By Mata Press Service

Canada’s business immigration system has created a bureaucratic catch-22 that can leave immigrant entrepreneurs waiting years for permanent residence while being unable to enter the country to build the businesses on which their applications depend, the Canadian Bar Association says.

In a submission to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, the CBA’s Immigration Law Section says the problem has become the biggest source of friction in the federal Start-Up Visa program and should be at the centre of Ottawa’s planned overhaul of business immigration.

The warning comes as the federal government prepares a new high-impact Start-Up Visa pilot aimed at attracting what it calls “elite entrepreneurs,” after pausing the existing program this year amid mounting backlogs and concerns about its effectiveness. Canada

The CBA says the existing system expects applicants to demonstrate progress such as establishing operations, hiring workers and opening Canadian bank accounts, even though many of those steps cannot realistically be taken until the entrepreneur receives authorization to work in Canada.

“Entrepreneurs are asked to prove what the program itself prevents them from proving,” the association said in outlining its recommendations last week.

The CBA represents more than 40,000 lawyers, notaries, law teachers and law students, while its Immigration Law Section includes more than 1,000 lawyers working in immigration, refugee and citizenship law.

Its submission comes at a critical point for a program originally designed to attract innovative foreign entrepreneurs capable of creating Canadian jobs and building companies that can compete internationally.

Ottawa stopped accepting most new Start-Up Visa applications on June 30, 2026. Commitment certificates from designated organizations stopped at the end of 2025, with entrepreneurs holding valid 2025 certificates given until June 30 to submit permanent residence applications. Existing applications continue to be processed.

The optional three-year open work permit introduced to allow entrepreneurs to come to Canada and develop their businesses was also closed to new applicants on Dec. 19, 2025. Existing permit holders may apply for extensions while their permanent residence cases remain pending.

The CBA wants Ottawa to reopen that open work permit route for a limited period, particularly for entrepreneurs already caught in the backlog. If that is not done, it wants immigration officers given clearer instructions to approve entrepreneur and significant-benefit work permits in reasonable cases.

The association says work permit refusals rose sharply from the fall of 2024, triggering a wave of Federal Court challenges, as immigration officers increasingly demanded evidence more appropriate to established businesses than early-stage start-ups.

An entrepreneur developing a new technology, for example, may not yet have revenue, office space or a functioning public website, while still investing heavily in product development, patents, testing and market research.

The CBA says immigration officers should instead consider evidence such as investment in the company, product development, Canadian clients or partners, patents, hiring, industry endorsements and efforts undertaken from abroad. It suggests applicants could be required to demonstrate progress against at least two such indicators each year.

The lawyers are also calling for a one-time increase in permanent residence spaces to clear a backlog that has grown far beyond the number of immigrants Canada plans to admit through federal business programs.

The CBA proposes as many as 30,000 Start-Up Visa permanent residence spaces over three years, arguing that trying to work through the existing inventory at roughly 500 spaces annually is untenable.

The scale of the problem is reflected in federal data. As of Feb. 28, 2026, IRCC had about 45,900 Start-Up Visa applicants in its permanent residence processing inventory and another 8,100 under the Self-Employed Persons Program. Only 35 Start-Up Visa applicants and 15 self-employed applicants had been admitted during the first two months of the year.

Federal business immigration has meanwhile been allocated just 500 permanent resident admissions for 2026 under Ottawa’s current immigration levels plan, with the same target for 2027 and 2028.

IRCC data published earlier this year estimated the processing time for federal business applications at 57 months for 80 per cent of completed cases and 50 months for half of cases. More strikingly, it warned that a new applicant entering the queue under existing admission levels could face a wait exceeding 10 years.

The backlog is also creating problems for entrepreneurial teams. Start-Up Visa businesses can include as many as five owners, with some founders designated as essential to the venture. Under current rules, the departure of an essential founder can jeopardize the applications of the remaining partners.

The CBA wants founders to be able to change essential and non-essential designations or allow an essential founder to leave and transfer shares to another partner without automatically sinking the immigration applications of the rest of the team.

For the program Ottawa develops next, the association favours an expression-of-interest system that would rank prospective entrepreneurs before inviting them to apply, similar in principle to Canada’s other competitive immigration selection systems.

Applicants could be assessed on their entrepreneurial experience, skills, language ability, investment and outside validation, while their businesses would be judged on commercial viability, potential job creation and alignment with Canadian economic priorities.

The CBA is also calling for tighter oversight of designated organizations such as incubators that endorse Start-Up Visa applicants. It says their numbers should be restricted, fees should either be prohibited or regulated by Ottawa, and stronger sanctions should apply where organizations misuse the system.

For future programs, the lawyers want applicants told from the outset exactly what evidence they will need and how long processing should take, suggesting Ottawa commit to a range such as six to 18 months and honour the rules in place when an application is filed.

The CBA says tougher program integrity rules and fair treatment of legitimate entrepreneurs can operate together, arguing that clearer standards and predictable timelines would reduce misuse while giving genuine business founders a realistic chance to succeed.