No improvement. At one time immigration was a boon for Canada. It could be again. But in order for immigration to play a positive role, in order to truly balance the needs of Canada against our humanitarian role in the world, we need to bring a little common sense into the debate. We need to make tough decisions. Talking tough is not enough. Talking about lie detector tests and opening the doors even wider to inland refugee claimants and appointing people with vested interests to the Immigration and Refugee Board is the height of hypocrisy. It is pandering to the old style. Talk tough and then take the opposite direction.
Canadians expected more from this government, much more, but they have gotten the same old gang. Nothing has changed. It is just getting worse. With the consolidation of the functions of immigration and citizenship in one department came a mandate to really do some good: to respond to Canadians, to make some changes that would benefit newcomers to Canada and Canadians born here. But we have nothing of the sort. Canadians are demanding change. They want immigration levels to be tied to economic cycles. They want immigration to have a positive net effect on the economy. That is not too much to ask. The world's other immigrant receiving nations tie immigration levels to the state of the economy. Why do we not?
In fact one of the provinces sets immigration levels to the economic priorities of the province, the province of Quebec. I believe that the government has something to learn from what the province of Quebec is doing on immigration levels.
Canadians are telling me that the bulk of immigrants, not just a tiny percentage, should be chosen by Canada as independent immigrants. We need immigrants. We need immigrants with education, high tech skills, an ability to quickly adapt and contribute. Instead 85 per cent of immigrants are not chosen by Canada. They chose us.
It is neither unreasonable nor uncompassionate for Canadians to demand that those immigrants who come to Canada be chosen by Canada. The minister knows that. He has had the time to react or enact reform that would ensure that a higher percentage of immigrants are hand picked but that has not been done. If anything, the number of independent immigrants could actually be falling.
We need this new ministry to fundamentally re-examine the refugee determination system, a review that is more than just window dressing and more than just adding new layers of bureaucracy in an attempt to streamline. It is time to make the refugee system answer to taxpayers and to answer to a world-wide need for Canada to accept a higher percentage of UN recognized overseas refugees.
Canadians want the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration to have the sort of review and reporting power the government has promised. The committee should be choosing its agenda rather than having an agenda handed down to them from the minister in order that it be distracted from the real job at hand. Immigration is in trouble in Canada. Never has a higher percentage of Canadians expressed such opposition to the current immigration policy.
The Financial Post over the weekend reported that even the government's backbenchers are expressing outrage and frustration in their communities over an immigration policy which has gone wrong.
Canadians recognize, rightly, that immigration is no longer working for anyone. It is not working for Canada. It is not working for immigrants. Most disappointing of all, the minister in the past six months has not taken any substantial action to solve the immigration problems. In fact he has exacerbated them by increasing the levels, loosening the refugee system, appointing the wrong people to the IRB, and trying to manipulate the opinions of Canadians.
I would caution the minister. The Canadian people are not easily manipulated. It is time to start listening. It is time to take real action, action that is in line with the get tough promises that the minister made in the past.
I wish the minister success for the sake of Canada and for the future of immigration to Canada. I hope he does well but if the past several months of the workings of the Department of Citizenship and Immigration are any indication I am not optimistic.