Dear CILA Members, we’re excited to share with you our monthly update for April and also highlight our upcoming initiatives.
Upcoming Events
Join us in Montreal on May 9 between 2-4 PM!
Join our Networking Event in Montreal on May 9 between 2-4 PM ET. Registration is free! We are grateful to our event sponsors, Galileo Partners, CELPIP by Prometric, Desjardins, Officio, and Visa Business Plans. The event has a very high level of interest already and space is limited. Please make sure to register soon to save your spot.
Save the date: CILA’s AGM on June 19
We are hosting our Annual General Meeting on June 19 and invite you to save the date in your calendars. We will provide details and the agenda in advance of the meeting. The AGM will be another opportunity for you to help shape CILA’s strategic direction, get a comprehensive update on CILA’s activities, and more. Please stay tuned for more details.
Sign up to our upcoming CLEs
On May 21, we are co-hosting a webinar with the Mexican Bar Association on Canada’s latest visa rules for Mexican citizens. Sign up here.
On May 23, we are hosting an AMA for junior immigration lawyers featuring Eleanor Somerleigh, an experienced member of the immigration bar with over 25 years of experience. Please register here.
On June 20, we will be hosting a how-to workshop on family sponsorship applications, led by Adrienne Smith and Aryana Rousseau, who have over 30 years of combined immigration law expertise. Click here to sign up.
In-Person Networking Events this Fall
Our next in-person networking events will take place in Calgary and Toronto, later this fall. Please keep posted for more details.
Previous Events
CILA held a very successful event at the Top of Vancouver on April 18. We had over 40 attendees join us at this dazzling venue on the West Coast. We congratulate Robert Leong for winning our raffle for a free CILA membership for one year. We thank all those who attended the event. CILA is especially grateful to Catherine Sas and Marina Sedai for the heavy lifting they did in organizing the event. It would not have been a success without their efforts.
CILA thanks Marina Sedai (left) and Catherine Sas (right) for helping us organize our Vancouver event.
We would like to also thank Kevin Zemp and Peter Rekai for the April 18 CLE on C-20 Work Permits. We appreciate Visto.ai for sponsoring this CLE.
CILA is grateful to Joshua Schachnow for his excellent CLE on April 25 on the impacts of AI on Canada’s immigration system. We also thank Daud Ali for moderating the CLE.
Thought-leadership and Stakeholder Relations
CILA released 10 articles in April and are thankful to all those who contributed. Please click here if you have an article that you wish to submit to CILA. We welcome submissions on any topic you are interested in writing about.
CILA also featured in Canadian Lawyer Magazine’s Top 10 Immigration Boutiques 2024-25.
We are pleased to announce we have finalized our “Cleaning up the Act” report on IRPA reform. We wish to issue a big thank you to Michael Battista and other members of the committee. Completing this report was a tall order and the committee members rose to the occasion. CILA is in the process of translating the entire report to French, after which we will be releasing it publicly in May. We are excited to share the findings with IRCC, Members of Parliament, Senators, and more.
Volunteer with CILA: Join our New Committees
The CILA Board spent much of April developing a new volunteer strategy including deciding which new committees to launch in the coming months. We are pleased to solicit expressions of interest for CILA members to participate in new committees on key topics including AI; Skilled Workers/Work Permits; Business Immigration; Quebec; Family Sponsorship; Refugees; and Fraud. Volunteering is in CILA’s DNA and we look forward to launching these new committees so we can continue to play a positive role in shaping Canada’s immigration system. Please click here if you wish to participate in any of our committees.
The new committees will complement our existing ones on Access to Counsel; the Federal Court review process; and the unauthorized practice of immigration law. Please stay tuned for more information as we look to get these committees up and running soon.
Membership Directory Raffle Winner
CILA thanks all those who joined our public membership directory by our raffle deadline of April 30. We are happy to announce the winner of a $100 Amazon gift card: Miguel Martins Pereirinha!
We strongly encourage you to join our directory if you’ve yet to do so. Simply log into your account and upload your professional details. We also offer a Premium upgrade for only $150 to have your name listed at the top of the directory.
You can also contact us if you need help with this process: info@cila.co
Thank you for your support
CILA is growing rapidly and we greatly appreciate all of your support. We are excited about our many initiatives and look forward to continuing to elevate the interests of newcomers themselves and the immigration bar. We hope to see you in Montreal!
Sincerely,
Barbara Jo Caruso
Vance Langford
Co-Presidents
