International Law

Sigh...Canada tackles immigration reform

By immlawyer

Canada's Conservative government will introduce a measure to address the massive immigration backlog (currently at 850,000+ and resulting in an average processing time of 4 years):

National Post article.

The article also excerpts a Fraser Institute 2005 report indicating that immigrants are essentially a drain on the economy:

A report by the Fraser Institute in 2005 suggested that only 23% of immigrants are net fiscal contributors to Canada at a cost to the taxpayer every year of more than $18-billion (although 60% of immigrants are from the "economic class," fewer than half that number pass the points test -- the remainder are spouses and children).

Also - see this Canadian Press Report.

Attempts to reform Canada's immigration system is usually something that I applaud - and the Conservatives do have a point - the immigrant backlog is something they largely inherited from the Liberals who utterly failed to address the widening cracks already visible in the system. However, rather than cause hardship to Canadian families, why not apply triage principles to current files? There are a number of applicants that are either clearly qualified (or clearly not qualified) to immigrate to Canada - a determination should be made on these applications quickly, and at an earlier stage. Also ... the immigration fees paid by immigrants are actually bringing in more revenue than it costs to administer the program - if that's the case, it makes sense to use the funds to provide for more resources (more visa officers) to serve the immigrants. Given the state of technology and CIC's case management system, it should be entirely possible for CIC to coordinate resources to assist the beleagured visa posts of India, China and the Philippines (given the reality of scanning, email and the internet, there should be no problem for a visa officer sitting in a High Commision in a country in Europe to render a decision on a poor immigrant's file that has been gathering dust in New Delhi for 60+ months).

Full post as published by Canadian Immigration Blawg on March 13, 2008 (boomark / email).