Immigration bill will undergo a fast track for skilled workers

The House of Commons Immigration Committee in Canada has recommended killing the controversial government bill which would enable the Immigration Minister to have more power to decide who can be a permanent resident in the country.

The proposed bill was said to be amending the Immigration and Refugee act, which would in turn remove the Immigration Department’s obligation to process all permanent residence application, and allows the Immigration Minister to do a fast track on certain kinds of application.

Canada’s reason on doing a fast track

The Canadian government stated that doing a fast track on the immigration processes in the country, particularly in 38 high demand occupations would dramatically reduce that waiting time for the processing of coveted workers in the sectors of health, skilled trades, finance and resource extraction, geochemists, speech language pathologists, university professors, as well as plumbers and chefs.

The government defends the change made saying that it will help reduce a backlog of almost a million permanent residence applications and make the country’s immigration system more responsive to labor market needs. This act on the other hand is opposed by the committee, which argues that the bill will fail to address a backlog since there will be an exemption on the applications which were filed before February 27, 2008.

The bill has faced great opposition from critics

Opposition criticized the bill saying that the changes made would jeopardize the predictability and fairness of the current system and it will cause a great impact on the family and humanitarian classes of applications, since the bill was being rushed without giving enough public consultation. The changes made would also give the Immigration Minister a more discretionary power over the applications.

Critics of the plan has also said that the changes made would leave the less skilled workers permanently stuck at the back of the queue. Also, the change would give virtually no change on the status of permanent workers, but will double the number of temporary workers over a period of five years. There is also a huge number of people being laid off in the financial services, and the government’s classification of high-demand jobs are said to be absurd, as stated by the New Democrat Immigration critic. She also suggested that there should be departments that will constantly update on what kind of skills are needed in the country, instead of a minister that will send a decree from high above that will politicize the system.

The Canadian government justifies its action

The Canadian government on the other hand defended its action saying that the change made would bring Canada in line with the practices of countries such as Australia and New Zealand, who are able to welcome skilled immigrants in a much faster way.

Now that the bill was successfully passed, the Immigration Minister’s next step would be to launch consultations with the provinces of Canada in order to ensure that the government was able to accurately define the priorities of the immigration.

The country will now be able to develop a set of instructions to guide the processing decisions of immigration officers including whether applications are prioritized, retained or returned with a refund, as stated by the Immigration Minister.