My name is Anna, and I'm going to speak on behalf of Solidarity Across Borders. We're a network of migrants and allies here in Montreal.
I want to speak a bit about Bill C-50, which I'm sure you've all heard of. On March 14 the Conservative government introduced a series of amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, buried in this bill, a 136-page budget implementation bill. This fundamentally undemocratic move sneaks in critical changes to Canada's immigration policy without proposing any of those changes before Parliament.
Basically, by making it a matter of confidence, the government forces opposition parties to either accept them or call an election. As I'm sure you also know, this already passed its first reading yesterday.
This series of amendments, by putting more arbitrary power in the hands of the immigration minister, reproduces a history of explicitly racist and anti-poor immigration policy in Canada.
Under the existing section 11 of the IRPA, anyone who meets the already stringent criteria to enter Canada as a worker, student, or visitor, or to become a permanent resident, shall be granted that status. But under the proposed changes, despite meeting the already established criteria, the minister will have the discretion to arbitrarily reject an application.
Basically, Diane Finley can just make that decision based on her not wanting people from that country to come, based on whatever it is she decides. She has the power to do that.
This unprecedented modification of IRPA would risk putting in place covert equivalents of the explicitly racist immigration policies that characterized much of Canadian history, including the Chinese exclusion act of 1923; the order in council of 1911 prohibiting the landing of “any immigrant belonging to the Negro race”; and that of 1923 excluding “any immigrant of any Asiatic race”.
These are not crazy links to make. These are very, very real links. I want you to all think really hard about that.
An additional power given to the minister under these proposed modifications is that of deciding the order in which new applicants are processed, regardless of when they are made. So if someone made an application three years ago but Diane Finley decides she likes someone who applied yesterday because they're a middle-class worker and they're going to fill the gap in the labour shortage we have, she can make that decision.
So the new sections would allow the minister to simply hold on to, return, or throw out a visa application and deny any opportunity to review that decision in court. That is really scary.
The Conservatives argue that these changes are necessary to “modernize” the immigration system and reduce the existing backlog. However, the true objective is clear from Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s comments that the government seeks a “competitive immigration system which will quickly process skilled immigrants who can make an immediate contribution to the economy” .
It is clear that the priorities will be middle-class people applying under the skilled worker program, wealthy investor class applicants, as well as increasingly vulnerable temporary migrant workers.