November 3, 2020 -Interview with CTV -the Impact of the US election on Canada’s Immigration System

It was a pleasure talking to CTV’s veteran reporter Kevin Green yesterday on the impact of the US election on Canada’s immigration system.

Immigration benefits One group that would benefit from a Trump win are those helping people immigrate to Canada. . Raj Sharma, a Calgary Immigration lawyer, said a Trump win would drive immigrants away from the Unites States, and many would choose Canada instead, but Sharma doesn’t think he’ll see many of the Americans who have proclaimed they’d move to this country if Trump is re-elected. “I think it’s a sort of something that people say, I think that there’s very little serious intent behind it,” he said. “Picking up and moving to another country is not as easy as going down to 7-11 to pick up a Slurpee.”

“Americans sort of just assume that Canada is this consolation prize, which is somewhat offensive to a Canadian like myself and other Canadians. I mean, there’s individuals that come here, they work very, very hard and eventually obtain status here. So I think Americans take us a bit for granted.”

Sharma said some Americans who have tried to immigrate to Canada have been surprised at how difficult it actually is.

“Canada is not just something that you can just pick up, snap your fingers and decide (to immigrate to).  A lot of the clients that call me are very, very surprised that they don’t qualify, that they have to do English tests. And so we treat Americans the exact same as every other applicant. Americans don’t have a special system to come into Canada.”