Local immigration office staying

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 13/04/2012 (5144 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — The Citizenship and Immigration Canada office in Winnipeg, which processes applications for immigration and visitor’s visas is not closing, the federal government clarified Thursday.

Confusion reigned this week when the Public Service Alliance of Canada was told CIC offices in Winnipeg, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Regina and Lethbridge were all closing and being amalgamated into one office in Calgary.

However, the office in question is actually a small administrative office that handles human resources, IT and a few other administrative tasks. A source from Immigration Minister Jason Kenney’s office told the Free Press most of those tasks are mainly done by email and phone, so it makes sense from an efficiency standpoint to amalgamate them.

Robyn Benson, vice-president for the Prairie region of PSAC, said 17 of its members in Winnipeg would be affected.

The federal government said a total of seven positions will be eliminated from Winnipeg. The others will be offered work elsewhere.

The CIC office in Winnipeg, which processes applications, is remaining and expanding. In early April the office landed responsibility for processing all the applications from the private sponsor refugee program.

About 6,500 such applications come in each year and since April 1, all are handled at the Winnipeg office.

Confusion arose because the information about what jobs are being eliminated as a result of federal budget cuts is coming in fits and starts, and almost exclusively from unions.

The federal government itself is not making formal announcements about closures, such as the Winnipeg CIC administration office, or the Cereal Research Centre at the University of Manitoba.

NDP MP Pat Martin said it’s bad management and disgraceful for the government to be confusing people and leaving many public servants fearing for their jobs without reason.

“If these cuts are such great ideas, state them and defend them,” said Martin. “They’re playing hide-and-seek with them.”