Work and research permits will now not be out there for flagpolers at ports of entry in Canada.
Flagpolers are international nationals holding momentary resident standing in Canada who go away the nation and re-enter to entry immigration companies, equivalent to work or research permits, at a port of entry relatively than submitting a renewal utility by way of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.
The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) stories that greater than 69,300 flagpolers have been processed between April 1, 2023 and March 31, 2024 primarily within the Pacific, southern Ontario and Quebec areas.
“This variation will allow us to additional streamline actions at our ports of entry and permit Canadian and American border officers to deal with what they’ve been expertly skilled to do — border enforcement,” Public Security Minister David McGuinty stated in a press release on Monday.
This announcement comes as a part of a broader transfer to strengthen Canada’s border safety forward of the inauguration of U.S. president-elect on Jan. 20.
Canada has been targeted on strengthening its border safety in an effort to dissuade Trump from imposing a hefty 25 per cent tariff on all Canadian items. He says his tariff risk is in response to issues about border safety, migrants and unlawful medicine, particularly fentanyl.
The Liberal authorities’s fall financial replace earmarked $1.3 billion for a border safety bundle over six years. That features shopping for helicopters and drones to strengthen monitoring of the shared border and spending extra on the CBSA, the RCMP, Public Security Canada and the Communications Safety Institution Canada. However the assertion was gentle on particulars about how that cash will likely be spent.
It was, partly, this dedication to frame safety and Canada’s impending tariff warfare that led former deputy prime minister and finance minister Chrystia Freeland to resign from cupboard.
In her resignation letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Freeland stated the 2 have been at odds over the perfect path by way of Trump’s tariff risk.
“We have to take that risk extraordinarily severely,” she wrote in her letter. “Which means preserving our fiscal powder dry right this moment, so we’ve the reserves we may have for a coming tariff warfare.”
The CBSA says the modifications to flagpoling have been made to permit each Canada and the USA to “successfully handle border operations and preserve the integrity of our shared border.”
“A robust Canada-U.S. relationship retains folks and items shifting safely whereas defending either side of the border. Flagpoling is pointless and diverts assets from important enforcement actions,” Immigration Minister Marc Miller stated in a press release.
The CBSA says that in some “restricted circumstances,” work and research permits could also be administered to people who would in any other case meet the standards of a flagpoler, together with; residents and everlasting residents of the U.S.; truck drivers who want to depart Canada for work; professionals and technicians underneath free-trade agreements with the U.S./Mexico, Chile, Panama, Peru, Colombia and South Korea; and spouses or common-law companions of execs and technicians underneath free-trade agreements with Panama, Colombia and South Korea.
People who don’t meet the restricted circumstances and try to flagpole will likely be redirected to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada to submit their utility.
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