Slowing down for summer? Think again. If you’ve got a stake or interest in Canada’s immigration and financial systems, you’ve got a month to make sure your voice is heard.
Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) has just launched two online consultations. While it appears that CIC will also be consulting directly with some select “stakeholders”, don’t wait to get your input into them.
2013 Immigration Levels Planning: Public and Stakeholder Consultation
This is a broad consultation, mainly in the form of an online survey. We’ll be adding our comments, ideas and solutions to this consultation. In the coming weeks, we’ll share with you what we think matters and what some of our ideas and solutions are.
According to the CIC website:
“The consultations will explore a number of issues related to three main questions:
- What is the appropriate level of immigration for Canada? Should the number of immigrants per year change?
- What is the appropriate distribution – or mix – between the number of economic immigrants, family class immigrants and refugees?
- Economic immigration is recognized as a key immigration objective for Canada’s long-term economic growth. What role can immigration play to support Canada’s economy?”
Be sure to read their background document, which provides more information about what they’re looking for.
And, be sure to complete their online survey by August 31, 2012.
Stakeholder and Public Consultations on Improving the Immigrant Investor Program
This consultation is definitely more specialized. The focus is on soliciting feedback from organizations/institutions, rather than individuals. It’s also a much more open ended consultation than the online survey for the Immigration Levels Planning consultation.
They’re seeking “policy paper/recommendations” and asking for “your name and/or the name of the organization which you represent with your submission.” If you have an interest in how Canada moves forward with immigrant investment, you’ll want to ensure that your voice is heard.
According to CIC a “summary report on the consultations will be available on the CIC website in fall 2012 or winter 2013″. In this case “CIC will publish the responses received through this consultation process.”
This seems to reflect their expectation that organizations will make the bulk of the submissions.
Once again, be sure to read their backgrounder.
In this case, you can submit your policy paper/recommendations by email to: consultations@cic.gc.ca by September 4, 2012.
Wanted: Canadians’ Ideas for the 2013 Budget
In another very important consultation, Samara Canada is promoting the House of Common’s Standing Committee on Finance’s pre-budget consultation.
From Samara:
“The window to provide your ideas and comments for the 2013 budget is quickly closing with a deadline of August 2nd. It’s simple to register and the Committee has provided questions to guide responses (albeit limited to 350 words). If they like your ideas, you may find yourself discussing them with the Committee’s members!”
If you do get picked to testify before the Committee, you may want to read up on Testifying Before Parliamentary Committees.
Related links:
- For a complete list of consultations currently under way in other federal departments, please visit the Government of Canada’s Consulting With Canadians website.
Have we missed any other consultations you know of? Let us know in the comments below!
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Global Migrate
