Canada expands immigration program for undocumented construction workers in GTA

2023/01/24 Leave a comment

Of note:

To help address Canada’s housing crisis, the federal government is expanding a small-scale pilot project that offers permanent residence for out-of-status construction workers who are already working underground in the sector here.

On Friday, the government said it is doubling the annual number of available spots in the program from 500 workers — plus their family members — to 1,000, as part of its plan to ease the labour shortage in skilled trades.

Potential applicants are required to first identify themselves to the Canadian Labour Congress, which pre-screens and refers qualified candidates for final assessment by the immigration department. Eligible candidates have until Jan. 2, 2024, to apply.

“This pilot program is a significant step forward in addressing critical labour shortages for the Greater Toronto Area by supporting stability in the construction industry and bringing workers out of the underground economy,” Immigration Minister Sean Fraser said in a statement.

“By providing regular pathways for out-of-status migrants, we are not only protecting workers and their families, but also safeguarding Canada’s labour market and ensuring that we can retain the skilled workers we need to grow our economy and build our communities.”

In Ontario, the construction sector had 28,360 jobs waiting to be filled in the second quarter of last year, up from 20,895 over the same period in 2021.

Last November, Fraser raised eyebrows when he unveiled Canada’s multi-year immigration plan to bring in 465,000 new permanent residents in 2023, as well as 485,000 in 2024 and 500,000 in 2025 despite concerns over a looming recession.

While the majority of Canadians welcome a higher immigration level, some worry about whether the country will be able to accommodate so many more people amid a tight rental and housing market, fearing the measures could drive up housing costs further.

“We’re pushing people to regions that have more capacity to absorb newcomers. It’s not a coincidence that we’re talking about establishing stronger regional pathways,” Fraser said then, referring to immigration programs that offer incentives for newcomers to settle in smaller, rural communities.

“We’re not going to solve this problem if we don’t build more housing. Realistically, we need to leverage the new flexibilities that will kick in in 2023 to do targeted (immigration) draws for people who have the skills to build more houses.”

There are as many as 500,000 undocumented residents estimated to be in Canada. Many work precarious and often exploitative jobs in construction, cleaning, caregiving, food processing and agriculture.

The vast majority of undocumented residents came to Canada legally, only to later lose status because of issues with student visas, temporary work permits or asylum claims, advocates say.

Those issues are born out of an increasingly temporary immigration system, where many residents struggle to extend short-term permits and gain permanent residency.

One of Fraser’s mandated priorities from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was to explore more ways to regularize undocumented residents.

The immigration department has completed research and consultation for a broader regularization program based on the construction worker pilot. Cabinet is currently weighing different options for a final plan, the Star has learned.

“Out-of-status workers are vulnerable to employer exploitation and abuse, and they and their families live with limited access to education, health and social programs,” noted Bea Bruske, president of the Canadian Labour Congress, in a news release.

“The extension of the out-of-status construction workers in the GTA initiative for 2023 will help more vulnerable workers and their families during these uncertain times.”

Under the construction worker pilot program, only undocumented construction workers who live in Toronto, Durham, Halton, Peel and York regions qualify.

Source: Canada expands immigration program for undocumented construction workers in GTA

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Varela: Joe Biden should be trumpeting this immigration policy victory

2023/01/23 Leave a comment

One take:

Given the intense focus journalists place on migrants who come to the United States, it’s disappointing that they pay such little attention to the employers on this side of the border who recruit and exploit migrants and then, if they dare complain, fire them and make them even more vulnerable to deportation. The systematic oppression of migrants doesn’t get sufficient attention, partly because journalists haven’t done their jobs but also because those who are abused and exploited don’t speak up because they’re afraid or can’t speak up because they’ve been deported.

That’s why an announcement last week from the Biden administration that it will extend some protections to migrants reporting employer abusewas so historic. In a Jan. 13 news release, the Department of Homeland Security said that “noncitizen workers who are victims of, or witnesses to, the violation of labor rights, can now access a streamlined and expedited deferred action request process. Deferred action protects noncitizen workers from threats of immigration-related retaliation from the exploitive employers.” As a result, DHS noted, the whistleblower program confirmed the current administration’s “commitment to empowering workers and improving workplace conditions by enabling all workers, including noncitizens, to assert their legal rights.”

While I and multiple immigrant rights groups have generally criticized President Joe Biden for muddled immigration policies that carry forward former President Donald Trump’s misguided policies, I stand in agreement with those groups that were quick to praise Biden for this move.

“Today opens a pathway full of hope for those of us workers who fear reporting workplace abuses, so that we can come forward to share the challenges we face every day in hostile workplaces, suffering abuses like wage theft,” Jonas Reyes, a worker leader at Arriba Las Vegas Worker Center, said in a statement published on the website for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, or NDLON. “When we speak up and exercise our rights, we face retaliation. These protections are an important step to be able to speak up safely, and an opportunity to improve our working conditions and our lives.”

The Biden administration should have played up this announcement and drawn attention to a new policy that will further humanize one of this society’s most exploited populations. Instead, the administration conveyed the news in a press release on the Friday before the three-day Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend. NDLON held a virtual news conference to discuss the policy change, and while it did an excellent job of humanizing migrant voices and shining a light on their real plights, as of Thursday, that video had barely more than 150 views. By not playing up the news of the new whistleblower policy, the Biden administration missed an opportunity to transform the immigration debate by focusing on a plan that helps migrant workers instead of punishing them.

That missed PR opportunity means that when the topic is Biden and immigration, one of his progressive moves is likely to be ignored. The focus will remain on his administration’s failures to distance itself from Trump and the presidents before him who have treated immigration not as a humanitarian crisis but as a law enforcement and national security problem.

The White House statements that were released this month during Biden’s first official visit to the U.S. border with Mexico focused on “new enforcement measures to increase security at the border” meant to “reduce the number of individuals crossing unlawfully between ports of entry.” At the same time, those statements claimed that such measures “will expand and expedite legal pathways for orderly migration and result in new consequences for those who fail to use those legal pathways.” Part of these measures includes a mobile phone app that migrants can now use to apply for asylum.

New data from Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouseposted Wednesday said the immigration court backlog of close to 1.6 million cases is “the largest in history.” While the Biden administration’s announcement of a phone app may have been meant to decrease the number of people making the trek here, U.S. Code still makes it very legal for individuals to physically seek asylum at the U.S. border.

Despite the relative lack of attention the Biden administration and the media have given to the new DHS rule, the announcement does demonstrate that any real positive change in immigration policy will always come from grassroots movements. Rosario Ortiz, another worker leader at Arriba Las Vegas Worker Center, said in a statementthat she and coworkers had met with U.S. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh and DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas “to call for these protections.” Ortiz said, “I am proud of my coworkers and our brothers and sisters across the country who have helped open a pathway for others in our circumstances to seek the protections that we have won.”

That successful grassroots campaign is similar to the grassroots campaign that ended with Arizona voters last year granting in-state tuition to undocumented students. Like the whistleblower policy, the policy change was the result of a targeted campaign that took time to mature.

This kind of substantive change in national immigration policy that considers the rights of migrant workers has been long overdue. The groups who have been fighting for their communities know this, and there is no indication that they will slow down their efforts, no matter who’s in office — whether it’s Republicans who brag about being tough on immigrants or Democrats who are seemingly too afraid to draw attention to those fleeting moments when they’re doing right by them.

Julio Ricardo Varela is the founder of Latino Rebels, a co-host of the “In The Thick” political podcast and president of Futuro Media. 

Source: Joe Biden should be trumpeting this immigration policy victory

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Le grand virage de l’immigration

2023/01/23 Leave a comment

More Quebec coverage of the dramatic shift to temporary workers while the Legault government maintains stable levels of permanent residents, somewhat hypocritically:

Intégration, capacité d’accueil, résidents permanents : pendant que les débats sur l’immigration se focalisent sur la cible de 50 000, ce sont au moins trois fois plus de gens chaque année qui arrivent au Québec avec un permis temporaire ou qui le renouvellent. Les chiffres et les experts sont sans équivoque, c’est un véritable virage de l’immigration qui s’opère en silence.

« Parler des niveaux permanents est absurde et obsolète, puisque l’outil principal est devenu l’immigration temporaire », exprime Stephan Reichhold, directeur général de la Table de concertation des organismes au service des personnes réfugiées et immigrantes (TCRI). « Parler seulement de résidents permanents n’illustre pas réellement la réalité au Québec », poursuit-il.

« C’est un faux débat de parler du seuil [de 50 000], car ils viennent de toute façon sur des voies temporaires », affirme aussi Denis Hamel, vice-président des politiques de développement de la main-d’oeuvre au Conseil du patronat du Québec (CSQ).

Ce déséquilibre vers le temporaire est incontestable, dit-il, et les employeurs membres du CSQ le constatent sur le terrain. « Mettez-vous dans la peau de l’employeur qui doit pourvoir un poste vacant. Il a trouvé un candidat à l’étranger, qui arriverait idéalement comme résident permanent, mais c’est quasi impossible en ce moment. Alors il [l’employeur] prend une voie plus rapide, une voie de contournement », expose-t-il en détail.

C’est « l’arbre qui cache la forêt », affirme également Mireille Paquet, titulaire de la Chaire de recherche en politique de l’immigration de l’Université Concordia.

La professeure y voit une certaine contradiction : « Le gouvernement dit pouvoir régler nos problèmes sans avoir recours à l’immigration. Mais c’est du discours, pas la pratique réelle. »

La « pratique réelle » est que le nombre d’immigrants continue de grimper, mais en passant par des catégories temporaires, disent d’une seule voix ces trois observateurs d’horizons différents.

Qui en est responsable ?

Ce virage date de plusieurs années, mais il s’est considérablement accéléré depuis la venue de la Coalition avenir Québec au pouvoir.

En quoi le gouvernement de François Legault peut-il en être responsable ? Les travailleurs étrangers temporaires — autant en agriculture que ceux hautement qualifiés — sont recrutés par les entreprises elles-mêmes. Les étudiants étrangers veulent décrocher un diplôme québécois. Les demandeurs d’asile arrivent par leur propre volonté et leurs propres moyens sur le territoire.

L’immigration temporaire et celle permanente sont considérées comme des vases communicants. La pénurie de main-d’oeuvre s’est vraiment amorcée depuis 2016, situe M. Hamel. Mais c’est maintenant, « étant donné le plafond [de résidents permanents] imposé par le gouvernement, que les employeurs se tournent vers les [résidents] temporaires, de gré ou de force », précise-t-il ensuite.

Là où le discours converge aussi avec la pratique est que Québec s’est exclu de la création de voies d’accès vers la résidence permanente. Les réformes durant le premier mandat caquiste ont notamment restreint les possibilités d’accéder à ce statut pour les personnes sans formation collégiale ou universitaire. « On a autant besoin d’ingénieurs que de bons soudeurs, alors pourquoi discriminer selon les diplômes ? » demande Denis Hamel.

À la demande répétée des employeurs, Québec a aussi mis en place des mesures pour favoriser le recrutement des travailleurs étrangers temporaires, et donc affiché son intention de miser davantage sur ce type d’immigration plutôt que de toucher aux seuils. Le ministère provincial de l’Immigration note dans son plan pour 2022 qu’il souhaite « appuyer les employeurs » pour « augmenter le nombre » de travailleurs étrangers temporaires.

Dans le reste du Canada, l’immigration temporaire est en forte hausse, mais Ottawa a pris une voie différente en créant davantage de voies d’accès à la permanence pour puiser dans ce bassin plus rapidement.

« Le nombre de personnes qui deviennent résidents permanents en ayant déjà eu un statut temporaire est énorme », a ainsi résumé le ministre fédéral de l’Immigration, Sean Fraser, l’automne dernier.

Plusieurs catégories d’immigration

Le nombre de 50 000 résidents permanents est une cible annuelle. Pour la comparer, il faut donc utiliser les données pour chaque année et pour chaque catégorie de temporaires. Il y avait en tout plus de 145 000 titulaires de permis temporaires en 2021, et au moins 181 000 en 2022, selon les données disponibles jusqu’en octobre ou en novembre, selon les catégories.

Il peut s’agir de personnes qui entrent nouvellement sur le territoire, ou encore qui se trouvaient déjà ici et renouvellent leur permis temporaire.

La grande boîte des temporaires, telle qu’illustrée dans notre graphique, regroupe des situations diverses. Les possibilités de devenir résident permanent varient grandement d’une catégorie à l’autre. Ces différents programmes et catégories ont néanmoins une chose en commun : une date d’expiration sur le papier qui donne le droit d’être sur le territoire québécois.

Il y a d’abord les étudiants internationaux, qui détiennent aussi le droit de travailler, un droit sans limites d’heures depuis novembre dernier.

Il y a ensuite le vaste Programme de mobilité internationale (PMI), composé de 70 sous-catégories telles que l’Expérience internationale Canada ou la trentaine de programmes vacances-travail (PVT). Ces immigrants temporaires sont souvent diplômés ou « qualifiés », mais peuvent aussi avoir des permis fermés.

Et enfin, les deux catégories considérées comme les plus précaires : les demandeurs d’asile et les travailleurs étrangers temporaires. Les uns vivent dans l’incertitude de voir leur statut de réfugié reconnu, un processus qui prend actuellement deux ans. Les autres, les travailleurs étrangers temporaires, arrivent sur le territoire avec un permis portant le nom d’un seul employeur ; ils ne peuvent donc pas être embauchés ailleurs au terme de leur contrat.

Ce stock de nouveaux permis temporaires s’ajoute à un bassin de résidents temporaires déjà sur le territoire, grâce à des contrats ou à des permis d’études chevauchant plusieurs années par exemple. Résultat, le nombre de résidents non permanents (temporaires) comptabilisés par Statistique Canada a presque triplé en 10 ans.

Au 1er juillet 2022, l’effectif des résidents non permanents était de 290 000 personnes au Québec, soit plus de 3 % de la population totale de la province.

En posant l’hypothèse que ces « non permanents » veulent s’installer au Québec, il faudrait donc près de six ans pour leur octroyer un statut permanent avec le plafond actuel.

Goulot d’étranglement et conséquences

« On croit que la majorité des résidents temporaires souhaitent rester. Mais pour obtenir la résidence permanente, le nombre de “places” est limitée à 50 000. Ça veut donc dire que les délais s’allongent sans mesure, on s’en va vers une crise et on va perdre beaucoup de monde dans ce goulot d’étranglement », dit M. Reichhold.

Ce virage s’opère silencieusement puisqu’il « n’a jamais été discuté d’un point de vue politique », dit Mireille Paquet. Ces gens temporaires ne répondent peut-être pas « aux idéaux linguistiques et culturels du gouvernement », mais la professeure croit que le Québec « ne peut pas faire l’économie de cette discussion difficile ».

Au-delà des chiffres, « c’est un changement de paradigme », ajoute-t-elle : « L’approche historique du Canada est que les gens arrivaient avec la résidence permanente. C’est toujours comme ça qu’on a compris l’immigration. »

« On perd l’élément intégration et [le fait de pouvoir] dire que ces gens font partie de notre société, ce qui était à la base de notre philosophie », renchérit Stephan Reichhold.

Peu importe le programme utilisé, le statut temporaire induit davantage de vulnérabilité, disent-ils aussi. « Empêcher les gens de se projeter vers l’avenir est paradoxalement un frein majeur à l’intégration », affirme Stéphanie Arsenault, professeure de travail social à l’Université Laval.

« La précarité nuit aussi aux employeurs », note quant à lui M. Hamel, à cause du roulement de personnel et des démarches administratives très lourdes.

Ce virage remet aussi en question l’idée qu’une immigration trop rapide mettrait la cohésion sociale à risque, selon M. Reichhold. « Pour les dizaines de milliers, voire des centaines, de temporaires, ça se passe relativement bien. Ils ont déjà un travail ou font des études, ils occupent un logement et ils consomment. Il n’y a pas de signal de saturation », insiste-t-il.

« Si ce qui nous importe est de savoir si tous ces gens sont capables de trouver de l’emploi au Québec, on le sait, ils sont déjà ici », réitère Mireille Paquet.

La journaliste Sarah R. Champagne a participé au documentaire Essentiels, qui sera diffusé à Télé-Québec le mercredi 25 janvier à 20 h.

Source: Le grand virage de l’immigration

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Scorecard Comparison: Century Initiative and Coalition for a Better Future

2023/01/23 Leave a comment

While I am not in general a fan of scorecards and indices given their selective nature and sometimes less than clear methodology, they are of course useful communications tools.

While Century Initiative has 38 indicators spread over six themes, the Coalition for a Better Future has 21 indicators spread over three central goals: winning globally, living better and growing sustainably.

The Century Initiative scorecard reflects its changing emphasis from growth for growth’s sake (demographic arguments) to a recognition of the need to “grow well” rather than just grow, and thus has a wider range of indicators.

In contrast, the Coalition has a narrower focus on productivity with relatively few indicators beyond key economic indicators, along with inclusion and diversity.

The CI’s scorecard also comes with an informative detailed narrative that analyzes progress or lack thereof across all indicators. The Coalition, in contrast just provides a measure of progress or lack thereof compared to OECD and other benchmarks, without a narrative, even for indicators where the reasons for their assessment are unclear.

Both scorecards highlight Canadian weakness in addressing economic growth and productivity issues. There is considerable overlap in the membership of both.

Both provide opportunities for serious analysis of the positive and negative impacts of current immigration policies across Canadian society.

Area
Century InitiativeCoalition For a Better Future
DemographicPopulation Growth
Immigrant Admissions
Fertility Rate 
Life Expectancy
Immigration Global Reputation 
Public Support for Immigration 
Regional Retention of Immigrants
Migrant Integration Policy
Immigrant Income Gap
International Students Transitioning to Permanent Residents
EconomicEarly-stage EntrepreneurshipCurrent Trade Account
Business Spending on R&DBusiness Investments in R&D (%GDP)
Innovation Investment in Intellectual Property per Worker ($)
ProductivityInvestment in Productive Tangible Assets per Worker ($)
Business GrowthGlobal Ranking for Financing of SMEs
Diversity in LeadershipShare of Women in Senior Management Positions (%)
Strength of Indigenous EconomyShare of Indigenous People in Senior Management Positions (%)
GDP per capitaGDP per capita ($)
Household DebtAverage Export Value per SMB ($)
Income InequalityIncome Parity Across Genders, Races, and People with Disabilities ($)
Global CompetitivenessGlobal Market Share in Key Sectors
Mean Income from Wages, Salaries and Commissions ($)
Number of “narwhals” (Companies worth $1B+)
Prosperity Index Ranking (#)
Education, Skills, EmploymentPerformance in reading, science and math among 15-year olds (PISA)
Post-secondary Attainment
Youth not in Employment, Education or Training (NEET)Youth not in Employment, Education or Training (NEET) (%)
Participation in Adult LearningParticipation in Adult Learning (%)
Employment Rate
Incidence of Low-wage WorkAverage Poverty Gap (%)
Children and FamiliesChildcare Participation
Parental Leave Uptake
Employment Rate for Mothers
Child Poverty
Youth Well-being
Infrastructure & Environment Investment in Infrastructure
Housing Affordability
Broadband UptakePercentage of Households with Access to Broadband (%)
Population Density of Metropolitan areas
Resilience
Climate Change PerformanceGHG Emissions per unit of GDP
Percentage of Primary Energy Supply from Zero-Carbon Sources (%)
Clean-tech Contribution to GDP ($)

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COVID-19 Immigration Effects – November 2022 update

2023/01/23 Leave a comment

The government continues to make progress on backlogs but the significant still not meeting service standards: temporary residence 44 percent, permanent residence 45 percent, citizenship 72 percent, visitor visas 70 percent in backlog (November 30 data).

PRs: Decrease compared to October. YTD 412,000,  2021 same period 360,000. Of note, an ongoing and dramatic drop in TR2PR transitions, from 251,000 in 2021 to 172,000 in 2022 YTD. Quebec YTD 63,000, 2021 same period 44,000 (despite public debates).

TRs/IMP: Flat compared to October. YTD 446,000, 2021 same period, 305,000.

TRs/TFWP: Slight decrease compared to October. YTD 133,000, 2021 same period 105,000.

Students: Flat compared to October. YTD 479,000, 2021 same period 415,000.

Asylum claimants: Small increase compared to October. YTD 80,000, 2021 same period 19,000.

Settlement Services (July): Decrease compared to June. YTD 1,031,000, 2021 same period 918,000.

Citizenship: Increase compared to October. YTD 347,000, 2021 same period 115,000.

Visitor Visas. Increase compared to October. YTD 1,097,000, 2021 same period 194,000.

Filed under Citizenship, Immigration Tagged with ,

Marshall: Biden gets real on immigration

2023/01/21 Leave a comment

One take:

No issue better illuminates America’s debilitating political stalemate than immigration. Everyone knows there’s a mounting humanitarian and law enforcement crisis on our southern border, but our political leaders find it safer to appease their most militant partisans than to work together to forge pragmatic solutions.

That may be changing. After ignoring an unprecedented surge of migrants for two years, President Biden has announced some modest steps toward restoring order. His reward for taking on this combustible issue is a fusillade of criticism from rightwing nativists who say he’s not serious and leftwing activists worried that he is.

Source: Biden gets real on immigration

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Alberta immigration program changes to prioritize those with immediate family in the province

2023/01/21 Leave a comment

Of note, combining economic and family class immigration:

Alberta is adjusting its immigration process in an attempt to make it easier for those with ties to the province to move to Canada.

The province announced Wednesday that they will allocate 25 per cent of express entry nominations to potential newcomers with skills in high demand who have immediate family members already living in Alberta.

It’s a move that Rajan Sawhney, Alberta’s minister of trade, immigration and multiculturalism said will help address the ongoing labour shortage while easing the process for potential immigrants.

“AAIP’s change will draw workers in high-demand sectors through Express Entry who have immediate family ties in Alberta,” she said in a statement.

“This approach will help ensure Alberta’s economy will prosper by dedicating a portion of provincial nominations toward in-demand workers who will have a great support network right from day one.”

The Alberta express entry stream allows the province to nominate a limited number of qualified candidates from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada’s express entry system.

The province said the change will apply to prospective newcomers who have immediate family in Alberta — such as a sibling, a parent, or a parent — and have the skills to work in high-demand sectors including tech, healthcare and agriculture.

In December 2022, Alberta gained more than 41,000 new full-time jobs for a total of nearly 94,000 full-time jobs in 2022 and 221,000 full-time jobs have been added in Alberta since the start of 2021.

It’s anticipated that a there will be a job shortage of 33,100 workers by 2025 across several occupations, skill levels and sectors in Alberta.

Alberta gets 6,500 nomination certificates each year and it’s expected that 815 of those will be used for the new stream in 2023.

“As an agency that works on the ground with newcomers, we know based on just the data and the stories that we hear from our clients that those that have familial supports here fare a lot better than those who don’t,” said Alka Merlin with Immigrant Services Calgary.

“We are excited to see that the government is responding to what the community has been saying all along.”

Merlin, however, says more can be done.

“We really encourage the government of Alberta, especially the Fairness for Newcomers Office to continue working with regulatory Bodies to simplify and accelerate the assessment of qualifications by eliminating the barriers to registration,” she said.

According to IRCC, there is currently a backlog of more than 2.15 million immigration applicants.

Source: Alberta immigration program changes to prioritize those with …

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Canada needs to get its act together on growth

2023/01/20 Leave a comment

Of note, focus on productivity. Main immigration and diversity indicator is: “Income parity across genders, races, & people with disabilities, Achieve equal employment outcomes for all racialized and non-racialized Canadian workforce,” a real outcome measure:
Canada’s economy has a lot going for it right now.
We are a human resource powerhouse and our openness to immigration also makes us one of the fastest-growing populations among advanced economies. Our natural resource wealth is acting as a buffer against the worst of global supply chain disruptions and higher commodity prices. Canada is also fortunate to share a very long border with the world’s largest and most dynamic economy, even if the relationship can sometimes seem challenging.

Source: Canada needs to get its act together on growth, Organization link: Coalition for a Better Future

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This pilot program makes it easier for newcomers to Canada to become permanent residents [Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot]

2023/01/20 Leave a comment

Of note. Positive feedback from some of the regional folks I know:

Felix Koros moved from Kenya to Sault Ste. Marie., Ont., with his family in early December, and thanks to an immigration pilot program, he says he is on track to become a permanent resident soon.

“We thank God that we are here in Canada,” said Koros, who was an engineer in his home country, and now works as an aircraft mechanic for a company called JD Aero.

“We are seeing that the environment is very good for us and for our children, and for the future.”

Source: This pilot program makes it easier for newcomers to Canada to become permanent residents

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Ottawa prepared to use ‘aggressive measures’ to clear immigration backlog, memo reveals

2023/01/18 Leave a comment

Hard to know where to start on this ridiculous proposal. Sign of desperation, but the impact of waiving visitor visa eligibility requirements would result in more visa overstays, increased number of asylum claims and perhaps most significantly, weakened public confidence in the integrity of Canada’s immigration programs.

Unfortunate demonstration of poor policy development and overall poor operational management, likely driven by short-term political considerations given that the policy memo correctly signalled the issues of such an approach. Sigh…:

The federal government is considering extraordinary measures to reduce its backlog of immigration applications, including waiving eligibility requirements for nearly half a million visitor visas, according to a policy memo reviewed by The Globe and Mail.

A draft document from December reveals that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) is trying to significantly reduce or eliminate its inventory of visitor visa applications by February and is willing to use “aggressive measures” to do so. There were more than 700,000 temporary resident visa (TRV) applications in the system as of early December, a portion of the overall sum.

In total, there were more than two million immigration applications to be processed as of late last year, including from those seeking work and study permits, along with those who applied for permanent residence. IRCC is concerned that the stockpile is “eroding the public’s trust” in the department, the memo reads.

To reduce the number of visitor visa applications, IRCC was deliberating on two options, according to the memo. In the first, the department would process an estimated 195,000 applications in bulk. This could include a large number of tourists from countries that require a visa to visit Canada.

Under the second option, Immigration Minister Sean Fraser would waive certain eligibility requirements for roughly 450,000 applications. Because other efforts are under way to reduce the TRV backlog, this decision would apply to all remaining applications.

By waiving eligibility rules, foreign nationals would not need to establish that they will leave Canada when their visa expires.

Visitors would still be subjected to admissibility checks. This ensures, for example, that applicants are not a known threat to national security.

Two sources within IRCC said the government has chosen the second option and that an announcement could be made within days. The Globe and Mail is not identifying the sources because they are not allowed to discuss departmental policies publicly.

This would be a temporary measure to reduce inventories, and the final version of the policy could differ from what’s proposed in the document.

As a result of the change, one of the sources said, immigration officers would not assess whether visitors have sufficient funds for their stays in Canada.

In a statement, Mr. Fraser did not address questions related to the policy memo or the changes under consideration.

“Canada is now processing visitor visa applications faster than it did even prior to the pandemic,” he said. More than 260,000 visitor visas were processed in November, he said, compared with a monthly average of about 180,000 in 2019.

“Despite the progress we’ve seen, there is still much more to do in order to achieve prepandemic processing timelines,” Mr. Fraser added.

The memo raised the possibility of keeping these measures a secret, saying that neither would need to be communicated to the public.

However, immigration consultants would likely notice “large volumes of high approval rates,” while the measures would wind up being disclosed in access-to-information requests.

IRCC is under considerable pressure to reduce the inventory of applications. As of Nov. 30, there were roughly 2.1 million applications in the system, more than half of which were in backlog – meaning, they had been there longer than service standards for processing.

There has been improvement of late: Two months earlier than that, there were 2.6 million applications in the system.

Prospective visitors and immigrants have been extremely frustrated by the processing delays. This has led to reputational damage for IRCC and a flurry of legal cases against it. Some PR applicants have waited years for a decision, for example, while others are nearing the end of their work permits, but have yet to hear whether they can stay in the country and continue their employment.

IRCC says it has invested millions of dollars in its processing capacity and hired hundreds of new employees to speed up decision-making.

“We’re actually moving cases out of our system faster than they’re coming in, which gives me faith that we’re getting back on track,” Mr. Fraser said at a news conference in December.

Even so, the inventories are significantly larger than before the pandemic, and with the federal government pursuing record levels of immigration, a hefty volume of applications continue to flow in.

Mr. Fraser could use his authority under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to waive eligibility requirements. This was recently done to expedite processing of visas for attendees of the United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP15) in Montreal.

The memo outlines various pros and cons to this approach. On the plus side, it would help to reduce the inventory of applications, resulting in better processing times for incoming files.

However, the document says that not all applicants would be “genuine visitors.” This could lead to an estimated 8,600 asylum claims, otherwise known as refugee claims. The memo notes that India and Nigeria are the two largest sources of TRV applications, and both countries rank in the top 10 for asylum claimants in Canada.

The uptick in claims would subsequently put more pressure on all aspects of the refugee system, according to the document.

In addition, IRCC would be approving eligibility for people with past refusals and “derogatory information,” the memo said.

The two sources in the Immigration department characterized this as a rash decision that will lead to less scrutiny of applications. They said many employees in the department were dismayed with the approach.

The sources also questioned how effective this method will be in quickly reducing the backlog, given that immigration officers would still have to perform admissibility checks on the applications.

Source: Ottawa prepared to use ‘aggressive measures’ to reduce …

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