Changes in immigration policy

Hidden within the pages of a 136 page budget bill that the Federal Conservatives are looking to pass through parliament are some amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act that will give the Immigration Minister more power to decide who gets to stay. These changes, which have been put forward by the government as an attempt to ease the backlog of prospective immigrants to this country, have drawn concern from opposition MPs.

The brunt of the changes put forward in the proposed legislation will "Give the immigration minister the authority to instruct immigration officers to set limits on what types of immigrants — "by category or otherwise" — can have their applications processed each year," and "Require an otherwise ineligible person who wants to immigrate on humanitarian grounds to already be in Canada for their application to be processed," according to cbcnews.ca.

Under existing legislation, the government must go through the immigration applications in the order they are recieved. While this is a "fair" policy, it neglects the most important question that needs to be asked regarding immigration policy - namely "Why do we bring in immigrants - their benefit, or ours?". The proposed changes would allow the Minister to give preferential treatment to certain "categories" of immigrants at their discretion - namely allowing for qualified/skilled workers to "jump the line" so to speak, and make an expedited trip into the country, where their skills could be put to good use.

Personally, I can see a degree of merit to this argument - the fact is that the government of Canada has as it's primary responsibility to enact policy that is in the best interests of the country - and giving preferential treatment to a skilled workforce that is interested in taking their skills, their training, and their families to Canada would seem to be more in our countries interests.

So aside from giving them a preferential place on the waitlist to get here, how else can we encourage skilled, educated immigrants to make their way to this country? This question calls to mind the story of one young family who came over from west Africa. The father was a doctor, trained at Kenya's national university, and an experienced surgeon. The family now lives somewhere in New Jersey and he is practicing as a lab technician because we wouldn't recognize his credentials as being worth anything. This story isn't uncommon, and it also doesn't make sense. To be fair, we do need to be careful whether or not we recognize someone's credentials - just because they're recognized in one country, doesn't mean that they should be recognized in ours. That being said, we also need to be, I think, a little bit more pragmatic. We make our own med students undergo residency, we make our own engineers go through the EIT program, and we make our tradesmen go through an apprenticeship before we allow them to ply their trade on their own, and perhaps it would be reasonable to have our skilled/trained immigrant workforce undergo a similar system. This would allow them to do what they're trained to do - which would give them far more cause to stay and would also give those skills and that training to our own workforce. Furthermore, it would enable us to ensure that their training is up to standards that are expected here. Overall, this seems like a reasonable solution for the good of our country, and for the good of the skilled and educated people who want to come and help us make it better.

More: Picking winners and losers in the immigration race ([here] New Brunswick)
Liberals urged to fight immigration proposals (Globe and Mail)