 15th of March. And they haven't even requested payment yet. And that's unusual. So normally, as soon as you submit your online LMIA within a day, usually you get a payment request. And they haven't even gotten the payment request. They called the call center. And they said well, there's nothing even on file. So, you know, LMIA is are definitely slowing down. And that might be a product.
Mark Holthe: Yeah, yeah. And this is what happens, you guys, when the government says we're going to reduce the number of temporary residents, one of the tools they have in their in their tool toolbox is to simply not process as many applications which then results in longer queues. And when you have longer queues, people then decide to self select. In other words, well isn't worth applying if it takes five months to get this work permit, you know, as a foreign national, and I'm choosing whether to come to Canada or the US or Australia. And I can get a job offer from say Australia and I'm just throwing this out in the example. I don't know if this is the case, but I can get my permit in a month and it's going to take five months in Canada, which job am I going to take so processing times lead to that self selection every bit as much for temporary residence as it does for permanent residence as well. And
the other thing on LMIA restrictions that's important is that again as of May, they are changing the low wage cap figures and so for LMIA is there is of course high wage streams and low wage streams. Anybody who's on a low wage stream LMIA application. It used to be that they're the cap. Most of the time, it's 20%. Sometimes it's 30%. But certain industries were allowed to have 30% caps because they were chronic shortages. Now, they are reducing the number of industries that can benefit from that 30% cap. So right now, you can see we've got a number of industries that can have a 30% cap, or 20%. Cap, but they are going to say, it was 20, it could be 30. For these industries, now only these industries are going to have. So instead of having like a list of seven, we're going to have a list of three, only construction hospitals and nursing and residential care facilities will be able to have the 30% Everybody else is stuck with a 20% of their workforce. So this is important too, because it means that they are really squeezing, which industries can have higher percentages of low wage workers.
Mark Holthe: All right, possible restrictions for humanitarian and asylum. We hinted at this a little bit, Alicia, but, you know, the minister has been clear. Where Where do you see things going?
Alicia Backman-Beharry: Yeah. And so in the speaking notes from the minister, they're talking about climate change refugees, they're talking about global humanitarian disasters war. And they are saying, well, you know, we have to have some sort of reasoned linkage to who we're bringing in on our economic requirements as well. And so the interesting thing, and I think this is a positive development is that they are trying to do things like the en PP, the economic mobility pathway for refugees, and so they're trying to link internationally recognized refugees, people who are overseas and already recognized as a refugee, with employers in Canada, and then bringing them in under this EMP p stream, which then sets it up for less. Less asylum seekers in Canada or refugee seekers in Canada. But people who are already determined to be refugees basically being placed with eligible employers in Canada, often also within rural programs. So you have communities who are saying, Yeah, we're ready, willing and able to have spots for these people within an economic program, which has, hopefully better better settlement outcomes. But of course, Canada has international obligations to taking in a certain number of refugees. And so this is, this is something that has to be negotiated with international partners as well.
Mark Holthe: Right. Okay. What has IRCC done so far? Obviously, we've covered quite a bit of this to this point. But but, you know, where, where are we seeing the focus right now in in trying to reduce? Yeah,
Alicia Backman-Beharry: so if they're looking at reducing asylum seekers, in particular, one of the big things they've done that we didn't touch on yet was they made partial visa requirements for Mexican citizens. And so that's pretty large, because they were doing analysis of what are the source countries for refugee claims, and Mexico was fairly high on that list. And so right away, they put on a visa requirement or a partial visa requirement for Mexican citizens, and that is going to have trickle effects in terms of who's coming in as a temporary resident, potentially, who the asylum seeker or refugee claimant numbers are, where those are coming from. And they've also, you know, they could also do that on other countries. So they could say, look, we've got a number of asylum seekers coming from country XYZ, we're going to start putting more restrictions on in terms of who can come, whether we're having visa approvals from those countries, right, they can start being more stringent in terms of their criteria. So that's something that definitely is, is probably going to affect next year's outcomes and numbers.
Mark Holthe: All right. Speaking of next year, speaking of the future, where do you see things going?
Alicia Backman-Beharry: So I think everything is going to now be tied policy wise to what is the economic outcome. So who is going to be able to support that person's work in Canada? So I think, hopefully employers, Canadian employers who can really demonstrate that they met a labor market need that they tested the labor market through advertising and recruitment, they can't find somebody, they can apply for an LMIA. But I think there's going to be higher scrutiny around even LMIA is because there has been some rumbling of fraud that people have been especially because it's so competitive with Express Entry right now. Those 50 arranged employment points are gold. And so it seems like bad actors have been exploiting the temporary foreign worker program to get an LMIA and then turning around and charging employees To say they have a job offer, which is completely illegal. And I would hope that the department sees that, you know, that is clear fraud, they need to do better enforcement and cut down on the fraud, but it shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater, you shouldn't be penalizing all Canadian employers, because a couple people are being fraudulent. So it will, however, mean that everybody that the federal government is going to be working with the provincial governments, they are going to be looking carefully at all of their programs to try to rein things in, because we know their overall target for levels planning is to go from a temporary resident number of 6.2% to 5% 5%. Yeah.
Mark Holthe: And as we see here, Alicia, from Minister speaking notes, he talks about ensuring you know, a robust pathway to PR for those wishing to make Canada their home in the long term, and avoid the pitfalls in the economy built solely on temporary workers. And I think that's what they're seeing now. And the reason they're seeing that is because they've got all of these international students that are here, and they themselves, Alicia, remember issued those 18 month work permit those temporary policies for post grad work permits, how many times did they do it, one, two, people were waiting for a third rehab. And so they've contributed to it. And when it comes to permanent residence, if you then have way, way more temporary workers who are looking to become permanent residents, well, companies then are going to do what they can to keep them temporarily, because they're filling, you know, a position within their within their company. And so but this is very telling right here, this paragraph, it means not only setting targets for PR, like we talked about, but also for temporary residents. And whenever that target is set, that means that unless you have a true cap on the program, processing times will increase for everything. That's the that's the the choke point with temporary resin applications, unless they put a hard cap and just don't accept new applications. So he said starting this fall, for the first time, we will expand the immigration levels plan to include both temporary resident arrivals and PR arrivals. The latter category is something we're doing already. Yes, they are. So this is and this is where I think Alicia, the minister already has his mindset on what he's going to be doing with international students. And I personally think that regardless, I don't think the schools are going to satisfy whatever the minister envisions and that when they roll out these levels plans in the fall, there's going to be a little bit more of a surprise for schools when they realize that they're going to further cap and further reduce even for professional schools. So that's my that's my view. But you know, obviously we don't know. And this is speculation, but this sure seems like it, it sure. Seems like that's the direction I'm gonna go. And
Alicia Backman-Beharry: Mark, I think after all this, we should turn to the one bright point. The one point bright point in all of this is, you know, Minister Miller, so if you if you go down, we can look at exactly what he said. But he said, you know, as part of our efforts for temporary residents to transition to permanent residency, we will have more domestic draws on that paragraph that starts with on the other hand, on another hand at the bottom of the page there. Yeah. So halfway through that paragraph, he says, as part of our efforts, we will have more domestic drawers for us. So I assume the federal government and ask provinces and territories taking part in the PNP to do the same with their allocations. Now, to me, this means CEC drawers right? Like, do you see your only draw, make sure that you have some sort of way of bringing in and giving a chance to those who are currently sitting in Canada to transition to PR. Yeah, which we've
Mark Holthe: talked about, like you and I, every time we go live and our live q&a, which we're going to be going live after the recording of this. We've talked about the fact that they have for whatever reason stopped doing CEC drawers. And I'll be honest, Alicia, it just makes no sense to me, with all of the people in Canada, why you would continue to bring new people from outside, when when they're already here. And you know, as you look at the drawers, and we go back, you know, how far is it? You know, since the last CEC draw, we probably have to go back
Alicia Backman-Beharry: September 2021 2021, September
Mark Holthe: of 2021. You can see all of these drawers, you guys. So September of 2021. Let's see. And actually, let's see looks like the 14th maybe Elisha Canadian Experience Class right here. Was it September the fourth? Yeah, September 14 2021. That's right. So yeah, this is this is the world we're in, unfortunately, but this could be a bright spot. And we'll have to monitor it and see what happens in the you know, in the coming rounds of invitations, but I wouldn't be surprised, you know, so let's see where that goes. All right. Last one. Leisha practical advice
Alicia Backman-Beharry: Yeah. So practical advice. All right, if you're in Canada, learn French. If you're in Canada maximize your ie LTS CELPIP, or the new Pearson Test language scores, you want to have maximum points on there, you don't want to be losing any of the points. If you are having a work permit that's going to expire, start talking to your employers right now about doing an LMIA. Because it takes four weeks of advertising plus probably three or four months right now for LMIA. Processing, it's longer than the stated processing times as far as our, our experience with clients is. And so it's really important to transition to try to get that closed employer specific work permit, it has to be a genuine employer who is doing the right thing. They cannot charge you for going and doing an LMIA it is the employers obligation to make sure that they are asking for the LMIA from Service Canada. So realize right now that things are super competitive, if you are a student, and you're eligible for your post grad work permit, apply right away if you have a spouse that's eligible for an open spousal work permit because you're a student apply right away, because some of those things might get taken away
Mark Holthe: all of those things. And I want to put a little teaser out there you guys because I'm going to be doing a little episode on specifically increasing your competitiveness for express entry. And one of the things on my list, and I'll show you why may very well be if your employer is not willing to support you with an LMIA it may be to go home. And in some knowledge-based environments, it might, there might be a possibility for you to, you know, to make arrangements to be able to work outside of Canada. And I'm not going to get into a lot of details here because it can be a little bit more a little bit more complicated in establishing that you're truly working outside. But this may very well be an option for you as well. So stay tuned for that. And for those of you see that, you know, the light at the end of the tunnel is starting to dim and you're running into a wall and that you know that wall has a door but the door is locked to you. There may be avenues to get yourself some new keys to get in. And we'll be talking about that a little bit more. But this is this is the future as Minister Miller releases more information we'll definitely address that. And as always, if you are in a situation you're trying to figure out what to do, don't hesitate to reach out to Alicia and I and and book a consult. There's links in the description below. All right. Thanks, Alicia. And take care and thanks so much for for listening.
