Blue Bird Blog

Last week, Canada's immigration department implemented major changes that have been influenced by a recent study it commissioned.
The purpose of the changes is to improve the operations of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC).
Earlier this year, IRCC received a report from one of its previous Deputy Ministers, Neil Yeates, on how IRCC can become a more effective and efficient department. Yeates' report was commissioned by IRCC to evaluate whether the department's current structure best enables it to achieve its mandate.

On September 27, the Supreme Court of Canada released a very important immigration law decision that limits the power of immigration officials and tribunals to remove foreign nationals with no criminal convictions on security grounds.

Statistics Canada has just released a major report that changes how it counts Canada’s non-permanent residents (NPRs).
According to the latest population estimate, NPRs account for 2,198,679 people in Canada. A difference of over one million from Census 2021.
The report is significant because Statistics Canada acknowledges that it previously undercounted the country’s NPR population. The revised methodology has significant implications for Canadian public policy in a variety of areas, including immigration, economic and labour market planning and housing, among other important areas.

Canada’s Finance Minister, Chrystia Freeland, has tabled a new bill with the House of Commons to improve affordability in Canada.
Bill C-56, the Affordable Housing and Groceries Act, has two main components. The first is to change the Excise Tax Act to add an enhancement to the GST New Residential Rental Property Rebate.

According to the 2023 Best Countries ranking by U.S. News, Canada is the second-best in the world overall this year, behind Switzerland.
Sweden, Australia, and the United States rounded out the top five overall countries.
The move up to second is an improvement from 2022, when Canada was ranked third overall by U.S. News.
To formulate these rankings, U.S. News looked at 10 different sub-categories (where they ranked the top 20 countries in each) and then ranked 87 countries in their overall rankings.