TORONTO —Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney continued his aggressive overhaul of Canada’s immigration system by announcing that by the end of 2013 the immigration system will be to the one that is responsive largely to the labour market.
The critics are calling that system being a “slave” to the Canadian labour market and thus highly exploitative.
Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) announced this week it will admit up to 55,300 persons in the Federal Skilled Worker (FSW) category in 2013. Combined with previous actions taken to manage the backlog, this means by the end of 2013 we will be able to process new applications as they are received – a “just in time” system – and aim to process them in less than a year, instead of up to eight years under the old FSW program. In addition, CIC expects to clear the FSW applications received to date by the end of 2014, three years earlier than originally expected.
This will allow for the introduction of an Expression of Interest (EOI) system to be put in place for FSW and possibly other economic immigration streams. CIC is moving to a just-in-time system that recruits people with the right skills to meet Canada’s labour market needs, fast tracks their applications, and gets them working in a period of months, instead of years.
Kenney also announced this week that the government plans to admit between 240,000 and 265,000 people in 2013.
Within those numbers will come a cut to the federal skilled worker program, with the government planning to admit fewer people under that policy.
Instead, they’ll be increasing the number of people accepted under the Canada Experience Class program.
That program facilitates permanent residence for people already in Canada as students or temporary foreign workers.
Kenney says that program will grow because it’s been shown that those who are already in Canada have a better chance at economic and social success.
The New Democrats say they’re concerned that a focus on economic immigrants is coming at the expense of families and refugees.
