Bill C-50 (Historical)

Budget Implementation Act, 2008

An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 26, 2008 and to enact provisions to preserve the fiscal plan set out in that budget

Part 1 enacts a number of income tax measures proposed in the February 26, 2008 Budget. In particular, it
(a) introduces the new Tax-Free Savings Account, effective for the 2009 and subsequent taxation years;
(b) extends by 10 years the maximum number of years during which a Registered Education Savings Plan may be open and accept contributions and provides a six-month grace period for making educational assistance payments, generally effective for the 2008 and subsequent taxation years;
(c) increases the amount of the Northern Residents Deduction, effective for the 2008 and subsequent taxation years;
(d) extends the application of the Medical Expense Tax Credit to certain devices and expenses and better targets the requirement that eligible medications must require a prescription by an eligible medical practitioner, generally effective for the 2008 and subsequent taxation years;
(e) amends the provisions relating to Registered Disability Savings Plans so that the rule forcing the mandatory collapse of a plan be invoked only where the beneficiary’s condition has factually improved to the extent that the beneficiary no longer qualifies for the disability tax credit, effective for the 2008 and subsequent taxation years;
(f) extends by one year the Mineral Exploration Tax Credit;
(g) extends the capital gains tax exemption for certain gifts of listed securities to also apply in respect of certain exchangeable shares and partnership interests, effective for gifts made on or after February 26, 2008;
(h) adjusts the rate of the Dividend Tax Credit to reflect corporate income tax rate reductions, beginning in 2010;
(i) increases the benefits available under the Scientific Research and Experimental Development Program, generally effective for taxation years that end on or after February 26, 2008;
(j) amends the penalty for failures to remit source deductions when due in order to better reflect the degree to which the remittances are late, and excuses early remittances from the mandatory financial institution remittance rules, effective for remittances due on or after February 26, 2008;
(k) reduces the paper burden associated with dispositions by non-residents of certain treaty-protected property, effective for dispositions that occur after 2008;
(l) ensures that the enhanced tax incentive for Donations of Medicines is properly targeted, effective for gifts made after June, 2008; and
(m) modifies the provincial component of the SIFT tax to better reflect actual provincial tax rates, effective for the 2009 and subsequent taxation years.
Part 1 also implements income tax measures to preserve the fiscal plan as set out in the February 26, 2008 Budget.
Part 2 amends the Excise Act, the Excise Act, 2001 and the Customs Tariff to implement measures aimed at improving tobacco tax enforcement and compliance, adjusting excise duties on tobacco sticks and on tobacco for duty-free markets and equalizing the excise treatment of imitation spirits and other spirits.
Part 3 implements goods and services tax and harmonized sales tax (GST/HST) measures proposed or referenced in the February 26, 2008 Budget. It amends the Excise Tax Act to expand the list of zero-rated medical and assistive devices and to ensure that all supplies of drugs sold to final consumers under prescription are zero-rated. It also amends that Act to exempt all nursing services rendered within a nurse-patient relationship, prescribed health care services ordered by an authorized registered nurse and, if certain conditions are met, a service of training that is specially designed to assist individuals in coping with the effects of their disorder or disability. It further amends that Act to ensure that a variety of professional health services maintain their GST/HST exempt status if those services are rendered by a health professional through a corporation. Additional amendments to that Act clarify the GST/HST treatment of long-term residential care facilities. Those amendments are intended to ensure that the GST New Residential Rental Property Rebate is available, and the GST/HST exempt treatment for residential leases and sales of used residential rental buildings applies, to long-term residential care facilities on a prospective basis and on past transactions if certain circumstances exist. This Part also makes amendments to relieve the GST/HST on most lease payments for land on which wind or solar power equipment used to generate electricity is situated.
Part 4 dissolves the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation, provides for the Foundation to fulfill certain obligations and deposit its remaining assets in the Consolidated Revenue Fund, and repeals Part 1 of the Budget Implementation Act, 1998. It also makes consequential amendments to other Acts.
Part 5 amends the Canada Student Financial Assistance Act and the Canada Student Loans Act to implement measures concerning financial assistance for students, including the following:
(a) authorizing the establishment and operation, by regulation, of electronic systems to allow on-line services to be offered to students;
(b) providing for the establishment and operation, by regulation, of a program to provide for the repayment of student loans for classes of borrowers who are encountering financial difficulties;
(c) allowing part-time students to defer their student loan payments for as long as they continue to be students, and providing, by regulation, for other circumstances in which student loan payments may be deferred; and
(d) allowing the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development to take remedial action if any error is made in the administration of the two Acts and in certain cases, to waive requirements imposed on students to avoid undue hardship to them.
Part 6 amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to authorize the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to give instructions with respect to the processing of certain applications and requests in order to support the attainment of the immigration goals established by the Government of Canada.
Part 7 enacts the Canada Employment Insurance Financing Board Act. The mandate of the Board is to set the Employment Insurance premium rate and to manage a financial reserve. That Part also amends the Employment Insurance Act and makes consequential amendments to other Acts.
Part 8 authorizes payments to be made out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund for the recruitment of front line police officers, capital investment in public transit infrastructure and carbon capture and storage. It also authorizes Canada Social Transfer transition protection payments.
Part 9 authorizes payments to be made out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund to Genome Canada, the Mental Health Commission of Canada, The Gairdner Foundation and the University of Calgary.
Part 10 amends various Acts.

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

As I just said, the proposed amendments will not affect the Canada-Quebec Accord. I've discussed the changes with the department and with my officials and we all agree that they would have no impact. The Accord clearly sets out the responsibilities of the federal and provincial governments with respect to immigrations and the reforms proposed in Bill C-50 will not affect these responsibilities in any way.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Minister, welcome to the committee.

So there's no misunderstanding as to what you and your deputy minister are saying today, I've e-mailed both of you a list of questions I was going to ask and some information.

I'm sure, Mr. Fadden, yours came through. Unfortunately, the minister's e-mail was full and it kept bouncing.

This is in regard to advertising. I want to read and put on the record a letter sent to me by your colleague, Mr. Michael Fortier, regarding advertising. He says the following:

My department is responsible for issuing government advertising contracts, managing the government's Agency of Record and that buys advertising space or time in the media, and reporting on the advertising activities of federal departments. In this regard, I can report that although government advertising media has declined by 72 % over the last four years, advertising in ethnic print media has declined by only 13 % over the same period. Reductions in government media expenditures have had an impact on all media, but less in ethnic media in terms of its share of overall government spending.

Minister, what is your department's budget for advertising on Bill C-50?

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, honourable members.

Mr. Chairman, honourable members, I appreciate the opportunity to address Bill C-50 on budget implementation, which contains our government's proposed amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

As I said to our colleagues at the finance committee, I'm proud to serve as the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration in a government that recognizes that immigration is as important to Canada's future as it has been to our past. Our country was built on immigration, and our future prosperity and success as a country largely depends on it.

To put things in context, by 2012, all of Canada's net labour force growth will have to come from immigration, but at this time there are over 900,000 people in the queue waiting to immigrate to Canada. Many of them have to wait up to six years before their application gets looked at, let alone processed. The stark reality is that if we do nothing to address the backlog by 2012, applicants will face a 10-year wait time to have their applications processed. The lineup of people waiting to get into Canada could reach upwards of 1.5 million people.

Contrary to the previous government, we do not believe the status quo is acceptable or sustainable.

If we do nothing to address this problem, we risk having families wait even longer to be reunited with their loved ones, and we risk losing the people our country needs to other countries, which are in fierce competition with us for the skills and talents that immigrants bring.

The current immigration system is broken and desperately needs repair. The status quo on immigration is simply unacceptable. The current system is unfair to our country and it's unfair to those waiting to come here. Because immigration is so important to Canada's future, we need a modern and renewed vision for immigration, a vision that involves a new and responsive immigration system, one that would allow us to continue welcoming more immigrants while helping them get the jobs they need to succeed to build a better life for themselves and for their families. However, to realize this vision, changes must be made.

In our immigration system today, anyone can apply. That is a good thing, and we will not change that. It reflects the fundamental commitment to fairness that all Canadians share. However, the current system leaves us little flexibility in terms of what we do with those applications.

By law, we have to process every single completed immigration application to a decision, even if a person has moved on to another country or is simply no longer interested in coming here. Our obligation to process every single application to a decision remains, regardless of how many people apply or how many were able to accept.

Furthermore, we are generally limited to processing applications in the order that we receive them. So quite simply, the current system, if left unchanged, is on track to collapse under its own weight.

In the current context, Mr. Chair, we must realize that other countries are not sitting idly by. The fact is that we face serious international competition in attracting the people with the talents and the skills we need to ensure our country's continued growth and prosperity.

Put simply, inaction on the backlog will result in the people we need going elsewhere as wait times to come to Canada continue to increase.

In Australia and New Zealand, where they have the kind of flexibility we seek, applicants get final decisions in as little as six months, not six years. It's important to note that when compared with the United Kingdom, Australia, or New Zealand, Canada is the only country that does not use some kind of occupational filter to screen, code, or prioritize skilled worker applications.

So compared to other countries, Canada's system is just not flexible enough.

Urgent action is required so that we can welcome more immigrants and their families faster while ensuring that the workers we need get here sooner. To accomplish this objective, Mr. Chair, our government has proposed a three-pronged approach.

Number one, we have committed to investing more resources—$109 million over five years. But more money isn't enough. We also have to do things smarter, better, and faster.

So we'll make administrative changes as well, such as centralizing our data entry to free up resources in our overseas missions for more processing. We'll also code applications in the backlog by occupation so that we can refer applications of interest to the provinces and the territories for processing under the provincial nominee programs.

As part of our administrative changes, we'll also send in dedicated teams to our overseas missions to speed up processing in parts of the world where wait times are the longest, and we'll transfer resources from busy to less busy missions. For example, in October, when we lifted visa restrictions on the Czech Republic and Latvia, we transferred resources to the Philippines to help with the backlogs there.

But increasing funding and improving administrative efficiencies is not enough. Systemic change is needed in order to fix the system. That is why we have introduced legislative changes to give us the flexibility and authority to both manage the backlog and set priorities that would match Canada's needs.

Our proposed legislation will allow the minister to identify categories of occupations—not individuals—for processing on a priority basis; that is, the proposed legislation will allow for the processing of applications based on our country's needs, not on one's individual place in the line. To make sure that we get it right, there are several checks and balances on the minister. First of all, the ministerial instructions will have to comply with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Our immigration system will continue to be universal and non-discriminatory.

The instructions will also complement the objectives of IRPA, that is, to support Canada's economy and competitiveness, reunite families, and protect refugees. These instructions will also require broad input.

Prior to issuing the instructions, the government will consult with the provinces and territories and industry and government departments to shape the approach. In consulting with the provinces, we will seek assurance that when they say they need immigrants with certain skills, those immigrants can actually get their credentials recognized so they can work.

Finally, ministerial instructions will be subject to cabinet approval, ensuring government-wide accountability for the decisions taken. And to be completely transparent, the instructions will be published in the Canada Gazette, on the departmental website, and will be reported in CIC's annual report, which is tabled in Parliament.

Mr. Chair, let me be crystal clear on two key points about these proposals. First, contrary to the misinformation that is out there, we will not be placing any limits on the number of applications we accept; Canada remains open to immigrants and anyone can still apply. However, under the proposed legislative changes, we will not have to process every application. Those applications that are not processed in a given year could be held for future consideration or be returned to the applicant with a refund of their application fee—and they would be welcome to reapply.

The result will be that the backlog will stop growing and will actually start to come down. The flexibility in managing the backlog will accomplish three things: it will help reduce the backlog; it will ensure that immigrants have the jobs they need to succeed; and it will allow our country to continue to grow and prosper.

That is what these proposed amendments would do, Mr. Chairman. However, I should also clarify what the proposed changes would not do.

There are some who are suggesting that this legislation will put too much power in the hands of the Minister.

For example, there's a myth out there that the minister would be arbitrarily able to cherry-pick applicants in the queue and override immigration officers' decisions on individual cases. This is simply not the case, as the minister is limited to designating priority categories, not applicants; nor will the minister have the authority to select an application for processing or reject an application that has been processed and accepted.

With respect to concerns expressed about the impact of the legislation on family reunification and humanitarian and compassionate cases, any instruction from the minister will have to respect the objectives of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, which include supporting Canada's economy and competitiveness, supporting family reunification, and upholding our humanitarian requirements.

To be clear, the ministerial instructions will not apply to refugees, protected persons, or humanitarian and compassionate applications made from within Canada. We would also continue to establish clear target ranges for numbers of immigrants that we intend to accept in each category. In the case of family class applications, this means Canada plans to accept approximately 70,000 applicants in 2008.

The instructions must also respect our commitments to provinces and territories regarding the Provincial Nominee Program and the Canada-Quebec Accord.

I know that time is running out, Mr. Chairman and I am looking forward to your questions.

In conclusion, let me just say that our proposed changes to the immigration system are ultimately about people. It's about a vision for our country to make sure that people who have gone through so much to get here succeed at building a better life for themselves and for their family. It's about helping newcomers get the jobs they need to succeed, because their success is our success. And it's about ensuring the future growth and prosperity of immigrants and their families while building a better Canada. These proposals would achieve that vision and would help immigrants continue to contribute to the future of Canada.

I'd like to thank this committee for the fine work you did on Bill C-37, in reviewing that, concerning the “lost Canadians”, and also on the unanimous report you submitted on which that bill was based. I was very pleased and proud of you and your efforts when that bill received royal assent recently.

Thank you for this opportunity to address the committee.

I am now prepared to take questions.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Good afternoon. Welcome to all. On behalf of our committee, I want to welcome Minister Finley, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, to our committee meeting, and her deputy, Mr. Richard Fadden.

Welcome to both of you.

Just for the record, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), we are considering the subject matter of part 6 of Bill C-50.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Once you've done that, could you provide the committee with information on it?

Also, Mr. Flaherty, the action plan, besides reviewing all the contracts, of which your department has 67% more untendered contracts than other departments....

Clause 153 of Bill C-50 gives you, the finance minister, new powers to establish any advisory committee you want, to hand-pick the members, and then to pay them whatever the cabinet deems appropriate.

Were you involved in the decision to grant these additional powers to the Minister of Finance? What has made this unprecedented spending authority necessary for your office?

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Minister, a provision in Bill C-50 has a certain connection to this: the Minister of Finance is given power to set up committees--advisory committees or other committees--in which the members of these committees can be appointed, bypassing Treasury Board rules. The minister can choose whoever he wants without any contracts, and the cabinet, through an order in council, can determine whatever salaries are to be paid. Your own officials confirmed this to me at the finance committee.

Would you share my concern that this might represent a problem in terms of doing indirectly what is now not according to the rules, by setting up a new mechanism that would allow Mr. MacPhie or somebody else to be put onto an advisory group at possibly a high salary and with no competitive bidding process?

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you for being here today. I'll start by asking a brief and simple question that I've previously put to other panelists. I'd like to know whether your organization was consulted in some way during development of part 6 of Bill C-50.

[Hassan Yussuff, Secretary-Treasurer, Canadian Labour Congress]

We will try to be as brief as we can, recognizing the time constraints of the committee this morning.

Let me thank the committee for allowing us to present before you on behalf of the 3.2 million members of the Canadian Labour Congress, essentially coast to coast. But more important, we will submit a comprehensive brief to the committee. I'm sorry we didn't get it done on time, given the shortness of the request to present before the committee.

I will outline some of the key points we want to make, and hopefully that will generate some questions from the committee members.

The government argues that the proposed changes are designed to make our immigration system more flexible and responsive to Canada's labour market needs. However, the process the government is using to advance their planned changes and proposed amendments represents a significant change in Canada's immigration system. It raises serious concern about the fairness, transparency, and public accountability.

Immigration reform must not simply be about addressing labour market needs. Immigration is fundamentally about the welcoming, supporting, benefiting, and integrating of newcomers into Canada. Immigrants are more than a component of an economic agenda. Immigration reform requires thoughtful policy attention and building an inclusive, vibrant, and diverse society.

Significant changes in Canada's demographic profile are well under way. We have an aging population and a declining fertility rate. The country is largely dependent on immigrants for both population and labour market growth. Unfortunately our immigration system is also overloaded with applicants on the waiting list, and many have been waiting for years.

There are serious challenges that require broad public engagement and thoughtful and effective policy solutions. Embedding major immigration reform inside a budget bill is playing electoral politics with people's futures and is both a wrong-headed and unsound approach to transparency and policy development. We urge the committee to sever the immigration amendments from Bill C-50 and undertake a set of comprehensive national public hearings.

Let me outline some very quick points.

We think embedding the reform in the budget bill is wrong.

There has been a failure to conduct meaningful and inclusive consultations prior to the development of the initiative.

Arbitrary powers granted to the minister fail the transparency and accountability test this government has promised.

New process is not the best way to deal with the backlog. The process of simply asking applicants who have been in the queue for years if they still wish to have their application processed demonstrates that other ways exist to cut down the line. Competing systems are unlikely to lead to a streamlined process.

The inappropriate use of ads to sell the initiative after the fact and before the amendments become law is problematic.

To view immigrants as an economic unit and skew the role of employers to determining citizenship is wrong-headed.

Unclear process steps exist in how labour market needs or priority occupations will be determined and how many assessment and selection processes will operate. We're likely to see a rise in applicants in the temporary foreign worker category or CIC numbers. It is not a balanced immigration system.

And last but not least, the funding allocation for competing systems may not be adequate.

I'd like to make one last point here, and this is a fundamentally important point for us. Immigration is about building more than just the well-being of employers' interests. Immigration policy is fundamentally about building our communities, workplaces, and society in a thoughtful, inclusive, accountable, and democratic manner. The proposed amendments come in the context of and contribute to a disturbing shift towards the use of immigration primarily to meet Canadian employers' needs without regard for the broader Canadian interests. This includes the problematic increase in reliance on temporary foreign workers. Canada needs to consider immigrants as full participants in society, not simply as temporary or disposable units to fill current available jobs.

Thank you so much.

[Eric Szeto, Organizer, Voice of the Minority]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ladies and gentlemen, I will be straightforward as to what I would like to say.

The Minister of Immigration claims that she needs Bill C-50, the amendment to the Immigration Act, to reduce the backlog and give priority to the category of immigrant that Canada needs the most. Voice of the Minority, the group that I'm representing here today, supports this objective; however, we have serious concerns about the approach the government is taking with Bill C-50.

Bill C-50 will allow the minister to cherry-pick from applicants and simply discount others in a very unreasonable way by using the following provision in the bill: proposed paragraph 87.3(3)(b), which states that the minister may establish “an order, by category or otherwise, for the processing of applications or requests”.

And further, under proposed paragraph 87.3(3)(c), the minister may set “the number of applications or requests, by category or otherwise, to be processed in any year”.

And in proposed subsection 87.3(4), “If an application or request is not processed, it may be retained, returned or otherwise disposed of in accordance with the instructions of the Minister.”

As we can see from the above provisions, the minister can set the priority and order for processing by category and very possibly by individual. And the applications that were not processed will be “retained, returned or otherwise disposed of”, according to proposed subsection 87.3(4), as mentioned. This is very unfair and very undemocratic to the applicants who will be discounted, because it replaces a well-defined rules-based system with an unclear person-ruled system that has no recourse for the applicants. Also, discounting those who were not picked simply by retaining, returning, or otherwise disposing of their application is not a reasonable way to deal with the backlog problem.

Worst and most worrisome is the amendment to proposed subsection 11(1), which changes “shall” be granted an immigrant visa to “may” be granted an immigrant visa. This one single word change from “shall” to “may” gives the minister the authority to cherry-pick once again by refusing to issue visas to those who have already cleared the requirements. This provision would not contribute in any way to reducing the backlog, as efforts would have been used in processing their file. Shutting the door for them to come to Canada even after they have successfully passed the bar, without any recourse, is very unfair.

Minister Finley has been defending Bill C-50 for the last couple of months but has failed to deal with the above-mentioned concerns from the public. She is often evasive by refusing to deal with the specifics of the bill we are concerned about. She sometimes double-talks and is often misleading.

She repeatedly told the Chinese media that Bill C-50 would not cap the number of applications and would not affect the family reunification class, as family reunification is a priority of the government. However, on April 28, at the Standing Committee on Finance, she admitted that Bill C-50 is intended to cap and restrict immigrants, and that if at a future point in time we decide that family class is the priority, they will be fast-tracked just like any of the worker categories.

This leads us to believe that the family class application is not currently a government priority. Ladies and gentlemen, if one category of applicants is designated as a priority, others would be a lower priority. And it's impossible for them not to be negatively affected. It is common sense. And how could the minister just write off our concerns?

The minister claims opposition to the bill is misleading, as she will only set the order by category and has no intention of setting the order individually. If this is so, then why do they have “by category or otherwise” in proposed paragraph 87.3(3)(b)? Why is “or otherwise” needed, if the order she intends to set is only by category?

I also noted that she dropped the provision to dispose of the unprocessed applications in her explanation on how to deal with the backlogs at the committee. Is it because she realized how unfair it is to simply destroy one's application in order to deal with the backlog? Why does the minister insist on not allowing any amendments to Bill C-50?

The minister further commented that

There are millions, literally millions of people, in China and India alone, who qualify for admission to this country. That doesn't mean we can accept them all.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is particularly important that when we have more immigrants than we can accept in this country that we have a transparent, rule-based system that respects democracy and equality for all of them. How we select immigrants to our country will define who we are in the world. We will be telling the world that we are abandoning our cherished values if we adopt the immigration amendment of Bill C-50.

I truly believe there is no conflict between having a fair, equal, effective, transparent, and rules-based immigration system and addressing the need of skilled labour for the benefit of our economy. If we need more resources to streamline our system in order to deal with the huge problems in our hands, then we must do this. What we must not do is give the minister such arbitrary power, as it diminishes our core values of fairness, democracy, equality, and the rule of law, which have made Canada a great country.

We must amend Bill C-50 to rescind the above-mentioned provisions.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for allowing me to share our concerns with you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[Tung Chan]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Bonjour, mesdames et messieurs.

My name is Tung Chan, and I'm from Vancouver. I'm the CEO of SUCCESS.

By way of introduction, I want to say that SUCCESS has been around for 35 years. We currently employ 390 employees in 18 locations in the lower mainland of British Columbia. We provide settlement, employment, language training, and health care services to youth, adults, families, and seniors, and particularly to the community of new Canadians.

I want to thank you for inviting me to appear before you to talk about Bill C-50, in particular part 6 of Bill C-50. As an organization, we applaud the intention of the new legislation. We believe it is a good intention. We do need to speed up the processing of applications of immigrants whom we need. But we also would like to say that the legislation, particularly in its application, needs to ensure transparency.

Currently the wait time is far too long. We have been dealing with immigrants coming from offshore who say they have been waiting for way too long to come here, and that it makes it difficult for them to plan. Many of them, actually, before they came, when they applied, had a different set of economic and family situations than they have by the time they actually get approved to come. So it's important that whatever we do, whatever Parliament wants to pass, this be kept in mind.

As we heard earlier from Mr. Khaki, the most controversial point in the bill is clause 116, which replaces the word “shall” with the word “may”. We do, however, recognize that in order to achieve flexibility there is a need to have some discretionary powers. Otherwise, we wouldn't be able to do anything if we simply stated everything. However, the point we want to make is that if we want to insert this kind of discretion and allow our offshore posts or the civil servants to exert that kind of discretion, then it is important that at the same time we put in place a very transparent, open, and clear reporting system so that when such discretion is being used, the public know, after the fact or before, how it will be used.

We understand that the minister, on an annual basis, gives a report to Parliament, so perhaps that would be a place where the reports should appear, in terms of when and how the discretionary power is used. Because as stated earlier by the previous witness, when people are allowed under the regulation to come in, but the bureaucrats may exercise the discretion and disallow people to come in, then any report from the department should contain that.

On a more general note, though, in terms of immigration we know that as a country we need immigrants. That's almost an established fact for most people; it is no longer an opinion. I've heard that assertion from different departments of the country, and we've heard it from different departments of the provinces.

The sad fact, though, is that the current points system causes a lot of false hope, particularly for the skilled-labour immigrants. So when you're done with studying this particular section, I would respectfully request that perhaps Parliament should look at totally reviewing the current points system as it applies to what is happening now. The points system has not only created false hope, but it's actually also creating a situation where we have a mismatch of the types of immigrants who will come in. When I say “type”, I refer to their economic background in terms of their skills.

We also note that as a country, the way we apply our immigration law is that we divide it into two basic doors. The one is economic and the other is humanitarian.

I'm glad to hear the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration say that this amendment applies only to the economic side. Nonetheless, on the other side, humanitarian and family reunion, I believe that we have to continue to make sure people can come in early, and that we should look at providing better information to people before they come and adequate assistance afterwards.

We've often seen in both the economic and humanitarian streams that people could have done a lot better had they been told in their home country what they could expect. It would be even better to provide them with orientation and integration training, telling them about the Canadian system, the Canadian culture, even the language. People can train and learn far better in a home environment than in a strange one.

We also need to look at improving coordination between the provincial governments and the federal government. I would suggest that the federal government and the provinces come together to form a national standard on immigrant settlement. I know that under our constitution immigrant settlement is within the realm of the provinces. However, that should not stop the federal government from imposing, or at least requesting, minimum standards in language training, employment training, and integration of services within the host communities.

As we become more and more a country of multicultural communities, it is not only the newcomers who have to adapt and change. I firmly believe that the host country also needs to adapt and change. Culture is not static. Culture is always dynamic, and that dynamic would be all the better if we could all learn from each other in creating a unique and inclusive Canadian culture—not just a one-culture or bicultural community, but a more multicultural one.

With respect to employment training, I believe that this bill is going to allow people in the economic classes to come in faster. But even more important, once they are here, we have to have a good program to integrate them economically into employment. Census data indicates that recent immigrants are doing far less well than Canadian-born citizens.

We could take a page from the Quebec government's book. Quebec has a very good program for integrating economic immigrants. They provide people with wage subsidies of up to $7,500 per person. They provide wage subsidies for supervisors of the companies—small and medium-sized enterprises—of up to $1,100. They also provide grants to those SMEs of up to $2,000, which allows them to adapt their workplaces, to find out how they can change and welcome the newcomers.

As I've said again and again, by the year 2011 the Canadian labour market net growth is going to have to come from new immigrants. It behooves us as a country to make sure that we have a good system to help to integrate those immigrants.

The other part of this is the foreign credential recognition program. The European Union is able to find ways to harmonize the 2,600 regulations that govern all the different professionals. If they can do that with so many countries, I'm sure Canada, if we have the political will, can find a way to resolve this issue.

Thank you.

[Aziz Khaki]

Thank you, Mr. Chairperson and members.

Once upon a time I used to be in Ottawa about ten days a month. Finally they got tired of me, so for the last five to six years I haven't been in Ottawa that much. But it's quite a pleasure to see nice warm weather here, coming from rainy Vancouver.

I'm the president of the Committee for Racial Justice. I'm also the vice-chair of the Muslim Canadian Federation, and I thought I should also mention that. I sit on a number of committees, but I won't go through that list.

Once again, thank you very much for inviting us here. I will start with my comments and then we can have the discussion.

Fifteen years ago the Committee for Racial Justice published a research paper entitled Control and Inadmissibility in Canadian Immigration Policy. It began with the following introduction, and I quote:

Traditionally, Canadian immigration policy has encompassed the dual function of admission and control, that is, its stated purpose has been to encourage the admission of immigrants while attempting to screen out those individuals who have been deemed undesirable.

Since the time of the Committee for Racial Justice report, changes to Canadian immigration legislation have progressively limited and restricted access to potential immigrants and refugees, with some exceptions. It appears that those individuals who have been deemed undesirable are an expanding group defined by the whims of a minister or a government-based decision with fundamental disrespect of the charter, on the whims of political expediency and agendas.

We maintain that changes proposed under Bill C-50, the budget implementation act, with respect to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act give rise to serious legitimate concerns and point to very troubling patterns. An ongoing erosion of access, transparency, and accountability is what we have seen. Without accountability or explanation or recourse, entire groups or populations may be deemed undesirable and excluded by the stroke of the minister's pen. The point system, when it was first introduced, removed considerations such as race or place of origin as consideration in the immigration process.

It would appear that Bill C-50 is an attempt to reaffirm arbitrary decision-making into the immigration system and to remove the predictability of the application process. Sneaking these controversial changes through the House of Commons via Bill C-50 is a backdoor-entry tactic. We are challenging the provisions of Bill C-50 concerning the reason of its implementation, its regulation, and the wider question of its relation to our Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Section 11 of IRPA, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, currently says that the official “shall” issue a visa if the applicant meets the requirements of the act. With the proposed changes, it will say that the official “may” issue a visa. Section 25 currently also says that the minister “shall” examine a humanitarian and compassionate application. Under the proposed changes the minister “shall” examine if the applicant is in Canada, but “may” examine the application if the applicant is outside Canada. So there's a change from “shall” examine to “may” examine if the applicant is outside Canada.

These proposed changes further limit access and undermine predictability and transparency in the decision-making process. There's a strong concern that some voices in Canada have been putting pressure on successive federal governments to stop recruiting immigrants from Africa or Muslim countries or other places in the global south.

Foreign workers have increased, while permanent residents have decreased. With poor working conditions, limited rights, abuse of their working ability, and the attitude of kicking them out when we are done with them, foreign workers are looked upon as disposable economic units. We have seen problems in Europe. European countries, to increase their prosperity, hired foreign workers. They want their cheap labour, but not the labourers.

With the introduction of immigration matters under Bill C-50, we would like to inquire what the intent of the government is. Is it to dismantle the Department of Immigration and make it operate under the Ministry of Finance as one of its functions?

The process of selection of immigrants should remain fair and transparent. The current status under Bill C-50 makes the minister and the government above and beyond accountability. There is a very clear erosion of our rights and liberties. When you look on human rights as favours you are granting someone, instead of as fundamental democratic freedoms, your intentions are underhanded.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That's my presentation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Committee, we'll get our meeting going. Some of our members are a little bit slow this morning. And of course some of our members are on two committees, so it's not always easy to get a full complement at our committee meetings, because some members have dual responsibilities.

I want to welcome our witnesses today. Our witnesses are from Vancouver, and they never got in until about one o'clock this morning, so they're still feeling the effects of the jet lag.

Hopefully you got some sleep, and you're ready to give us some important information today. We welcome you.

We're doing part 6 of Bill C-50.

Our witnesses are Mr. Tung Chan, chief executive officer of SUCCESS; Mr. Eric Szeto, who is with Voice of the Minority; and Mr. Aziz Khaki, from the Committee for Racial Justice. Welcome, and thank you for being here.

We generally give you the opportunity to make an opening statement of roughly seven to ten minutes. You can all make individual statements if you wish, and you can do it in any order you want to.

Whoever wishes to go first, please go ahead.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

—in here faster, family reunification faster, refugee protection that will not be affected by Bill C-50, and it will be carried on as it is. It's a question of policy, and policy is something that is set by government. The parties will have their opportunity to decide whether they support it or oppose it, and that's the bottom line.

Thank you.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

I'd like to thank the witnesses for putting forward their points of view. There certainly have been differences of opinion throughout the day. I appreciate hearing everyone's point of view, but there are some statements that are not correct or in line with the legislation.

I think in fairness—at least to my mind I've established this--the legislation, Bill C-50, does not apply to refugees or refugee applications and protected people inside or outside of Canada. Notwithstanding that some witnesses thought it might, at least two and perhaps even three legal opinions have been offered that this does not apply to that, and some would make a lot out of it.

The other comment made earlier today, speaking generally, was that there is the race issue. I think the witnesses who were lawyers were very clear—and specific, Mr. Pang, to your appreciation and settlement on this issue—that the legislation itself, as it now stands, has to be subject to the charter and all the rights that are guaranteed in the charter, which would include the fact that it must be non-discriminatory. It cannot be based on race, religion, or ethnicity or it would contravene the charter and would not stand the test. It has to stand that test, and people have gone through it in the legal field to ensure that this is the case.

But not only that; this is legislation that proposes the instruction. The consensus as I saw it was that the instruction itself, when it issues, would need to be charter-compliant—not just the legislation, but the instructions flowing from the legislation. In fact, I think there would be a fair opinion that those who apply the instruction would have to apply it in an objective fashion, and again, it would have to be charter-compliant. You cannot issue or apply an instruction in a fashion that would be contrary to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I think that came up very clearly in our discussions today. Yet some people seem to insist that there is an element of it in the legislation, when I would say there's not.

The other question is how you resolve the issue of the backlog. Even the former minister from the Liberal Party said you can't just keep taking applications and hoping the problem will resolve itself, because what will happen is that the backlog will continue to grow because of the limitation we have on the number of people who can come into the country through the year. Over the last decade, what has happened under the present system is that many people apply, not everybody gets in, and we have a backlog.

The people who apply aren't exactly aligned properly to the economies of the country. What this legislation has said...and some have even said the minister presently has powers to prioritize the applications to ensure that those best suited to the economic needs of the country can be processed in priority. If that's true, then there's no harm in saying it specifically in the legislation. It's trying to get the right people to the right place at the right time to ensure that they can succeed.

But having said that, ultimately Bill C-50 indicates that instructions must support the attainment of the immigration goals established by the government of the day. The government of the day decides what the policy is going to be, and the instruction must be in line with that policy.

When you think about it, ultimately, if legislation is passed or regulations are passed, the government of the day decides what that legislation or regulation might be, or in this case, the instruction. As one witness indicated, ultimately the government is responsible to the electorate of Canada, who can say, if we don't like the policy you're setting or the legislation you're setting or the regulation you're passing, you won't stand the term of office.

One thing we know is that legislation and regulation takes a lot of time. We've had at least a decade since the act was passed, and there have been no amendments, simply a backlog growing and increasing.

So this is an attempt to say that ultimately the government of the day will set the goals, and if the goal is to prioritize the application to ensure that the skilled or lesser skilled newcomers come into the country, that's the policy decision that's made. And ultimately, they'll have to stand on it.

It's included within the budget, because it provides $109 million over five years to deal with that. So it is a matter of confidence and we'll see whether the opposition will support it or not support it. That's the key question. If they're so sure of it, they need to decide where they stand on it.

[Roberto Jovel]

Well, it has been a challenge for us to get our analysis and our information and all of our sensitization materials across to the front-line workers, and to the users of the services, and to the public in general. It's difficult for an organization to have that outreach, and those means, to go as far and as deep as the government is currently intending to do with that $1.1 million, through the advertisements to be introduced mostly in ethnic media or third-language media, as they are sometimes named.

What I have seen so far, in terms of the information that the government is circulating--I've seen it in documentaries at the CBC, for instance, with Minister Diane Finley herself responding to questions--is, I think, incomplete, inaccurate. We keep on hearing that this is a solution to the backlog, which is not true.

The other day I was interviewed by a journalist from a particular community newspaper and she said, “I just spoke to the minister five minutes ago and she says that these changes are not going to affect humanitarian and compassionate applications, and they are only meant to affect skilled workers.” We were on the phone, and I said, “Open the web page with part 6 of Bill C-50 and we're going to read it together.” And we pinpointed the places where it said if you are in your country of origin applying on humanitarian and compassionate grounds, you may or you may not be dealt with properly. If you have, in the case of family reunification, a sponsorship application, you also may be submitted to particular instructions issued by the minister.

The journalist was asking me, “So are you saying that the minister is deliberately misleading the public?” And I was like, “I haven't said that.” So she asked me, “But do you agree with that?” And I said, “Listen, all I have is the messaging that's coming from the government and you and I, both of us, looking at what the proposed legislation says.”