Wednesday-Night

June 19
OTTAWA: IMMIGRATION CHANGES PASS PARLIAMENT
Federal Immigration Minister Diane Finley has welcomed the support of both the House of Commons and the Senate for proposed changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Mrs. Finley says the government now has the “tools in place” to bring people to the country quickly who have skills which the country needs. The minister says the federal government will hold consultations with the provinces and territories as well as with immigration experts to determine which skills they are. She says the legislation will also stop the backlog of applications from growing. Bill C-50 also allows the minister to decide how many applications will be accepted each year. The three opposition parties in the House opposed the changes as discriminatory but voted for the general budget implementation legislation anyway to avoid overthrowing the minority Conservative government, thereby provoking a national election.
June 10
Government outsources visas at some foreign embassies
OTTAWA - The federal government has quietly outsourced the processing of visa applications to lighten the load at some of its busiest embassies around the world.
Last week, VFS Global Services Pvt. Ltd, a Mumbai, India-based subsidiary of Kuoni Travel Holding Ltd. of Zurich, Switzerland began accepting applications for temporary visitor permits on behalf of the Canadian Embassy in China. Immigration consultants in Canada say VFS Global was required to get a licence to operate from the Government of China.
“I see some real problems with this,” said John Ryan, a Toronto-based immigration consultant who operated an immigration consultancy in China. “You have no expectation of any kind of privacy.”
Richard Kurland, a lawyer and immigration consultant in Vancouver, said the protection of privacy rights would be particularly important, for example, for a person from Tibet or a human-rights activist.
OTTAWA: IMMIGRATION CHANGES PASS COMMONS
(RCI) The House of Commons has voted to approve controversial changes to immigration law proposed by the Conservative government. The changes are contained in the budget implementation legislation and if the three opposition parties had joined to defeat the minority government on a measure of confidence, a summer election would have ensued. All three opposition parties are critical of the proposed changes but Liberal Party leader Stéphane Dion said his party doesn’t want a summer election. The vote passed 121-90, with enough Liberal Members of Parliament absent from the House for the bill to pass. The legislation would allow the immigration minister to fast-track the applications of certain highly desirable categories of immigrants, such as doctors, correspondingly slowing down the processing of the others. The department would also be enabled to limit the number of applications to be considered each year. Critics complain that the changes place to much discretionary powers in the minister’s hands.
IMMIGRATION BILL FOUND IN SYNC WITH PUBLIC OPINION
A public opinion survey, meanwhile, shows the immigration bill chimes with public opinion. The poll carried out by Nanos Research in Policy Options shows that while Canadians favour allowing skilled workers or family members into Canada, they are less enthusiastic when it comes to refugees. The pollster asked respondents which three factors are the most important in selecting newcomers. Sixty-eight-point-two per cent chose jobs skill, 58.8 per cent family reunification and only 40.1 per cent chose refugee status. The president of the polling firm, Nik Nanos, says the results show that Canadians’ self-image as being hospitable to those fleeing persecution isn’t entirely accurate. Respondents also were asked whether they favoured dual citizenship, a question to which 51.3 responded affirmatively.
Racism is bad for you — Directors needed
by Mohamed Elmasry
(Media Monitors Network) “The proposed play’s plot thesis is that racism is a moral crime for which all of society eventually pays. The author hopes that some directors will realize its potential on stage to be an effective educational presentation for schools or universities.”
The plot of this play is reality-based.
The beginning of the play is now, the year 2008, but moves back to Canada in the 1910s and then forward into a we-all-hope-not Canada of 2030.
June 2
COMMONS VOTES FOR PROPOSED IMMIGRATION CHANGES
(RCI) In three separate votes, Members of Parliament voted for the minority Conservative government’s proposed changes to immigration law. The second reading of the general budget implementation legislation passed because only a few Liberal Party MPs showed up. The NDP and the Bloc Québécois voted no. A defeat for Bill C-50 would have triggered a national election. C-50 needs a third approval by the House and ultimate approval by the Senate to become law. The proposed changes would empower the immigration minister to put applications from certain categories of desirable immigrants, such as physicians. Other would-be newcomers would have to wait longer.
Tories survive 1st confidence vote since Bernier affair
Only a handful of Liberals show up to vote on immigration bill
Rows of Liberal benches remained vacant in a series of votes on controversial immigration reforms that are part of a larger budget implementation bill.
All opposition parties have excoriated the Conservatives for the immigration changes, but the Liberals continued their months-long practice of abstaining on key votes.
The Liberals were taunted and laughed at by their opponents as only a handful of their members showed up for a set of 114-83 votes that took the legislation one step closer to becoming law.
The immigration changes would place highly coveted skilled immigrants — such as doctors — on the fast-track into Canada. But it would become more difficult for others to get in.
The Liberals have called the bill an affront to Canadian values and suggested they will overturn the legislation if they win the next election.
The Commons voted three times Monday night — once on the larger finance bill, and twice more on a bundle of NDP amendments that would essentially gut the legislation.
Committee calls on Tories to kill immigration bill
OTTAWA — The House of Commons immigration committee has recommended killing a controversial government bill that would give the immigration minister more power to decide who can become a permanent resident.
Meanwhile, the NDP says it will filibuster the bill to prevent it from being passed before Parliament breaks for the summer.
The proposed bill, which would amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, removes the Immigration Department’s obligation to process all permanent-residence applications, and allows the minister to instruct officers to fast track certain kinds of applications.
The finance committee is expected to begin clause-by-clause study of the bill next week, before sending it back to the Commons for a third and final vote.
May 21
Immigration Bill Under Dual Microscopes
Polarization Over IRPA Changes
(Embassy) A week of hearings by the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration included an appearance by Immigration Minister Diane Finley, who explained how provinces will benefit from proposed immigration system changes.
The minister also revealed that $1.1 million in taxpayer dollars has been spent on advertising bill C-50 in ethnic media outlets, despite the fact the bill has not passed in Parliament.
Ms. Finley also said that the government will be coding new immigration applications, as well as those already in the backlog, to show applicants’ occupation and destination province.
“The provinces can then access these files,” she said. “It’s called data mining. I guess that’s the technical term. They can go in and identify people that they need and get them here sooner.”
When asked what kind of resources the department will target to addressing the existing backlog if the proposed changes are approved, Mr. Fadden said “something like 70 per cent” of resources will go to that purpose. In addition, the department will write to applicants whose files have been in the system for a while to see if they still want to continue.
April 21
(RCI) TORONTO: PM DEFENDS IMMIGRATION CHANGES
The Canadian Prime Minister, Mr. Harper, has defended his government’s proposed changes to immigration law. The prime minister acknowledges “political risks” in undertaking them but says his Conservative Party government is determined to push them through. Proposed legislation would fast-track the applications of desirable and needed categories of immigrants, such as doctors and skilled workers, while others would have to take their places in line. The government would also have the power to set limits on the numbers of applications processed. The stated purpose of the changes is both to hasten the arrival of applications who can alleviate critical labour shortages and to catch up a huge backlog. Mr. Harper says the changes are aimed at fixing a labour crisis that will affect the economy if no fixed soon. Critics of the changes have called them discriminatory. Mr. Harper spoke at an East Indian event in Toronto, which was also attended by Michael Ignatieff, the deputy Liberal Party leader. He expressed doubt the changes would have any effect on the applications backlog because the changes would affect only applications after March 1, leaving the 900,000 other unaffected.
April 17 2008
NDP introduces motion to split controversial immigration bill
OTTAWA – The NDP is determined to take all necessary steps to stop the Conservatives’ irreversibly damaging immigration reforms.
NDP Citizenship and Immigration Critic Olivia Chow (Trinity Spadina) gave notice of her motion last week to give the Finance committee the ability to split Bill C-50, the Budget Implementation Act. This would allow the committee to give the section of the bill pertaining to immigration reforms to the Citizenship and Immigration Committee for comprehensive study, amendments, or rejection.
This is the NDP’s second attempt to stop the damaging reforms from passing in Parliament. On April 9th Dion’s Liberals refused to support an NDP motion to refuse to give second reading to the bill. On April 10th, Dion’s Liberals allowed the bill to pass second reading.
TORONTO: IMMIGRANT ADVOCATES WARN LIBERALS OVER IMMIGRATION BILL
(RCI) The Status Now immigrant lobby has warned the federal Liberal Party that it could lose immigrant votes if it doesn’t vote against the changes to immigration law proposed by the governing Conservatives. A Status Now spokesman says that although the Liberals have expressed concern about the proposals, they’ve done little to stop them. Status Now defends the rights of illegal migrants. About 100 protesters staged a rally on Wednesday outside the office of Liberal Member of Parliament Bob Rae. The government has presented legislation that would give the immigration minister the power to prioritize certain categories of immigrant applicants, such as doctors and skilled workers. Quotas could be imposed, forcing many applicants to reapply for years on end. The stated purposes of the legislation is to bring to Canada the types of workers most economically needed and to reduce an application backlog which will reach 1.5 million by 2012. Critics consider the proposed changes discriminatory. The government has wrapped the immigration measures in the general budget bill. The bill is a question of confidence, meaning that a defeat for the minority would provoke a national election, something the Liberals have refused to do so far.
March 14
Tory bill proposes new powers on immigration applications
(CBC) The federal government has proposed sweeping changes to Canada’s immigration policies that would give it greater selection powers to limit the number of new applicants.
The proposed changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, which the government says are aimed at reducing backlogs of immigration applications, are embedded in a 136-page budget-implementation bill tabled Friday in the House of Commons. The budget-implementation bill is a confidence motion.
More than 800,000 prospective immigrants are on waiting lists.
The changes would:

• 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.
• Require an otherwise ineligible person who wants to immigrate on humanitarian grounds to already be in Canada for their application to be processed.