Tory bill proposes new powers on immigration applications
Last Updated: Friday, March 14, 2008 | 3:48 PM ET
CBC News
The federal government has proposed sweeping changes to Canada's immigration policies that would give it greater selection powers to limit the number of new applicants.
The proposed changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, which the government says are aimed at reducing backlogs of immigration applications, are embedded in a 136-page budget-implementation bill tabled Friday in the House of Commons. The budget-implementation bill is a confidence motion.
More than 800,000 prospective immigrants are on waiting lists.
The changes would:
- Give the immigration minister the authority to instruct immigration officers to set limits on what types of immigrants — "by category or otherwise" — can have their applications processed each year.
- Require an otherwise ineligible person who wants to immigrate on humanitarian grounds to already be in Canada for their application to be processed.
Citizenship and Immigration Minister Diane Finley said the government was acting to clear up the backlog left by the previous Liberal government, which she said had allowed the list to grow more than 15-fold since 1993.
The legislation merely gives the government power to set priorities and speed things up for the skilled workers this country needs, she said, and added that any future policy changes will be transparent and announced in Parliament.
"My priority right now is to get the legislation through first," Finley said in an interview with the Canadian Press on Friday.
Finley said it takes three to six years for someone to even get an application looked at — let alone processed. But she declined to speculate about which immigration categories could be banished to the lower rungs of the priority list.
Tories shutting door, say opposition MPs
Opposition parties immediately accused the Tories of trying to shut the door on immigration at a time when Canada's labour force needs a boost in numbers.
Liberal MP David McGuinty said the government was reverting to failed closed-door policies similar to "short-sighted and misguided" measures introduced and then promptly abandoned by former Tory prime minister John Diefenbaker in 1959.
"Why does the minister insist on closing Canada's doors to the newcomers we desperately need to fuel our labour and our population growth, even though history shows this is absolutely the wrong approach?" McGuinty asked in the House Friday.
NDP MP Olivia Chow said Canada needs to increase the target number of immigrants into the country to one per cent of the population — or 330,000 people — in order to renew the country's workforce and drive its economy.
"Instead of allowing families into Canada, the Conservative government seems intent only to bring in massive numbers of temporary foreign workers who are vulnerable to mistreatment and abuse," added Chow, who is her party's immigration critic.
Record number of immigrants, Tories say
The proposals were tabled on the same day as the federal government announced that more than 400,000 newcomers came to Canada last year, setting a record for the number of temporary and permanent residents allowed into the country.
Citizenship and Immigration Canada said that — according to preliminary data — in 2007 Canada admitted 429,649 permanent residents, temporary foreign workers and foreign students. The department said this number represents an increase of 60,000 from four years ago.
Of the 2007 total, 251,000 permanent resident visas were issued, the department said.
But opposition members have dismissed the figures as being artificially inflated by the number of temporary residents, which includes students and seasonal workers.
They also noted that more permanent residents — 262,000 — came in 2005.
With files from the Canadian Press
