"This is the most significant change in immigration policy in more than a decade."
Changes are designed to shift the skilled migrant category
"from one that provides for the passive acceptance of residence
applications to one that promotes the active
recruitment services of the skilled
migrants."
No one wants to see "skilled migrants driving taxis, cleaning offices and cooking hamburgers."
Sound familiar?
Prime Minister Stephen Harper first spoke of "significant
reform of our immigration system" at the World Economic Forum in Davos,
Switzerland in January.
On March 7, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney gave a major
policy speech to the Economic Club of Canada in Ottawa outlining
expected "transformational change" to match migrants with "large and
growing labour shortages" across Canada.
Mr. Kenney said it's necessary to move "from a slow,
rigid, and passive immigration system to a fast, flexible, and
responsive immigration system."
But those familiar words written above weren't Mr.
Kenney's. They were that of Lianne Dalziel, while she was New Zealand's
immigration minister in 2003.
She was referring to changes in July of that year that saw
New Zealand move to an expression-of-interest system in which skilled
migrants would be plucked from a pool of prospective applicants.
It's no wonder Mr. Kenney is echoing her words; he's
interested in mirroring her government's actions too. Since his Economic
Club speech, Mr. Kenney has talked to national media, setting the table
for a year's worth of immigration reforms while constantly citing
elements of the immigration systems in New Zealand and Australia as
models for Canada.
Commentators on both sides of the Pacific note the
successes those countries have had in tailoring their systems to ensure
immigrants get jobs. But some also warn against adopting some parts,
such as retroactively changing application criteria to wipe clean a
backlog, without learning from the costly lessons these countries have
already faced.
The Pacific model revealed
On March 7, Mr. Kenney emphasized what he saw as Canada's
burdensome backlog of about one million applications in the skilled
migrant and other categories. He pointed out that New Zealand legislated
an end to its backlog in 2003 with the start of Ms. Dalziel's policy
changes.
He also noted that Australia started requiring prospective
skilled immigrants to get their professional credentials assessed
before they arrive onshore, "with very positive results."
Three weeks later, Mr. Kenney announced he would seek to
have foreign skilled workers' education credentials assessed before they
arrive in Canada. The next day, the 2012 federal budget proposed wiping
away more than 280,000 skilled worker applications filed before
February 2008.
Mr. Kenney has floated other ways Canada could copy from
Australia and New Zealand such as by adopting an expression-of-interest
system and stricter language requirements, as well as taking their lead
in reforming the investor class, and using Australia's balance-of-family
test to assess parent and grandparent applications.
Canada, New Zealand, and Australia share similar immigration trends and already hold similar policies.
Beware of wiping out the backlog
In the 1990s, a relatively large number of migrants to New
Zealand were without jobs. At the same time, like Canada, New Zealand
saw a blooming skilled worker application backlog, rising to 20,000.
This led to Ms. Dalziel's 2003 policy changes.
New Zealand started putting initial applications, known as
expressions of interest, meeting a minimum number of points, into a
pool; all other applications are scrapped.
Those in the pool with the most points are invited to
apply for residence. The government draws from the pool every couple
weeks, using a floating points threshold based on employer needs. The
pool is also wiped clean every few months; applicants can re-register.
The government intends to open the doors to people
selected from the pool almost automatically if they have a relevant job
offer or have worked or studied before in New Zealand. If not, they are
put in a work-to-residence program.
In moving to this new system, the government estimated
that up to 10,000 applicants under the old system would not meet the new
criteria so it expected to spend $9 million to refund the fees they
paid and stop their applications.
For this, New Zealand's government felt the wrath of
immigration consultants and denied applicants—something Canada could
face in doing the same.
"By creating policies that take effect retroactively, you
offer no sense of security to applicants whose basis for deciding
whether or not to apply are policies existing at the time of their
application," wrote Carolyn Caaway, a resident of the Philippines, in an
open letter to Ms. Dalziel posted on the Internet.
In the end, said New Zealand migration expert Richard
Bedford, the government phased in the new system while it processed old
applications from the backlog.
"But the backlog wasn't a huge backlog," said Mr. Bedford,
a professor at the University of Waikato National Institute of
Demographic and Economic Analysis in New Zealand. Canada's backlog is
much larger.
Ms. Dalziel had also previously run up against similar
criticisms when her government upped the number of language points
applicants needed. They challenged the retroactive change in court, and
the immigration department lost.
The Canadian immigration department lost a similar lawsuit in 2002 after it raised its points pass mark retroactively.
Now, with Mr. Kenney leaving the option of legislating
away the backlog, and already taking steps to halt all skilled worker
applications from before 2008, immigration lawyers are gearing up for a
fight.
Toronto lawyer Lorne Waldman said earlier this month that
more than 100 applicants interested in challenging the skilled worker
backlog scrap contacted him. "I'm looking at all the legal issues
arising and I expect that we will be taking legal action," he said.
"I think we're already being sued by people for not
processing their applications quickly enough. So, quite frankly, dealing
with this [backlog] problem decisively I think will reduce any legal
risk that may be posed to the government," said Mr. Kenney, when asked
about the potential for lawsuits.
Observers are split on whether Canada should legislate away the backlog.
"In Australia and New Zealand it's been a very effective
mechanism for governments to be able to make changes and not be caught
for the 10 years following the policy change in having to continue to
select people by the old system," said Lesleyanne Hawthorne, an expert
in
international skilled migration flows and a professor with the
University of Melbourne in Australia.
Mr. Bedford said he didn't think Canada should legislate away the backlog "because you have huge loss of faith if you do that."
Expression-of-interest system
Mr. Kenney speaking to CBC radio's The Current last month
said his government is "looking closely at" the expression-of-interest
system New Zealand developed.
He, however, described the group of initially accepted
expressions of interest as "a big resume pool" that candidates would
consent for employers—and in Canada's case, provinces—to draw from.
That's not quite how it works in New Zealand, according to
Susan Jones, a spokesperson for New Zealand's Department of Labour.
While other programs do connect employers with prospective migrants,
"employers and third parties do not have access to the Expression of
Interest pool," she said.
In any case, the New Zealand system works well for
bureaucrats, said Iain McLeod, a managing partner with a New Zealand
immigration consultancy firm. It controls their workflow. But it's
essentially a "holding pen," he said.
"In that pool, you have no rights. If you are never selected, tough luck," he said.
But Mr. Bedford said the expression-of-interest system is
"much fairer on the migrant." It allows prospective applicants to get a
decision quickly, and it's more transparent in that they won't be
subject to massive retroactive changes.
Mr. McLeod noted a problem with the Canadian government's
desire to move toward the Pacific route of putting applicants with
pre-arranged job offer at the head of the line and placing a premium on
in-country work or study experience.
Employers want to see their recruits and know that they
are able and have the authority to start within a few weeks. Unless
Canada's bureaucracy can work along that timeline, the scheme won't
work, he said.
Canadian observers have also raised fraud concerns. The
government would have to ensure employers don't make bogus job offers,
or pay migrants lower than they would Canadians doing the same job.
Changing focus
Ms. Hawthorne said if Mr. Kenney wants to make economic
migration better connect immigrants with jobs in their fields, his
proposed changes patterned after Australia are a good step.
"I think the items that he is proposing are very likely to
increase employment outcomes for economic migrants who come into
Canada," she said.
Canada and Australia both started out with the 'human
capital' approach to economic migration, she said. The perception was
that people with general work experience should be able to adapt to
changing labour-market conditions.
While Canada stuck with that method, Australia in the last decade focused on whether immigrants were finding jobs fast.
Australia required principal applicants be pre-screened
independently for English-language knowledge. It opened up a path to
permanent residency for international students who finished courses
there, which Canada followed in 2008. Increasingly, regional governments
have more selection power, as in Canada, but also employers, she said.
In the late 1990s, about 60 per cent of principal
applicants to both Canada and Australia had found some form of work
within six months of arriving. But with Australia's changes, Ms.
Hawthorne noted that its employment outcomes shot up to 83 per cent by
about 2002 while Canada's stood still, despite near-identical economic
trends.
"-I think what [Mr. Kenney is] clearly identifying is the
key measures that have greatly improved our outcomes," said Ms.
Hawthorne.
While Canada is looking to model elements of Australia's
system, Toronto immigration lawyer Mario Bellissimo noted that when
Australia implemented reforms in the 1990s, "they really did look from A
to Z." Canada should be wary of cherry-picking some reforms over
others, he said.
kshane@embassymag.ca
