Immigration criteria falls short

While we’re finishing up our response to the Fiscal and Economic Statement yesterday, and wondering who our government will be next week, an announcement was made with little fanfare of the new immigration criteria.

New legislation was adopted this spring that allows the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to prioritize certain immigrants for entry into Canada. The move was a departure from the previous system, where selection criteria were set by regulation and every visa application had to be reviewed by immigration officers.

CPJ joined with many other organizations in questioning a process which gave the minister unlimited power to determine which immigrants are acceptable. We also criticized the manner in which focusing on the applicants’ potential contribution to our economy ends up treating immigrants as economic units rather than as people with inherent rights and values. We believe that justice instead demands fairness and compassion in welcoming immigrants to fully participate in our society.

The new immigration criteria announced today unfortunately reinforces this tendency to view immigrants through an economic lens. Immigration officers have been instructed to fast-track applicants who can fill positions in 38 occupations, “including health care, skilled trades, finance and resource extraction.”

The priority will apply only to applicants in the economic class, not to the family reunification or humanitarian class.

However, there are concerns that this direction is still unfair to potential immigrants who are not eligible to be fast-tracked. Less skilled workers could find themselves permanently at the bottom of the application pile. And because the decision is retroactive to last February, immigrants who have applied over the last 10 months applied on the basis of criteria that has now been changed.

If the government was truly concerned about improving the process for welcoming immigrants to Canada, they would have offered resources to deal with 900 000 applicant backlog that currently exists. Instead, it seems all that matters is the economy.