Operational Bulletin 574-A – June 20, 2014
Summary
Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) announced that it would be lifting the suspension for specific Labour Market Impact Assessments (LMIAs). These LMIAs belonged to the Food Services Sector. ESDC made this announcement on June 20, 2014.
This Operational Bulletin (OB) provides instructions to processing officers for these cases. It guides them in the manner in which they would need to resume processing these cases.
Background
On April 24, 2014, the Minister of ESDC announced the enforcement of an immediate moratorium. This moratorium applied to the Food Services Sector and the sector’s access to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. Thereafter, the ESDC instructed its officers to stop processing any LMIA applications that concerned the Food Services Sector. As a result, officers stopped processing any LMIA applications from the Food Services Sector, including:
- Pending LMIA applications and,
- New LMIA applications
On April 30, 2014, the Minister of ESDC also made another announcement. This announcement led to the suspension of processing of unused positions. These positions belonged to a previously approved LMIA from this sector. As a result of this announcement, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) also suspended the processing of all affected work permit applications.
Processing Instructions
The ESDC has completed its review of the Food Services Sector. It has also re-confirmed the majority of the suspended LMIAs. Because of this, it has instructed officers to return work permit applications to the processing queue. It has also instructed officers to return these applications to the queue based on their dates of receipt.
The ESDC has also instructed CIC officers to ensure that these work permit applications do not face any unreasonable delays from this point onwards. This is especially so, because the ESDC has now lifted the suspension on these work permit applications.
Therefore, officers would need to check that the LMIA has been re-confirmed. To do this, they would need to refresh the HRSDC View Tab in the Global Case Management System (GCMS). The process that officers would need to follow is:
- The officers would need to review the “Decision” and “HRSDC Comments” fields
- If they find that the fields display “RECONFIRM – DATE – This LMIA has been reconfirmed and may be processed as per normal procedures”, the officers would:
- Understand that the authorities have lifted the LMIA suspension and,
- Continue processing the work permit application as normal
- If they find that the fields display “Suspended”, the officers would:
- Understand that the ESDC has not completed its review yet for this work permit application and,
- Place the work permit application on hold for another 60 days, where it would await a further review by the ESDC
The Process to Follow when the CBSA Receives the Work Permit Application at the Port of Entry After the Authorities Have Lifted the Suspension
Situations could arise where the LMIA is still within the validity period. In these circumstances, Border Services Officers would need to process the work permit application as per their normal procedures.
Source: Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC)
