There has been a great deal of media coverage in recent days, (and in the weeks and months before that) about the NAFTA negotiations, and the now (tentatively) renegotiated USMCA (United States, Mexico, Canada) agreement. Though much of the media relates to trade in various commodities, and other free trade issues, the USMCA, and its NAFTA predecessor, also have immigration provisions. In that regard, a few notes:
- Firstly, and perhaps most notably, this is not a final agreement. This agreement must now be ratified by each of the member countries’ legislatures. This could take a number of months, and actual implementation could take a further number of months thereafter. For now, NAFTA remains in force, and all aspects of NAFTA, including the immigration aspects, continue to operate as they have until now.
- In terms of immigration provisions, the big change is: nothing really to speak of! A comparison of the immigration provisions reveals that, except for some tweaking in the verbiage, the basic elements of the relevant programs remain the same. This includes the four primary components:
- Business Visitors
- Americans and Mexicans entering Canada for work purposes, but not entering the labour market.
- This is sometimes harder to interpret in real life than this simple statement would indicate, but this is the basic idea.
- Americans and Mexicans entering Canada for work purposes, but not entering the labour market.
- Intra-Company Transferees
- Senior managerial and ‘specialized knowledge’ Americans or Mexicans coming to Canada to work with a Canadian affiliate of their current U.S. or Mexican employer.
- There are numerous details here about prior work history, nature of ‘specialized knowledge’, etc., but again, this is the basic idea.
- Senior managerial and ‘specialized knowledge’ Americans or Mexicans coming to Canada to work with a Canadian affiliate of their current U.S. or Mexican employer.
- Professionals
- Americans or Mexicans working in certain occupations.
- There is a long list, but some notable categories are: Engineers, Accountants, Computer Systems Analysts, Management Consultants.
- There are issues as well of professional qualification.
- Americans or Mexicans working in certain occupations.
- Traders/Investors
- Americans or Mexicans who, on their own behalf, or on behalf of a corporation, are coming essentially to establish, or invest in, a business in Canada.
- Business Visitors
Over the coming months, whether by interpretation, or by renegotiation/revision through parliamentary processes, etc., we could still learn of some differentiation to be made between the agreements or portions thereof, but for now, at least from the Canadian point of view, we do not anticipate any material change to the immigration process under the new USMCA agreement. (It may be of interest to note that the text of the agreement in its current form indicates ‘Subject to Legal Review for Accuracy, Clarity, and Consistency; Subject to Language Authentication’. However, this would not appear to indicate that any substantive changes are expected – only that, now that the big picture negotiations are over, the parties leave open the possibility of some further tweaking as they fine tune the final product.)
The information in this article is for general purposes only, and not intended as legal advice for any particular situation.