Immigration Newsweek
By: Atty. Henry Moyal
Q. I have lived in Canada for over two years and became an immigrant of Canada in 2000. I never had the need to travel and I kept by old record of landing.
My Filipino passport has expired and I do not know where it is. I finally decided to apply for Canadian Citizenship and it is taking a long time. My mother just had a stroke and I need to travel immediately.
Is there any way to speed up a Canadian Citizenship application for urgent cases?
A. Yes, but Canada Immigration has strict guidelines on when they will expedite an application. Citizenship applications are expedited if documents support the need for urgency in the following situations.
• a request is received from the office of the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship
• the applicants need to travel because of a death or serious illness in the family and cannot obtain a passport in their present nationality (which includes the Canadian passport)
• a subsection 5(1) grant applicant has 1095 or more days of physical presence in Canada and faces loss of employment or of employment opportunity because they are not a Canadian citizen
• the applicants are Canadian citizens and face loss of employment or of employment opportunity because they are not in possession of a document establishing Canadian citizenship
• an application is delayed due to an administrative error
• an applicant for grant of citizenship has a successful appeal to the Federal Court
• the applicant is in any situation in which not expediting the citizenship application harms them (for instance, need to renounce foreign citizenship by a certain date)
• the applicant needs a citizenship certificate to access certain benefits such as a pension, a social insurance number or health care
Remember that you must provide documents to prove the specific scenario to support an urgent case request.
Q. I understand that obtaining an educational assessment (ECA) of foreign education is required when immigrating to Canada. I just received by report back from WES ( World Education Service) which says that my school is a Non-Recognized Institution. What does that mean? And is it acceptable?
A. In order to be eligible for points, a foreign education credential must have a positive assessment from a designated organization – the company you chose was WES. The ECA report must indicate the equivalency of the foreign credential to a Canadian credential and must indicate the institution where the candidate obtained the credential is recognized by the authority of the home country.
Each organization may have a different way of reporting their educational credential assessment.
According to WES, post-secondary education is regulated by national legislation in most countries and has defined guidelines that should be in place in order to bestow official degree granting authority on institutions. For all such institutions, WES ECA reports will indicate the status as recognized if the documents assessed are issued by an institution that has power to award academic credentials.
An institution that is not recognized by the appropriate educational authorities in the home country as a degree granting institution is considered not recognized by WES. Study completed at such institutions is assessed by WES and the ECA report will indicate the status of the foreign institution as not recognized.
Institutions that are not licensed or registered as teaching institutions in the home country do not have the right to operate or issue degrees. Therefore, if WES indicates that the organization is ‘not recognized’ then Canada Immigration will not assign any points for the credential.
Q. I’m completing an application for permanent residence under express entry and the instructions require a copy of my passport and all stamps. I just renewed my passport and I have travelled to many countries on business in the last ten years. Do I need to provide all these stamps?
A. Canada Immigration has admitted that the instructions for this particular item was confusing and in error. Bottom line : You do not need to include stamped pages of the passport.
Attorney Henry Moyal is a certified and licensed immigration lawyer in Toronto, Ontario.
The above article is general advice only and is not intended to act as a legal document.
Send questions to Attorney Moyal by email canada@moyal.com or call 416 733 3193
Subscribe to Immigration Newsweek
