ImmigrationSkilled immigrants to be granted “express entry” to Canada to meet labor market needs

Canada’s immigration minister Chris Alexander has announced a new immigration system, set to launch in 2015, allowing qualified skilled immigrants to enter the country as permanent residents as a way to fill open jobs where there are no available Canadian workers. CBC News reports that the measure is also a response to criticisms of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP), which has been scrutinized following a series of alleged abuses, including making it difficult for immigrants to report employment violations and plan for long term residency in Canada.

Results from a review of the TFWP will soon be published by the government.

Liberal Party of Canada leader Justin Trudeau recently proposed to fix the TFWP by having the government “recommit itself to bringing permanent immigrants here who have a path to citizenship.” The proposed “express entry” program will do just that. Prospective immigrants will rely on employers, provinces, and territories to publish which jobs are available, and only top qualified candidates would receive an invitation to apply for permanent residency.

The immigration ministry has promised to process applications within six months or less, but notes that jobs offered to qualified immigrants would be subject to review through a Labor Market Opinion (LMO), a verification process whereby employers and immigration workforce authorities ensure that employing a foreign worker for the position would not have a negative impact on the Canadian labor market. “Canadian employers will be able to consider express entry candidates when they are unable to find Canadians or permanent residents to fill job vacancies,” said Alexis Pavlich, a spokeswoman for Alexander.

In anticipation of the new immigration system, the government has increased the number of applications it will accept from skilled immigrants and doubled the number of occupations for which they can apply. Family physicians, registered nurses, engineers, and financial managers represent the most sought after employment categories.

Critics of the new system, which goes into effect next year, are concerned that the new policy was passed by the Immigration Department under “ministerial instructions,” which are used to change policies without debate. “We, as a people, have not had a chance to discuss it and our representatives in Ottawa have not a chance to debate it,” said Morton Beiser, a professor at Ryerson University and founding director of the Center of Excellence for Research on Immigration and Settlement (CERIS). Beiser, an advocate for immigrants and refugees, is also concerned about the reliance on economic contribution as the deciding factor when selecting skilled immigrants. “There are all kinds of problems that one can get into when one makes an immigration policy basically a job recruitment policy,” he said. “This plus some other changes that have happened are not minor tweaks, these are major changes.”