Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to come before the committee.
I believe the proposed changes are needed, and I think they are urgently needed, to regain control of an immigration movement that is rapidly getting out of control. Canada is facing a growing backlog of people who have met all the immigration requirements. They've paid their fees and are waiting in a backlog that, as Mr. Pang has pointed out, may take them six to ten years to get here. The numbers are estimated to be almost one million--950,000-some people--who are waiting to come in.
In addition, the minister has announced that next year the government intends to increase immigration levels, I think to 265,000 additional immigrants. You have a problem of not only dealing with the backlog, but also dealing with the new arrivals. The system is desperately unfair. It's making people wait for years and years to join their relatives here or to come to jobs and start a new life. As has already been mentioned, a lot of the people in the backlog have gone to other countries.
The problem stems from the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act that was passed by the previous government, in 2001. That act didn't include any mechanism for controlling or adjusting the flow of people, or turning it up or down. Consequently, anyone now who meets the immigration selection requirements has to be accepted. That's really the problem. There's no mechanism for turning off the flow or slowing it down, even if the numbers who are applying can't possibly be processed in any one year by the number of visa officers abroad.
As Mr. Pang pointed out, the reality is that in China alone, you may easily find 130 million young people who can meet our selection criteria. Probably the number is close to that in India as well. There are many of them who would like to come to Canada. If they apply and meet the requirements, we have to take them. That's essentially the problem.
I think the proposed regulatory changes are therefore designed to enable Canada to get control of the immigration flow back and to manage it properly before we're faced with a complete fiasco with two or three million people having met all of the requirements, having paid their fees, and are waiting to get here. It's certainly not fair to the immigrant, and it doesn't give Canada a very good image.
There has been a lot of speculation about the intent of these regulations. I think perhaps it was the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration that yesterday heard immigration lawyers say that the proposed changes are simply a plot on the part of bureaucrats to satisfy their lust for power. Others have said it's simply the forerunner of very drastic changes that are going to come about.
I think most of these charges are nonsense. The current act is flawed because it doesn't provide the mechanism for controlling or managing immigration flow. I think there are plenty of safeguards to ensure the minister does as she says she will do, which is to consult with business, labour, and ethnic organizations about the rules she proposes. She must report to Parliament every year, and in that report she has to explain and table the categories she has established, the order of their processing, and the disposition of the applications.
The previous government recognized, a year after they passed the act, that there was a problem. They tried to solve it a year later, in June 2002, by passing regulations that required those in the backlog to meet much higher criteria. That regulation was taken to the courts, and the courts ruled it was ex post facto and could not apply. Nothing has been done since then, and that's why we have close to a million people waiting to get here.
Prior to the 2001 act, the flow used to be controlled by one of the factors in the selection criteria that was called “occupational demand”. It was worth ten points in the total number of points. If you got zero on occupational demand, it didn't matter how many points you received in the other factors, you were turned down.
The government controlled the flow by adjusting this occupational demand factor. When the economy was booming and the labour force needed workers, a long list of occupations were given weight on the demand side. When we were going into a recession or things were slowing down, we sent out hundreds of occupations with zero demand. This cut off the flow and ensured that we didn't get large numbers of people coming in who couldn't find work.
Canada has earned a reputation for managing its immigration program in an excellent fashion. Many countries have tried to emulate our point system. Australia has done so. But the 2001 act changed this, and it needs fixing. I think this proposal is the thing to do. We should get it done, and get it done quickly. We are already facing an amazing number of people who want to come here. If this problem isn't fixed, we could become an international embarrassment for mismanaging a program that we used to manage so well.
Thank you.