Canada’s immigration policy has to be streamlined, and will be.
That was the message Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Jason Kenney gave to an audience of local political leaders, business people, members of the postsecondary education, public service and cultural sectors, as well as international students and new Canadians in Sault Ste. Marie Friday.
Kenney’s speech was part of the Sault Ste. Marie Local Immigration Partnership 2013 Immigration Forum, held at Comfort Suites on Great Northern Road.
The Local Immigration Partnership (LIP) was formed in 2009 and is a group consisting of over 50 member organizations committed to welcoming and establishing immigrants in the community.
Kenney told the audience Canada now has the highest immigration rate in the developed world (capped at 260,000 immigrants a year), stating that the immigration system in Canada got “broken” over the years due to an excessively high number of immigrants, many of them professionals, waiting up to seven or eight years to get into the country, only to find themselves unemployed or under-employed, working in what he called low-paying “survival jobs.”
“It’s just not right. This happened to too many people for too long. We had to stop the madness,” Kenney said.
The government has now capped immigration at 260,000 immigrants annually, with a focus on reducing wait times to get into Canada down to one year, and, as Kenney said, “connecting immigrants directly to jobs, and jobs at their skill level when they arrive.”
Kenney said Ottawa is now focusing on filling a shortage in professionally-trained people, which he said “goes right across the spectrum…in fisheries, mining, computer animation, even lawyers.”
Sault College Vice President Academic Leo Tiberi, another speaker at Friday’s LIP event, said Sault College and Algoma University are aiming to have, between the two institutions combined, about 1,000 international students on their campuses in the next few years.
Kenney praised new ways in which more international students are allowed to stay in Canada after graduation with the help of internships and mentoring programs.
Speaking to SooToday.com, Kenney said “the whole point of our new system that will be implemented in 2014 is to do an assessment of the education of immigrants before we select them, to make sure that their training is at the Canadian standard. There’s frankly no point in inviting immigrant doctors who aren’t going to get their license to practice in Canada.”
“That’s a dramatic change,” Kenney told us.
“It’s a pre-evaluation of their credentials and their education to make sure it is at, or close to, the Canadian standard, and as much as possible to get them jobs lined up before they get to Canada, so they can come to work directly as physicians and not find themselves doing survival jobs.”
Kenney told us Sault Ste. Marie and Northern Ontario in general has a need for skilled immigrants.
“The plants in this region, many of them with future developments in mind, are going to be facing a shortage of skilled labour. A lot of journeymen in construction, boilermakers, pipe fitters and welders in Canada are now in their 50s and getting set to retire. We’re going to have a huge crunch, because not many Canadians have been going into skilled trades. That’s why we’ve created a new skilled trades program to bring in people like that as immigrants. We haven’t had something like this since the 1970s.”
There are bound to be many conversations in coffee shops across the city and across the country about the government’s drive to bring in thousands of skilled immigrants, when unemployment is still clearly a problem, with hard-working people in the retail sector, for example, losing their jobs as stores close or lay off employees.
“I totally understand,” Kenney told us.
“Our number one priority as a government is job creation. There are too many unemployed Canadians, but at the same time there are also a lot of unfilled skilled labour jobs. I know it’s a confusing paradox, but it’s true. As far as our population is concerned, we’re not going up in terms of our birth rate. We need, frankly, younger immigrants who are going to be paying taxes and filling the labour shortage to pay for our healthcare and pensions.”
“It’s about a balance. I’m against the idea of massive increases in immigration. The NDP wants me to double immigration levels. I think that would be irresponsible in an economy with seven percent unemployment. I understand that concern about people losing their jobs, which is why I’m holding the line on future increases in immigration. What we want is more bang for the buck for the immigration program we currently have.”
Kenney was scheduled, after today’s Forum, to visit Tenaris Algoma Tubes and be the keynote speaker at a Conservative Party gathering at Algoma’s Water Tower Inn Friday evening.
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