One of my Grandmothers was Canadian. Does that give me any points?

Points to be able to move to Canada?

I probablly have other relatives too.

I may not move there but I do want to make a backup plan. I could hop in my car and be in some part Canada in about 5 hrs.

Short answer to the question: no.

If you had a Canadian-citizen parent, you might have Canadian citizenship. That, and being born in Canada, are the only way to acquire citizenship by birth.

It is also unlikely that many USAmericans have any family in Canada who could assist them in immigrating. Basically, to be "sponsored", one must be young and dependent, if the sponsor is a parent, or have an adult child or grandchild here.

Other relations -- parents of adult children, aunts, uncles, cousins -- really don't help much, unless the would-be immigrant already qualifies in terms of job skills.

Yer average Canadian doesn't know much more about immigrating to Canada than yer average USAmerican knows about immigrating to the US. I happen to know quite a lot, having worked in the field, but I've been out of the loop for a few years and am not in a position to answer specific questions any more.

USAmericans seriously wanting to find out their prospects need to start by going to http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/index.html

(You'll see a notice there about strike activity. Yes, Cdn federal public servants are entitled to strike, and do so from time to time. There were rotating strikes last month, and at present a ratification vote is being held on the employer's proposal, which I believe union leadership recommended that the members reject: http://www.psac.com/home-e.shtml And oh yay; we may have another postal strike for Xmas ...)

The "Skilled Workers" link on that page at the CIC site (Citizenship and Immigration Canada) will provide all the basic information you need to assess your immigration potential.

If someone who has done that thinks s/he qualifies, and is serious and ready to start paying money, wants to contact me by PM, I could probably provide referrals to lawyers in Canada; having an application checked over first is probably a good investment.

The net can also be used to find immigration lawyers in Canada. The bar is much smaller here than in the US, and if you find a lawyer at a site where s/he is associated with Canadian Bar Association immigration law activities, or Law Union activities (similar to National Lawyers Guild), or other professional organizations or activities, you're probably quite safe. Big-name immigration lawyers will have cheaper, reliable juniors in their firms to handle simple matters like this.

Whatever you do, do NOT go to an "immigration consultant" in the US, because it is doubtful that they will be sufficiently knowledgable and experienced with Canadian law; and be very wary of immigration consultants in Canada. There are a very few reputable firms, and a lot of very shady and incompetent consultants, because that industry has just never been properly regulated here.

since I doubt it's changed much in this regard for some time. That is, how is one's point score treated? If you break the threshold of 67 you can apply, but is there a priority system beyond that. The higher you score the better your chances? If there's not, then roughly what percentage of folks who apply and stick with it can expect to be granted a visa (given that they are run-of-the-mill middle class Yanks)?

One woman has a blog on her experience emigrating from the U.S. to Canada. They have applied and are in the queue, but have not been approved. I was a little surprised, because approval is months away but they are already packing up and selling off things, etc. as if it were a done deal. Maybe she knows something, but she hasn't mentioned it (nor does she return e-mail, at least to me).

Thanks!

- K

B-)

One particular thing has changed relatively recently that does affect the answer.

In my day, "personal suitability" was a discretionary factor, with points from 1 to 10 awarded by the visa officer, and that was how the balance was often tilted. As I mentioned to someone else, for instance, a person with the right points for education and work experience in a specialized occupation, but who had been out of the work force for a number of years, might not have been seen as employable, and therefore not been given "personal suitability" points.

I really don't know how any discretionary element works these days. One factor would be unstated quotas: we don't have quotas for people from particular areas of the world or with particular nationalities (unlike the US), but we do have limited resources for processing applications, and those resources are not necessarily equitably distributed at visa offices around the world, i.e. don't necessarily correspond to demand in their locations. Pure workload considerations would cause delays in processing, more in some places than others.

Ah, here's an idea. I just received my copy of the Annual Report on immigration in the mail last week. It will be on line. Let me go look ...

While I'm looking, here's a statistical report:
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/monitor/current.html

Here we are, on the publications page:
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/pub/index-2.html
(you could also browse the annual quota, i.e. target numbers, material there)

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/pub/immigration2004.html

On a quick glance, I'm not seeing anything about the ratio of applications to admissions, for instance, though.

So my short answer has to be: I don't know! I'll think on it a bit, later, and let you know whether I come up with anything.

my particular case (fairly upright, currently employed, high skills, high education, and even a little French! Zut!), but I was curious about how it really works. Such info is also probably of general interest. Don't work at this too hard. :) - K