February 1 - 15, 2016
PHILIPPINE ASIAN NEWS TODAY
A5
Canadian Immigration News
CANADIAN IMMIGRATION: LIBERALS’ RADICAL
IMMIGRATION CHANGES
by Gaurav Kisan M.Sc., LL.B., RCIC
Whenever I hear that
the new federal Liberal government is preparing to
undo a policy or law put in
place by its Tory predecessors under Stephen Harper,
I remember Prime Minister
Justin Trudeau’s boast on
the day he and his cabinet were sworn in. Finally,
he gloated, “we have our
country back.”
Nowhere is this pompous
self-congratulation
more evident than on immigration. The Liberals seem
set to dismantle many of
the former government’s
attempts to make immigration match better with
Canada’s economic needs
and to ensure new Canadians integrate more fully into
Canadian society.
The Liberals saw Tory
initiatives – such as beefing
up the citizenship exam – as
too harsh, even racist (even
though immigration levels
remained the same). So
“we’re going to be producing radical changes,” Immigration Minister John McCallum told The Hill Times
last week.
Among the anticipated
changes are two that don’t
initially seem to go togeth-
er, but actually do.
First, the Libs are going
to do away with the detailed
citizenship exam for all immigrants aged 14 to 64 in
favour of an easier multiplechoice test for those 18 to
54.
Then – and this is the
key change – they intend
to do away with the requirement that newcomers
be proficient in either official language, English or
French.
How do these seemingly unrelated “reforms”
go together? Simple, together they make it much
easier for the Liberals to admit more of the parents or
even grandparents of new
Canadians.
This is a reenergizing
of the “family reunification”
program brought in by the
Liberals in a big way in the
early 1980s, then continued
with enthusiasm by the Mulroney Tories and the Chretien and Martin Liberals.
Before the early ‘80s,
family-class immigrants (as
opposed to economic-class
immigrants) made up a tiny
portion of Canada’s total
annual intake. By the time
the Harper government
came in, by some calculations the family class made
up nearly 45%.
There is nothing wrong
granting entry to the moms,
dads, grandparents or other
family members of immigrants. It’s an understandable human instinct to want
to have family close.
The problem is for taxpayers.
For the seven decades
before the expansion of the
family class, the average
immigrant quickly became
a net contributor to the Canadian economy. Within a
decade (and certainly within the lifetime of new arrivals) they were contributing
more in taxes and economic
production than they were
withdrawing in benefits.
But that changed after
family reunification became
a top priority of Ottawa’s
immigration policy.
The lack of ability to
speak either French or English makes it difficult for
newcomers to find work,
which increases th