Tens of thousands of would-be immigrants waiting for the chance to build a new life in Canada will see their hopes dashed if Immi­gration Minister Jason Kenney delivers on his proposal to pass a law wiping out the waiting list. Kenney’s keynote speech March 7 to the Economic Club of Canada proposed changes so sweeping that immigration ex­perts aren’t sure what will be left when Kenney is done. It’s crucial for leaders of immigrant communities to demand proper consultation before Ken­ney’s “transformational changes” are carried through. Promoted as busi­ness-friendly and good for the economy, the Kenney proposals cover every­thing from refugee claims to fam­ily reunification and economic immigrants.

His most startling suggestion: to eliminate the waiting list, now unacceptably long, by abolishing it at a stroke. From now on, employers – not the Government of Canada or the provinces -- would pick immi­grants from a single global pool, give priority to those with fluency in English or French, and bring them to the head of the line. Potential immigrants who have been languishing on the waiting list for years could simply be out of luck unless they can find a boss to bring them in. (On the other hand, those wanting to speed the arrival of relatives to Canada could just hire them, whether they meet broader economic needs or not.)

“The minister’s statements certainly herald dramatic chang­es,” says Eyob Naizghi, executive director of Mosaic, one of BC’s largest and oldest immigrant-serving agencies. “But not only is it not clear what is proposed, it’s not clear how it may be imple­mented.”

If employers pick immigrants, rather than the government, the immigration system will become a labour pool and nothing else. Rather than invest in educa­tion, skills and training for Cana­dian workers to support a made­in-Canada economic strategy, Kenney would let individual em­ployers skim the cream of skilled workers from other nations and simply ship them home when they were no longer needed.
“Frankly,” says Kenney, “the employer knows better than a big bureaucracy whose skills are needed and will be relevant to the Canadian labour market the min­ute they arrive.”

But those workers will be ac­cessible only to employers with the size and resources to do their own recruiting. Smaller busi­nesses will be shut out, unless they want to take a chance on the private recruiters who would un­doubtedly.

What happens when an em­ployer lays off or terminates a worker? Presumably those em­ployees are deported unless, as Kenney suggested in one speech, their skills qualify them for per­manent residence. It’s hard to imagine more fertile ground for corruption and kick­backs. Even Fraser Institute econ­omist Herb Grubel, a harsh critic of the current system, warns that tough regulations will be needed to ensure unscrupulous employ­ers don’t cheat.

Canada’s current immigration system is based on the belief that providing opportunity for immi­grants will expand prosperity for all Canadians. Kenney’s propos­als head in the opposite direction, making individual employers’ short-term needs the top priority.
That’s no way to build a coun­try.