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www.lexpert.ca 25 within 10 business days. In my experience, they've been taking closer to two." Travel restrictions during the pandemic are also complex. Airline agents are making immigration decisions, says Seligman, and they "are supposed to be liaising with the Canada Border Services Agency, but that's not always done." In addition, says Zaifman, information that agents have from the CBSA may not be accurate or up to date. "It's not always an even-keeled approach when you're trying to administer government guidelines put in place around the world; lawyers have to manage that." Foreign workers who are not arriving in Canada directly from the U.S. need to have their work permits approved before board- ing their flights, says Rosenberg, to exempt them from COVID-related travel restric- tions. However, visa offices are not prior- itizing the applications for these approval letters, and "most normal applications are taking much, much longer." And those applying for a work permit from Europe need to supply biometrics. However, an applicant in Norway, for exam- ple, which is not a member of the European Union and has no biometrics office, must travel to another country to give biomet- rics. "With travel restrictions across Europe, you're stuck," Rosenberg says. Foreign policies Greene points to free trade agreements, which he sees as becoming more protection- ist internationally. As well, the free trade agreement between Canada and the U.S. has had the same list of occupations that it did in the early 1990s, he says. Computer systems analysts are there, he says, but programmers, soware designers, media developers and web designers do not appear on the list. "We've seen the tech industry complete- ly transformed in that 25-year period, and the free trade agreement hasn't changed" to reflect that in its list of occupations that can work across borders, Greene says. On the other hand, foreign immigration policies, and the pandemic, have also bene- fitted Canada's technolog y sector. U.S. immigration policies under former president Donald Trump have helped to develop Vancouver's tech scene, says Rosenberg. Trump's ban on immigration from a number of countries, "on top of an already archaic visa system . . . further pushed foreign companies to set up shop in Canada," he says. Vancouver being in the same time zone as Silicon Valley made it "a perfect landing spot." However, if the new Biden administration reverses some of those policies, it may slow the speed at which companies are setting up shop in Canada, he says. And with a pandemic-induced move to remote work, "you don't have to be in Silicon Valley physically to make it work anymore," says Greene, adding there's "an exodus happening from places like Silicon Valley. "Partly because the development of their own technology has made it so it's easier to work remotely, [and] I think the indus- try is discovering it . . . you don't have to be in Silicon Valley to compete with Silicon Valley." e end of the pandemic is still a way off, but the government should be looking at its immigration policies now, and to the extent it's creating new policies, it should be removing roadblocks, says Lorne Waldman of Waldman & Associates in Toronto. "One of the crucial roles that immigration has been playing in our economy has been to facilitate the entry into Canada of skilled workers that we need," he says. "I think prior to the pandemic we had been moving in the right direction . . . to programs to facilitate the rapid entry of workers into Canada, in the crucial industries. "e problem now is that the pandemic has had a significant impact on our ability to process," Waldman adds. "But I think it's crucial that, as we move forward, we make sure that the policies that are put in place to protect us during the pandemic also take into account the need to ensure that we allow the workers that we need . . . into the coun- try as quickly as possible — because once the pandemic is over, we're going to want to be able to have the economy move into high gear quickly." "Canada has been reliable in creating paths for highly educated people and giving them paths to stay in Canada." "Partly because the development of their own technology has made it so it's easier to work remotely . . . you don't have to be in Silicon Valley to compete with Silicon Valley." Robin Seligman SELIGMAN LAW Michael Greene SHERRITT GREENE LLP

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