Claim 1: Canada has opened 60,000 new visa slots and applying for a two-year Canadian visa is free.
Claim 2: The LMIA document is being offered for free to workers, and workers wishing to immigrate to Canada only need to have a medical examination done.
Fact 1: Canada has not opened 60,000 new visa slots and applying for visas is not free of cost. Canada has made no such provisions.
Fact 2: The process of procuring an LMIA and applying for a Canadian work permit costs money to both employers and workers. More than just a medical examination is needed when applying for a work permit.
On 27 December 2024, a post on Facebook shared a video that shows a Geo News segment for the first 17 seconds. The embedded text in this part of the video includes two captions:
- The first says: “60,000 Visa Open New Update”
- The second caption says:
“دو سال کا کینیڈا ویزہ بلکل فری اپلائ کرنا فری ہے بھائ”
In English, this reads as follows:
“Applying for a two-year Canadian visa is absolutely free, brother.”
Moreover, after the first 17 seconds, the video in the post cuts to a man who promises to provide the names of Canadian companies that provide a work permit for free and pay for transportation.
Fact or Fiction?
Canada not opening 60,000 visa slots and applying for visas is not free
Regarding the first embedded caption in the video that says “60,000 Visa Open New Update”, Soch Fact Check conducted a Google search for “60,000 open visas Canada”. However, we did not find any evidence that confirmed the opening of 60,000 visa slots for people of any country to travel to Canada. In fact, recent trends show that Canada has been granting fewer visas, with the “ratio of refused visitor visa applications to approved ones” being “higher in June [2024] than at any point since the height of the pandemic”. Similarly, the number of approved study and work permits also decreased from “multi-year highs in 2023 and 2022, respectively”. In a Facebook post dated 18 September 2024, Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also stated that Canada would be “granting 35% fewer international student permits this year. And next year, that number’s going down by another 10%.”
Then, searching for “60,000 work permits open Canada”, we came across two articles that claimed the Canadian government had issued more than 60,000 LMIAs (Labour Market Impact Assessments) in 2023, which is a document a Canadian employer may need to acquire before hiring a foreign worker. However this development is from 2023 and it is not recent.
Regarding the second embedded caption in the video that says, “Applying for a two-year Canadian visa is absolutely free, brother”, we found no evidence for this either. Searching for “Two year Canadian visa”, we found a type of immigration program called International Experience Canada (IEC) that allows youth to travel and work in Canada for up to two years. However, as seen on the official website of the Government of Canada, applications for this program, work permits, and visitor visas (including extensions of permits of visas) are not free.
Additionally, the accompanying clip of a Geo News broadcast is entirely unrelated to the claim of the post: the captions claim to offer a legal route to immigrate to Canada, but the anchor can be heard reporting that Canada is granting residency to illegal immigrants within the country.
The first 17 seconds of the video in the claim show an anchor from Geo News reporting that Canadian authorities are granting residency to illegal immigrants within the country. She adds that immigrants who do not possess legal documentation shall be provided with permanent residency cards. This plan is part of the larger scheme to grant Canadian immigration to 500,000 people by 2025, according to the anchor. Searching for “Canadian Immigration 500000 2025”, we came across a notice for said scheme issued by the government of Canada. While the contents of the broadcast report are true, it remains unclear how this clip is related to the overall claim of the post being fact-checked.
Moreover, we noted that the lip movements of the anchor are not synchronised with her voice which suggests that the clip in question may be altered in some way.
False information about work permit costs and eligibility in second part of video
After the first 17 seconds, the video cuts to a man who makes two main claims: The first is that there are Canadian companies that give the LMIA document for free to foreign workers and pay for transportation. The second is that, through these companies, workers wishing to immigrate to Canada only need to have a medical examination done in order to immigrate.
Firstly, it is not clear what the man means by a company giving the LMIA document to a worker for free, as employers are the ones who have to pay a processing fee to Employment and Social Development Canada when an LMIA is required to hire a foreign worker. Moreover, once an employer secures the LMIA, the worker still has to apply for a work permit which, as mentioned above, is not free.
Secondly, while a medical examination is required of people applying for a work permit in Canada, it is certainly not the only requirement. For example, a work permit applicant needs to prove they “have enough money” to care for themselves and their family while in Canada and to “return home”, among other requirements.
Virality
The video has amassed 44 K views and 1.3K likes on Facebook.
Conclusion: There is no evidence to prove that Canada has opened 60,000 new visa slots, and applying for Canadian visas and work permits is not free of cost. Moreover, a medical examination is not the only requirement for work permit applicants; there are other requirements as well.
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Background image in cover photo: Canada Immigration News
