International Law

Conservative Immigration Reform

By immlawyer

June 10, 2008 Toronto Star Article on the Bill C-50 - which passed 120-90 despite opposition. While the Liberals oppose the legislation, they did not vote in sufficient numbers to forestall it.

The reforms - for the most part - do make economic sense and appear to be reasonable policy - I'm adopting a wait and see attitude. Although I must admit, it is unfortunate that the government will be eliminating overseas humanitarian and compassionate applications -- see CTV article here).

Excerpts from the Toronto Star:

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Under the changes, Immigration Minister Diane Finley will have the power to issue "instructions" to her department to give priority to categories of immigrants whose job skills are in demand in Canada. She would also have the power to refuse applications in other categories.

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In the hours before the vote, NDP Leader Jack Layton urged the Liberals to oppose the changes and stand up for "immigrant communities."

"We're changing the whole nature of the way in which we approve immigrants," Layton said.

"We're reducing the number of immigrants and families who are coming in under the family programs and we're increasing the number of people coming in as temporary workers to the tune of tens of thousands of these people who are now coming in with no possibility of bringing their family or helping us to build the community," he said.

Layton said if Finley is truly interested in cutting the backlog of more than 900,000 applicants, she should deploy more staff to the offices where the waits are the longest.

"This is the more logical approach," he told reporters.

In defending the changes, Finley has said that the immigration system faces "collapse" and is already losing skilled workers who are migrating to other countries rather than face the lengthy wait to get into Canada.

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Full post as published by Canadian Immigration Blawg on June 10, 2008 (boomark / email).