Lawyer Don Davies doesn’t believe that the sweeping immigration powers being sought by the Conservative government are meant to ease Canada’s huge backlog of visa applicants.

Davies, the federal NDP candidate for the multicultural riding of Vancouver Kingsway, suspects that the proposed amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act inserted in a budget-implementation bill are just a way to increase the number of people who come over on temporary work visas. He said that many won’t enjoy the benefit of later acquiring Canadian citizenship.

“There is that aspect of using people as economic units, and then [them being] discarded when they are no longer needed,” Davies told the Georgia Straight and two Chinese-language newspapers after a March 30 roundtable discussion that he organized with ethnic-minority representatives.

Also present during the discussion was Toronto MP Olivia Chow, the NDP’s immigration critic, who is set to challenge the amendments when Bill C-50 goes to a vote in Parliament this month. Chow asserted that, if approved, the legislative changes will enable the immigration minister to pick out certain categories of visa applicants and put them at the head of the line for processing.

According to data from Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s report Facts and Figures 2006: Immigration Overview—Permanent and Temporary Residents, the number of foreign workers on temporary visas increased from 102,608 in 2005 to 112,658 in 2006. The 2006 intake was the highest since 1980.

In contrast, the number of skilled workers granted permanent-residence visas dropped to 105,949 in 2006, compared to 130,242 in 2005. The 2006 figure represents the second-lowest intake of skilled workers since 2000.

Skilled workers are among the permanent residents who can apply for Canadian citizenship after the required number of years of residence in the country. Fewer permanent residents were accepted in Canada in 2006 than in 2005, while those on temporary visas, including foreign students, increased in number.

Under the present law, a visa “shall be issued” by an immigration officer to any foreign national who meets the requirements. Under the Conservatives’ proposal, the granting of a visa would become discretionary, with the new phrase “may be issued” in the law.

Doug Kellam, an Ottawa-based Citizenship and Immigration spokesperson, claimed that the number of permanent residents accepted into Canada will not be affected by
the amendments.

“What we’re looking at is a system that is going to be more responsive to labour-market needs in Canada and getting people here faster,” Kellam told the Straight. “The government needs a system that works faster. Canada’s in competition for highly skilled immigrants.”

In December, there were more than 900,000 people around the world waiting for their Canadian visa applications to be processed, according to the CIC Web site (www
.cic.gc.ca/ ). The site also states that applicants in the skilled-workers category wait up to six years, while processing times for those wanting to work in Australia and New Zealand range from six to 12 months.

Kellam explained that under the proposed amendments, the minister of immigration could issue instructions to Canadian embassies to look for visa applicants whose professions are in high demand during specific periods.

Kellam also said that temporary workers who have acquired Canadian experience may be eligible to apply for permanent residency under a new program that will be put on-stream by CIC by the end of summer.

Immigration Minister Diane Finley was in Vancouver on March 20 and heard concerns about the bill from immigrants at a meeting in the Chinatown office of the United Chinese Community Enrichment Services Society (SUCCESS).

“Most of the people who attended were satisfied with the explanation given by the minister,” SUCCESS CEO Tung Chan told the Straight. Chan pointed out that the changes sought by the government include the power to purge the system of applications from deceased people.

One of Davies’s Vancouver Kingsway rivals, Wendy Yuan, the federal Liberal candidate, is also against the proposed amendments. Yuan noted that she is putting out a petition in a bid to show popular opposition to the measure.

The budget-implementation bill is a confidence motion, and Yuan is only too aware that her party isn’t keen on bringing down Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government and triggering an election just yet. Yuan also noted that Liberal MPs like Richmond’s Raymond Chan and Vancouver South’s Ujjal Dosanjh are opposed to the bill.

“It all depends on our leader,” Yuan told the Straight, referring to Stéphane Dion. “Personally, I don’t agree with this bill, and one reason is that it should have been put forward as a stand-alone bill.”

Vancouver immigration lawyer Zool Suleman noted that in fairness to the Conservative government, the backlogged system needs some fixing.

“The disagreement is how the change is occurring,” Suleman told the Straight. “The problem is that the minister [Finley] is not following what I would suggest is a democratic, transparent parliamentary process. What the minister is doing is hiding a tremendous amount of power within a budget bill without any public input.”