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The US Is Blockading Iran's Ports Starting Today. The Middle East Is Getting a Lot More Tenser.
News for residents of the “11th province”: Canadians abroad.
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The US Is Blockading Iran's Ports Starting Today.
Six weeks ago, the US-Israeli strikes on Iran set off a war that sent oil prices climbing. Today, it got a step messier. The US military started enforcing a naval blockade of all Iranian ports and coastal areas at 10 a.m. EDT - and Iran responded within hours by threatening that "no port in the region will be safe."
The blockade covers Iran's full coastline on the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman, and while the US says ships between non-Iranian ports can still transit the Strait of Hormuz, the traffic through that chokepoint has already collapsed - from more than 130 vessel passages a day before the war to a trickle. Brent crude jumped another 7% to more than $102 a barrel on the news.
This matters to Canadians spread across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and beyond. The region is still open for business, but it's increasingly difficult to pretend the war is happening somewhere else. Canadian expats in Gulf states are watching their commutes, supply chains, and grocery bills change in real time. Ottawa hasn’t announced any new travel advisories yet - but check Global Affairs Canada if you're anywhere near the Persian Gulf.
Read more: The Globe and Mail, Government of Canada
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Canada's Immigration Backlog Blinked. The Federal Skilled Worker Queue Just Dropped.
IRCC released its April processing time update last week, and for the first time since early 2025, the Federal Skilled Worker Program has gotten faster. Processing times fell from seven months to six - the first improvement in more than a year.
Canadian citizenship grants also shrank by a month (currently sitting at 12 months), in the first shrinking of that queue as well, for this year.
In less rosy news, the Canadian Experience Class queue grew by more than 10,000 applicants in a single month, which means wait times there are expected to climb if the pace keeps up. The Atlantic Immigration Program jumped a surprise seven months to 40 - the biggest single-category increase in the update.
For expats with family members in the immigration pipeline, the FSWP news is good after a long dry spell, but for anyone banking on CEC, it might be worth checking the queue numbers before making plans for an arrival date.
Read more: CIC News