1- Changes to economic immigration programs will help further reduce backlogs and improve wait times

Effective July 1, 2011 and for the ensuing 12 months, a maximum of 10,000 of these applications will be accepted for processing. The 29 eligible occupations remain unchanged, but only 500 applications in each occupation will be considered for a permanent resident visa. No cap has been placed on the number of FSW applications that include a validated job offer from a Canadian employer

2- New regulations governing Immigration Consultants in Quebec
The Quebec government is following suit and published the new regulations that will allow only lawyers, notaries and immigration consultants certified by the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants (CSIC) to represent clients in provincial immigration cases.

3- Validity of Language Test Results
EFFECTIVE December 23, 2010: If you are submitting a language test with your application, the results are now valid for 2 years from the time you took the test, instead of 1 year. This change applies to Federal skilled worker. Academic IELTS is not accepted.

4- Canada/Quebec Immigrant Investor Program Re-Opens on December 1st, 2010
The official newspaper of the Government of Canada announced the re-opening of the Canadian Immigrant Investor Program, effective on December 1st, 2010. Citizenship and Immigration Canada once again started accepting applications under the Federal Immigrant Investor Program but this time under the new regulations.
Under the new program criteria, investor immigration clients must:
- have a personal net worth of CAD $1,600,000, up from CAD $800,000 under the old criteria,
- make an investment of CAD $800,000,up from CAD $400,000 as previously required.
Canada's old immigrant investor criteria were the lowest when compared to other countries with similar programs, as a consequence, application intake has almost tripled since 2007 and application inventories have increased significantly. The new criteria will now position Canada inline with other immigrant investor receiving countries.
Applications received on or after December 1 will be subject to the new criteria and will be processed alongside the old ones in a 2:1 case-processing ratio of inventory applications to new applications received since the regulatory change.