Prime Minister’s assistance to Canadian residents

Harper abandoned plans to return home from Europe on Wednesday and diverted his aircraft to Cyprus to help in the evacuation of Canadian residents and citizens. His plane flew from Paris Wednesday at 6 p.m. local time. Staff traveling with Harper confirmed his arrival in Cyprus through a telephone call to PMO officials in Paris by telephone at 10:49 p.m. Wednesday and he did meet with Cypriot foreign minister George Lilikas.

Prime Minister Harper’s intention is that 100 individuals will fly home on his plane

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper awoke onboard his Airbus jetliner Thursday morning because it remained parked on the runway of Larnaca airport in Cyprus overnight, officials said.


Alice Daghavarian, Director of Immigration Services.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada's Response to the Situation in the Middle East

Citizenship and Immigration Canada is carefully monitoring the situation in Lebanon. The visa office in Beirut, Lebanon remains open and will be concentrating on processing priority cases.

Immigration Canada will give priority to Canadian citizens and Canadian permanent residents as well as their spouses, common-law partners, conjugal partners and dependent children.

Presently, the Beirut visa office will no longer be accepting new applications for people who wish to visit, study or work temporarily in Canada, with the exception of the priority cases listed above. However, the office will continue to process applications that have already been submitted.

The visa offices in Damascus, Syria and Amman, Jordan will continue to provide services as usual.

Alice Daghavarian, Director of Immigration Services.

Immigration Canada to revise application process

Citizenship and Immigration Canada has introduced a new application process for many federal skilled workers and business class immigration applicants.

As of September 1, 2006, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) will introduce a new simplified application process for most Federal Economic Class applicants, inclusive of Skilled Workers and Business Immigrants. Beginning this date, affected Federal Economic Class applicants will be required to provide the modified application form and processing fees at the time of application.

Supporting documentation will remain a critical component of the processing of the application, but this step will put more focus on the clear, accurate, and complete presentation of the application forms. Such documents will be provided only when the visa office has reviewed the forms and is ready to complete the assessment of the application.

Applicants will potentially benefit by earlier "lock in" of the application upon submission, meaning that applications will be evaluated against the Regulations in effect at such time. At the time of assessment of the application by the appropriate visa office a request for the supporting documents will be forwarded to the applicant.

The following applicants cannot apply under the simplified application process;

• provincial nominees; or
• Quebec applicants; or
• Temporary residents of Canada as a worker or a student and are submitting your application at the Canadian visa office in Buffalo; or
• Legal status in the United States and are submitting your application through the Canadian visa office in Buffalo

Rochelle Rainford,

Citizenship and Immigration Canada has announced changes in the procedures for some residents of the Persian Gulf …

New applications from Persian Gulf residents for specific permanent residence categories have been sent to Abu Dhabi rather than London since January 1, 2006, to provide more convenient service to these clients. The countries in question are:

– Bahrain – Kuwait – Oman – Qatar

– United Arab Emirates – Saudi Arabia – Yemen

The types of applications that are now handled by Abu Dhabi are:

• Quebec cases (all immigration categories)
• Provincial nominees
• Family class (all categories)
• Protected persons
• Dependants of the live-in caregiver class in Canada

People applying under the Quebec and provincial nominee programs should send their applications directly to Abu Dhabi.

In the case of sponsorship applications, once the sponsors have gone through the proper process—or, in the case of refugees, once the group sponsorship or the UNHCR referral has been completed—the case processing centre in Mississauga (Canada) will send the necessary information to Abu Dhabi, who will then contact the applicants to complete the processing.

The mailing address for Abu Dhabi will remain the same.

London will continue to process all applications from the above classes received prior to January 1, 2006.

All applicants in the economic class (skilled workers and business immigrants) will continue to submit their applications to London


Sophia Tsontakis.

The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Canada will be celebrating Citizenship on Canada Day

The Honourable Monte Solberg, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration announced on June 30th that over 1,000 people will become Canadian citizens on July 1 by taking the oath of citizenship at over 25 citizenship ceremonies in communities across the country.

On July 1, the Minister attended a special citizenship ceremony at 9:30 a.m. in the Grand Hall of the Canadian Museum of Civilization, in Gatineau, Quebec. Citizenship Judge Suzanne Pinel presided over the public ceremony.

“New citizens and their loved ones will benefit from the goodwill and trust that Canada has built over the years,” said Minister Solberg. “And we will benefit from what they bring to Canada — their ideas, their skills and their stories.”

The Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia, the Honourable Iona Campagnolo, swore in 80 new Canadians at a ceremony at Government House. On June 29, Citizenship Judge Normand Allaire swore in 60 new Canadians at CityTV’s studios in Toronto.

“Becoming a citizen is an honour and a responsibility,” said Minister Solberg. “On Canada Day, I know we all celebrate our shared values of respect, freedom, justice, democracy and equality.”


Alice Daghavarian, Director of Immigration Services.