Bill C - 50 was passed, effective February 27, 2008. It does not effect cases filed before that date. Among its provisions were the following:

• It applies only to cases filed after February 27th;
• It applies only to the Economic Class, it does not apply to Family Class, Refugees or Provincial Nominees;
• It creates sub-categories inside the skilled worker category and allows those categories to be put in priority order for processing;
• It allows CIC to decline to accept cases for processing;

From February till now, no one knew what the sub-categories would be or what priority they would be in. Now we do, because the Minister released his Instructions effective November 29,2008.

Visa offices will continue to process applications in the three business classes - Self Employed, Entrepreneur and Investor. They will continue to accept PNP cases and CEC.

Cases filed before February 27th will be kept by the posts, cases filed after February 27th but before November 29th will be kept and processed by the posts if they are POL or AEO.

CIC Buffalo will continue to accept Canadian Experience Class (CEC) cases.

The ones who have least advantage are the tens of thousands of people who do not have experience on the POL, are not in Canada, who have done IELTS or TEF and who have 67 points. In the past they could have applied and waited for a visa. Now they will be turned away. Most of them will have no choice. Their only real option is to obtain an Arranged Employment Opinion job offer.

Please visit our other articles to learn about how to get into the AEO category.