Feds Prepared To Limit Immigration

Elizabeth Thompson
National Bureau
Ottawa Sun
February 11, 2009

The government is watching Canada's economy closely and won't hesitate, if necessary, to reduce the number of immigrants it lets into the country, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said yesterday.

Speaking to a committee and later to reporters, Kenney said his department is thinking of both Canadian workers and immigrants.

“We don't want people to be coming to Canada and facing unemployment, so we need to be sensitive to the changing labour market and if we have to make modifications, we will. But we don't want to turn off the tap of the future growth that is represented by immigration.”

FOREIGN WORKERS

Kenney said he is also concerned about the treatment of some temporary foreign workers and will table regulations to protect them from exploitation.

“I have been briefed on a number of instances of abuse,” he told reporters. “It's hard to quantify how widespread it is.”

NDP critic Olivia Chow said the government should reduce the number of temporary foreign workers, but not the number of landed immigrants.

“In these economic hard times we should not have temporary foreign workers coming in, driving down Canadian workers' salaries.”

Landed immigrants spend more of their money here and their children help renew Canada demographically, she said.

Liberal Jim Karygiannis accused the government of seeking an excuse to cut immigration.

“They are going to cut back. They are going to cut back massively,” he told reporters. “This government is not a government that is pro-immigrant.”

Earlier, Karygiannis said it is taking much longer to process immigration applications. While the average processing time in 2004 was 43 months, in 2008 it was 68 months.

Kenney questioned the statistics, adding the department has reduced its backlog in the past year.

Questioned by Chow on the increase in waiting times to process refugee claims, Kenney said the department is working on it, but fraudulent refugee claims are clogging up the system. In the case of Mexico, he said, 90% of refugee claims are rejected.

Kenney announced Canada will accept more refugees from Iraq. Canada's mission in Damascus will accept 1,300 more privately sponsored refugees this year, bringing to 2,500 the number of refugees it accepts through the private sponsorship program and 1,400 through the Government Assisted Refugees program.

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The following is a list of some of the Canadian media outlets which carried a similar story: