New Immigration Law
Q: Does anyone know further information regarding immigration for same sex partners? The last Canadian Immigration Legislative Review was Not Just Numbers A Canadian Framework for Future Immigration Tier 3. Has there been progress since?
A: If past practise is any guide it will likely be several years before the Immigration Act and Regulations undergo the major re-write as ensaged by the Legislative Review Committee. Initial public consulatations have just been completed and the Minister announced that she wanted the Standing Committe on Immigration to also look into the proposed changes and if necessary hold its own hearings. In the past several drafts are put our to interested parties for comment (Canadian Bar Assoication, NGO's, etc.). Once this has been done then it has to go through Prliament and various readings and committee study before the Immigration Act is changed. Once the changes have been made then there must be Regulations promulgated to implement the changes to the Act and if major changes then the immigration staff must be trained. The last major re-write of the Immigration Act was in early 1976 but it took until April 1978 to promulgate and publish the Regulations and then train the staff before the Immigration Act, 1976 was proclaimed in force. However there is a policy dealing with same sex and common law relationships which is set out in the Immigration Policy Manuals which provides