Dear CILA Members,
The CILA Board of Directors hopes you are off to a successful start to the New Year.
We are pleased to provide you with an update on our top developments to begin the year and what you can expect from us in the coming months:
Stakeholder Relations
On February 7, Tamara Mosher-Kuczer represented CILA before a Canadian Senate Committee study on Bill S-235, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
On January 29, CILA wrote a welcome letter to IRCC’s new Deputy Minister Dr. Harpreet S. Kochhar. We are looking to schedule a meeting with him in the spring. We had met with his predecessor Christiane Fox in 2023 and were in touch with her regarding our forthcoming proposals on IRPA reform. (See more on this in the “Advocacy” section below).
Minister Miller’s office responded to the welcome letter we sent him in July. We are working with them to arrange a meeting by March to discuss the importance of providing IRCC clients with access to counsel.
Following the January 22 announced cap on international students, CILA released the following statement, which was cited by the Times of India. We are in the process of elaborating on our position since we anticipate international student policy will remain a prominent issue over the foreseeable future.
CILA also submitted a letter to the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants (CICC) to share concerns on unlicensed consultants offering immigration services in Canada. CICC’s response was circulated on The Voice.
CLEs
Thank you to Mark Holthe for his presentation on PR Programs for Francophone Outside Quebec. Members can purchase access to the recording using the CILA 2024 Workshop Series registration form. Once we receive your payment, we will send you the access details. We ask that members do not share workshop recordings or presentation materials with non-CILA members.
Thank you to Roxane Israel for hosting an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session. The AMA series is intended as a mentorship series. If you are interested in viewing the recording of this session, please reach out to info@cila.co. Stay tuned for other AMAs later this year.
Sign up for our upcoming CLEs!
Join us on Thursday, February 22 for our feature presentation entitled “Protecting Lost Canadians”, delivered by Sujit Choudhry and Naseem Mithoowani as they explore the implications of the Bjorkquist et al. case on children born abroad to a Canadian citizen parent. This presentation is open to non-members.
Sign up for our Thursday, February 29 workshop, “A How-to-Guide to Preparing H&C Applications” by Ronalee Carey as she covers practical questions to help you with H&C submissions.
New Articles
Our Members helped us release a number of thought-leadership articles, including:
- The Urgent Need to Extend the March 31, 2024 CUAET Program Deadline by Lev Abramovich
- A Look at Azari vs. Canada by Samuel Escobar
- 3 Reasons to Choose a Canadian Immigration Lawyer over a Consultant or Paralegal, by Yameena Ansari and Maryam Markaryan
- Closing Doors: The Sudden End of Ontario’s Entrepreneur Program by Siavash Shekarian
- Top Ten Tips for Writing a Bar Exam by Michael O’Rourke
We sincerely thank Lev, Samuel, Yameena, Maryam, Siavash, and Michael for their great contributions.
Want to write an article for CILA? Please click here to learn how!
Sponsorship
We are delighted to announce that CILA is a Silver Sponsor of this year’s Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Law Moot, taking place for the first time in person this year in Toronto, from March 1-2, 2024. Stay tuned for how to get tickets to the Gala on March 2, 2024.
Advocacy
We look forward to presenting to the Deputy Minister our report on IRPA reform, entitled, “Cleaning up the Act”, early this spring. Thank you to our committee for their hard work, Michael Battista, Barb Jackman, Will Tao, and Randy Hahn.
We continue to champion the issue of right to counsel and emphasize the important and essential role of immigration lawyers in the immigration sector. We will have more to report on our efforts in the near future.
Membership and New Website
We have over 410 Members who are in good standing and 90 who have not renewed. We have an ambitious goal of growing to 750 Members in good standing by next year.
We also plan to launch our new website by March, and we will be emailing Members shortly to upload their information onto the directory.
Send us your questions, comments, and suggestions
We welcome all questions, comments, and feedback as we look to improve CILA and provide our Members with value.
Contact info@cila.co for membership and CLE enquiries.
Simply contact the Board for all other enquiries.
Sincerely,
Vance Langford
Barbara Jo Caruso
Co-Presidents
