HomeAuthorVictor Ing, Author at Immigration Lawyer Vancouver, Canada | Sas & Ing Immigration Law Centre - Page 2 of 11

On December 7, 2023, the Honourable Marc Miller, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship announced that, starting January 1, 2024, international students will be required to have more funds to be granted a student visa to ensure they can afford the costs of living in Canada. Speaking to reporters, the Minister acknowledged that there may be unintended consequences arising from the increase in financial requirements, which are more than doubling from $10,000 to $20,635 to cover the first year of living expenses in Canada, but he felt it was necessary so that students will not feel forced to work to make ends meet. There is already a debate about whether the Minister’s announcement will lead to a noticeable decrease in the number of international students in Canada and whether those who meet the higher financial requirements will truly benefit from this change. In this blog post we will review some of the experiences we have had at our law firm working closely with international students.

At our immigration law office we frequently consult with clients about spousal sponsorships, which involves an application by a Canadian citizen or permanent resident to sponsor their spouse or common-law partner for permanent residence in Canada. These applications are quite commonplace and represent a large proportion of approvals each year. To illustrate, in 2021 over 69,000 foreign nationals were admitted to Canada as permanent residents under a spousal sponsorship and this represented about 17% of the total admissions approved for the entire year.