All the red flags signal that the immigration system in Canada and Quebec is out of control. First, there is the number of cases awaiting processing at the federal level. According to a CBC report from 1er February 2022, more than 1.8 million permanent, temporary immigration and citizenship files were waiting to be processed! At the rate noted in the report, if we don’t add more to the pile, it will take almost five years to process them.
But we keep adding to the pile! On April 11, there were more than 2 million, including 1.1 million applications for temporary permits, an increase of 230,000 since mid-March.
These people with temporary status will generate a good proportion of new admissions because governments are doing everything to encourage and facilitate the transition from temporary to permanent status. In Quebec, at least 86% of those selected in 2019 had temporary status.
The more we increase the number of people with temporary status, the more we will have to increase the permanent immigration targets because the applications will exceed the established thresholds. It would be politically reckless to refuse to accept their requests. These people have been settled and integrated into the country for years. Planning permanent immigration thresholds becomes redundant in a context of uncontrolled temporary immigration.
More requests lead to increased costs. The federal government budgeted $85 million last fall to reduce the number of files to be processed. In its latest budget, it provides $2.673 billion over five years and $441.3 million annually thereafter in new funding, as well as $43.5 million in 2022-23 to “maintain federal support for legal aid services at immigration and refugees”.
In addition to increases in volumes, delays and resources, there is the proliferation of “public interest policies”, a mechanism used by the federal minister to unilaterally change the rules for granting permanent residence and temporary permits, if he “considers that the public interest justifies it”.
Used four times between 2005 and 2013, they have taken extraordinary flight recently with 11 uses in 2020 and 19 in 2021.
They concern both specific situations (people with temporary status resulting from the fires in British Columbia; the sponsorship of Syrian and Iraqi refugees) and general situations (a form of exemption from language requirements for people with physical or mental disabilities). .
There are examples of discriminatory and overtly political use. For example, in 2020, one of them aimed “attracting well-educated young people from Hong Kong to Canada, whose human capital and international experience are expected to contribute to the economic, social and cultural fabric of the country. “. It would demonstrate Canada’s solidarity “with other like-minded allies, its strong support for and defense of democratic values”. Surely there are young graduates elsewhere in the world who would like to be saved from authoritarian and repressive regimes.
The federal government is also cheerfully modifying the rules for temporary immigration. He announced on 1er April easing of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program that goes significantly further than the agreement negotiated with Quebec. In 2016, it created a new open permit for employers outside Quebec who hire French speakers from abroad. Why exclude Quebec employers from this benefit?
There are examples of almost inexplicable inconsistencies. For several years, the federal government has been touting its policy of retaining foreign students without modifying the Immigration Regulations requiring that the person applying for a study permit in Canada demonstrate that he will leave the country at the end of his stay.
The 40,000 Afghans announced will arrive with refugee status, but the Ukrainians will have a special three-year work permit, with no ceiling on the number.
There is no systematic consultation with provincial governments before these decisions are made. No consideration of the effect of this rapid population increase on housing or childcare needs, nor on schools, health and social services systems, public transit. There is very little alignment possible between the expertise and work experience of the people who arrive and the local needs of the labor market.
Quebec is trailing the federal government in many respects. Having no means of influencing federal processing times, it encourages temporary immigration, which increases the number of immigration applications, and improvises with new programs that do not produce the expected results.
Immigration is a fundamentally human project. How can we expect to succeed without a clear vision supported by an effective legislative and administrative infrastructure?
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