Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has just released guidelines as to when work permit renewal applications may be expedited based on a need for urgent processing.
Substantive Considerations
The guidelines leave consideration of individual applications to the judgement of local management, but provide general guidance on substantive factors that may be considered. Those factors include situations where:
- A foreign worker needs to travel urgently due to, for example:
- Business,
- Death in the family, or
- Serious illness
- A foreign medical doctor is involved in the treatment of patients and is, for example:
- Changing employers,
- Relocating to another province, or
- Renewing their medical licence
Procedural Requirements
To seek consideration of urgent processing, an applicant would need to contact the IRCC Call Centre and notify them of the issue. Applicants would still need to have a complete application (including, e.g., necessary LMIA or Offer of Employment, etc.), and must provide evidence of the urgency giving rise to the request – for example, death certificate, doctor’s note of serious illness, etc. Applications must be sent on paper to the Case Processing Centre, attention ‘TL-OSS’. If the matter is already in process, applicants must submit a new application to the aforementioned processing centre, and again, provide all elements of the application usually required (including a new fee), plus the evidence of the urgent issue. Where a case was already in process, and urgent processing is then undertaken, the fees of the initial application will later be refunded.
Turnaround
Once contacted, an IRCC agent will determine if the applicant can wait 10 business days. If so, thereafter, the applicant will submit the application to the Case Processing Centre as set out above, and processing should in any event occur within an expected 48 hours to 5 business days. Where processing is required more urgently, the IRCC agent will refer the case to the local office where the person is resident, and that office will proceed with processing the matter directly with the applicant.
Summary
Though it may only come up in limited circumstances, this new process is something previously not offered by IRCC, and will certainly be of value when an urgent situation does indeed arise.
Note that the guidelines deal only with work permits. It is not clear that the considerations would be applicable to other renewal types (e.g. study permits). It would seem reasonable to think that similar considerations would still apply, but this must be reviewed on a case by case basis, and presumably in consultation with an IRCC Call Centre agent.
The information in this article is for general purposes only, and not intended as legal advice for any particular situation.