Indian nationals who have travelled to Canada or the US in the last 10 years will be able to enjoy an express service when acquiring their visit visa for Canada.

The CAN+ programme for India was launched this month by Canadian Citizenship and Immigration Minister Chris Alexander with the purpose of increasing processing efficiency for visitors coming to Canada from India.

Among the programmes are three visa Express programmes for Indian businesspeople, tourists, and students in the form of the Business Express programme, Tourist Partner Programme and the Student Partners Programme.

Visitors that apply through these programmes will receive accelerated processing for the reduced fee of CA$100, explained the minister.

“Our government is committed to facilitating trade and travel for genuine visitors and business people from India who contribute positively to the Canadian economy. We are pleased to launch the CAN+ programme in India, making it faster and easier for Indians to come to Canada to do business, visit family or friends, or to bolster Canada’s tourism industry,” he commented.

In addition to the new programmes, 10 Visa Application Centres (VACs) will be opened in India.

According to the Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) Indian nationals rank in the top 10 source countries of international visitors to Canada. Over 130,000 Indian citizens were issued Canadian visitor visas in 2013, and nearly 14,000 Indian citizens received Canadian student permits.

Meanwhile,  Canada’s ‘Express entry immigration system is a boon for skilled immigrants from India, said a report in the Economic Times.

On the lines of Australia's SkillSelect and New Zealand's pointbased system, the new programme, says Canada's immigration minister Chris Alexander, is a shift from "passive processing to active recruitment". 

"Under the new system, some of the skilled successful applicants in the economic and business immigrant categories could get their papers processed in as little time as six months," Alexander, who was in Delhi recently, told ET Magazine. He called it a gamechanger, with the potential to "revolutionize the way we attract skilled immigrants and get them working in Canada faster".

Express Entry Under the new express entry system, applicants will be able to submit an 'expression of interest' to the Canadian government;; their resume and details will be entered into a database. Employers seeking foreign skilled workers will have access to such information on the database, allowing them to select suitable candidates.

If a Canadian employer cannot find Canadians to do the job after a labour market impact assessment, they can go online to the Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) database of applicants and look for the likes of welders, project managers etc in India or anywhere in the world and make a job offer. "Those with job offers will get priority when it comes to invitation to apply for permanent residence in Canada," the minister explained.

Immigration experts for their part are waiting for more clarity and for the moment are unsure about how the new system will play out. "One of the positives under the system is shorter processing time. What is uncertain, however, is how applicants will be selected and if they remove the 'firstcome, first-served' approach completely;; I forecast backlogs and many applicants waiting in the pool with uncertainty," says Divya Bakshi Arya, an immigration lawyer with offices in Vancouver and Delhi.

But for Indian applicants holding senior management positions, with several years of experience in various fields and international exposure, immigration to Canada may just be getting faster. "Of course, these applicants will have to be highly proficient in English and/or French language and younger applicants will be given preference as evident in the past selection grid for economic immigration," adds Arya.

The idea behind the scheme, according to CIC, is to "allow the government to select the best candidates who are most likely to succeed in Canada rather than those who happen to be first in line".

"The expression of interest concept could be misused to screen out certain ethnic/religious groups. It is not yet clear how CIC intends to operate this concept. For employers in Canada, the fact that potential immigrants have no Canadian experience is likely to be a problem when giving them job offers," says Tim Leahy, a Toronto-based lawyer. He adds that if CIC officials were to make the selection of candidates, the system would be flawed because they don't have the HR skills required to assess skills and knowledge of the potential immigrants.