Immigration.ca - Canada Immigration News - May 2008
No one in parliament could legitimately dispute the statement that Canada’s need for immigrants is greater than ever. The aging workforce and slow birth-rates are keeping the labour market significantly behind the pace of job market growth. The most feasible solution to the labour shortage is immigration.
Canada is attractive to workers abroad. The relative low-cost of living and high quality of life has led numerous people to file applications for permanent residency. However, most applications are taking years to process while businesses in Canada have been forced to shut down because there are not enough workers.
The Conservative government’s proposed solution to this problem is to centralize all immigration powers into the hands of one department. Their new policy proposals would allow the Department of Citizenship and Immigration to have unprecedented control over how many applications are processed each year and from whom.
This will not, however, ameliorate the situation with regards to labour shortages. Critics have been calling on the opposition parties to take a stand against the new policy, which is otherwise likely to pass because it has been paired with a federal bill that, if defeated, would trigger an election.
The proposed immigration reforms are unfair and against what Canada stands for, according to many critics in various domains, including immigration attorney Colin Singer.
“It [the new legislation] will deprive Canadians of the necessary checks and balances that currently exist to ensure that decision-makers are held accountable to a process,” said Singer in an editorial for the National Post, where he calls for a transparent system that distributes the power between the federal government and the provinces.
It is best left to the provinces to determine which workers are most urgently needed. Many of the provinces that are currently experiencing the worst labour crunches, in fact, have implemented their own “fast-track” immigration programs wherein a temporary worker in Canada can be nominated by their employee for permanent residency status. They are often able to receive it without ever having to leave Canada.
It is along this road that Canada should seek to improve its system, Singer argues. Provinces that have been far underperforming in these programs, such as Alberta, need to wake up to their potential. Cooperation between the two levels of government is the cornerstone of Canada’s success as a federalist nation, and the best way to ensure that powers are not abused.
Source: National Post
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2008/05/07/a-dangerous-piece-of-work.aspx
