Canada: Incremental Approach

Immigration Dept: Employers are going to do a much better job at selection than a passive bureaucracy, he said, because they can t afford to recruit people to come to Canada who can t work at their skill level on arrival. , according to Globe and Mail. We could continue with this incremental approach to backlog reduction and eventually by about 2018 we would get to a working inventory. By returning these applications now we ll get to the working inventory in about 18 months time, he said and that s how he justifies the federal Conservatives drastic plans for immigration shifts in who comes here, and how, that the government is now pushing more urgently than before. Ottawa wants to transform the immigration system within a year and a half to allow international companies and Canadian professional organizations to assess the education and credentials of any would-be newcomer. Under the new system, employers, not bureaucrats, will decide who comes to Canada. But to create the 21st century immigration system that he says Canada lacks, Mr. Kenney contends that the country first needs to deal with a staggering backlog. Last week, Ottawa announced that hundreds of thousands of people who have waited for years have been bumped from the skilled-worker application list. The move has appalled critics, prompting threats of class action lawsuits from immigration lawyers. But Mr. Kenney insists the plan, if harsh, is a lawful and necessary step to purge the immigration system and get it working again. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.