Liberal MPs set up 11 issue-based caucuses, four regionally based immigration caucuses

2016/09/13 Leave a comment

The focus on immigration is not surprising given the Liberals strong showing in ridings with large numbers of new Canadians and the nature of constituent complaints:

Liberal MPs told The Hill Times that immigration is the “No. 1” issue in major urban centres across the country. The four regional caucuses on immigration are: the Western and Northern Immigration Caucus, chaired by Liberal MP Jati Sidhu (Mission-Matsqui-Fraser-Canyon, B.C.); the Ontario Immigration Caucus, co-chaired by Liberal MPs Julie Dzerowicz (Davenport, Ont.) and Peter Fonseca (Mississauga East-Cooksville, Ont.); the Quebec Immigration Caucus, chaired by Liberal MP Steven MacKinnon (Gatineau, Que.); and the Atlantic Immigration Caucus, chaired by Liberal MP Alaina Lockhart (Fundy Royal, N.B.).

Liberal MPs told The Hill Times that MPs have to get approval from Chief Government Whip Andrew Leslie (Orléans, Ont.) and Mr. Scarpaleggia to set up the caucuses and that any Liberal MP who is interested in a specific subject can attend. After studying a specific issue and listening to experts, members of issue-based caucuses can provide input to cabinet ministers, but it is not binding on the government to follow this advice, Mr. Scarpaleggia said.

“It’s a way of focusing attention on an issue as part of a process of learning more about an issue,” said Mr. Scarpaleggia. “Sometimes, it’s to develop further policy on an issue. It’s an opportunity to develop ideas and provide input to the government.”

… Meanwhile, the chairs of the regional immigration caucuses told The Hill Times in June that immigration-related issues are top of mind for their constituents and make up a majority of their staffers’ constituency office work in major urban centres.

Liberal MPs said at that time that some of the most common complaints coming from their constituents about immigration issues are related to long delays in the processing times of applications for family reunification, refugees, spousal sponsorship, temporary foreign workers, visitor visas, and Canadian citizenship applications.

“People who put me in here, they come to my office and they’re banging on my doors [asking], ‘What are you doing different from the previous government,’” Liberal MP Jati Sidhu (Mission-Matsqui-Fraser-Canyon, B.C.), chair of the Liberals’ Western and Northern Immigration Caucus, told The Hill Times in June. “So, we’re trying to reform with the help of the immigration minister with the feedback from Members of Parliament to see what can we do together. It’s making his job easier because he can’t see 20 MPs every time.”

Source: The Hill Times

Filed under Immigration, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

McCallum promises ‘radical changes’ to Citizenship Act | hilltimes.com

2016/02/09 Leave a comment

No details yet on the ‘radical changes’ promised but a strong indication of Liberal caucus concerns, which seem primarily around language assessment.

However, Minister McCallum’s mandate letter only had three commitments:

  • Work with the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness to repeal provisions in the Citizenship Act that give the government the right to strip citizenship from dual nationals.
  • Eliminate regulations that remove the credit given to international students for half of the time that they spend in Canada and regulations that require new citizens to sign a declaration that they intend to reside in Canada.

But a clear signal of intent to do more.

I find it somewhat amusing that after being critical of some of the changes to citizenship made by the previous government, I now find myself defending them on language assessment:

Immigration Minister John McCallum says the government will be “producing radical changes” to the Citizenship Act in the next few weeks. Liberals have been telling him that the government should eliminate the language requirement for new immigrants to apply for Canadian citizenship, which was brought in by the Conservatives in 2014 as part of the controversial Bill C-24.

Mr. McCallum (Markham-Thornhill, Ont.) told The Hill Times that he’s aware of the concerns and will make an announcement in a few weeks. “We’re going to be producing radical changes to the citizenship bill,” Mr. McCallum said. “We’re going to be announcing the details of those changes in just a few weeks.”

Liberal MPs told The Hill Times that although they want new immigrants to acquire proficiency in both or at least one of the two official languages of Canada, it’s also a question of fairness, saying the language requirements disenfranchise new immigrants from their right to take part in the political process.

“It’s a big problem the way the system has been set up under the previous government for language requirements,” said rookie Liberal MP Shaun Chen (Scarborough North, Ont.) whose riding has the highest visible minority population of 90.1 per cent, in the country.

But in some cases MPs said new immigrants fail to achieve the required proficiency for a variety of reasons. For example, some immigrants come to Canada under the family sponsorship program, as parents or grandparents and may not have any knowledge or a limited understanding of English or French. At that age, MPs said, it becomes an uphill battle, for some, to learn a new language. Also, when new immigrants move to Canada, the first priority for them is to provide for their family and take care of the expenses and a significant number take up any odd job to earn a living which can mean they don’t have the time to learn a new language, MPs said.

“Often times, families are sponsoring elders and grandparents at a very elderly age. It’s very challenging and difficult for them to be at such a high proficiency of English or French. To me, it makes sense for us to [adopt a system] that’s more inclusive,” said Mr. Chen. “It’s helpful to families that need to sponsor, for example, grandparents. Those new Canadians play an important role to look after children to be there and to support the family and, absolutely, it’s something that we will need to revisit and look at.”

Canadian citizens have a significant number of advantages over permanent residents, including the ability to work, participating in the political process by voting and running for political office, having a passport that makes it easy to travel internationally, and having the right to get consular support overseas.

….Liberal MPs Darshan Kang (Calgary Skyview, Alta.) and Sukh Dhaliwal (Surrey-Newton, B.C.) also told The Hill Times that they are in favour of eliminating the language proficiency test as a requirement to apply for Canadian citizenship.

“Why don’t we let those individuals who are part and parcel of this economy, that are part and parcel of building Canada, the Canada we all aspire, why should they be denied a right to participate in our democratic process which is the fundamental difference that Canadians have over many other countries that we have come from,” said Mr. Dhaliwal, who came to Canada as an immigrant from India and whose riding has a 70.2 per cent of visible minority population. Mr. Kang’s riding has a 59.6 per cent of visible minority population.

Mr. Griffith, however, said that language proficiency is a critical element of a new immigrant’s integration and success in a new country. He said that he’s in favour of requiring new immigrants to learn English or French but also said that if new immigrants over the age of 54 are not able to learn either of the languages, this requirement should be waived.

“If you don’t learn English or French, depending on where you are, you’re basically hurting yourself. It means you’re not going to be able to integrate properly, you’re not going to be able to help your kids with school work, and everything like that. If you start to waive the language completely, you’re basically not helping people succeed in the society,” said Mr. Griffith.

Source: McCallum promises ‘radical changes’ to Citizenship Act | hilltimes.com

Filed under Citizenship, Citizenship Act, Language, Revocation Tagged with ,

Liberal MPs put heat on McCallum to address immigration processing ‘mess,’ say lengthy delays ‘unacceptable’

2016/02/02 Leave a comment

Not surprising, the range and nature of complaints (which may have been a factor among visible minority voters during the recent election) but turning this around takes time:

Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship John McCallum has been under intense pressure at recent national caucus meetings from Liberal MPs who want him to address the “mess” in the processing times of immigration applications, which in some cases is taking more than six years for family class applications.

“This is not acceptable. We have to do something about it,” Liberal MP Sukh Dhaliwal (Surrey-Newton, B.C.) told The Hill Times.

In the last two national caucus meetings—Sunday, Jan. 24 and Wednesday, Jan. 27—about 20 MPs spoke up, in total, in both meetings, Liberal sources told The Hill Times. Liberal MPs told Mr. McCallum (Markham-Thornhill, Ont.) that, up until the last election, Conservatives were to be blamed for the slow processing of applications because they were in power. But Canadians now want to know what the Liberals have done to speed up the processing times in the last three months, according to Liberal sources. During the Jan. 24 caucus meeting, Mr. McCallum and his departmental officials conducted a briefing for MPs about the causes of the delay and introduced them to some departmental resources that can help MPs in serving their constituents on immigration files.

Sources told The Hill Times that Liberal MPs recognize that Mr. McCallum and the Immigration Department is focused on the politically sensitive Syrian refugees file, but they also want swift action on Immigration applications in the regular streams.

During the last election campaign, the Liberals had promised to bring in 25,000 Syrian refugees to Canada by the end of last year, but they missed the deadline and are now aiming to achieve this goal by the end of February. As of last week, about 14,000 have arrived in Canada. Because of the high-profile domestic and international implications of the Syrian refugee file, Mr. McCallum and the Immigration Department have been in the media spotlight for months. The Syrian refugee crisis is considered the biggest refugee crisis since the end of World War II and it’s estimated 12 million have been displaced as a result of the civil war in Syria.

Meanwhile, the Immigration application processing times are different for different categories including family class, economic class, refugee and humanitarian and compassionate classes.

In the case of parents and grand parents sponsorship applications, the department is currently processing the ones that were filed on or before Nov. 4, 2011, according to the departmental website. The processing time for spouses or common-law partners living inside Canada is 26 months and for the ones outside of Canada is 17 months.

In the economic class, if an application was filed between 2008 and 2010, the processing time is 67 months while for the ones filed between 2010 and 2014, is 13 months.

Canada takes in about 260,000 immigrants each year in all categories, combined. The statistics were not available for last year, but in 2014, 66,661 received Canadian immigration in the ‘family class’ category, 165,089 in the ‘economic class’ category and 23,286 in the ‘refugee class’ category, according to the departmental website. In 2013, Canada took in a total of 259,023 immigrants including 81,843 in family class, 148,155 in economic immigrant class and 23,831 in refugees class.

In interviews last week, Liberal MPs told The Hill Times that about 60-70 per cent of their constituency work is immigration related and specifically for family class applications.

Mr. Dhaliwal said that Mr. McCallum, who also served in former the Cabinets of prime ministers Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin, has assured MPs that he understands and recognizes the processing of applications and will take steps to speed things up.

“He [Mr. McCallum] has publicly said and he has privately said that he’s going to fix and fix [this issue] once for all. The pressure is on and this is one of the toughest ministries and tasks to handle and John McCallum comes up with a lot of experience behind him. He’s a thoughtful individual and working on this file. We are trying to help him by giving our input and he’s consulting people,” said Mr. Dhaliwal.

Source: Liberal MPs put heat on McCallum to address immigration processing ‘mess,’ say lengthy delays ‘unacceptable’ | hilltimes.com

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