1. • CommentAuthorRav
   • CommentTimeMar 25th 2008

    
   Proposed changes to the Immigration Act may allow the overhaul of Canada's immigration system, but critics fear they could also allow Immigration Minister Diane Finley to ram through changes without parliamentary – and public – oversight.
   
   Since Bill 50 was introduced this month, Finley has been touting it as a way to reduce the 800,000-case backlog and cut long waiting times for immigration applications.
   
   But critics, while commending the government's political will to tackle the decade-old backlog, said they were caught off guard by the secrecy surrounding the new provisions.
   
   The bill would allow the minister to discard applications from specific countries, reject applicants who otherwise meet all immigration criteria, and accelerate some applications, allowing queue-jumping.
   
   Worst, applicants couldn't appeal.
   
   "This new change will undo all of this by allowing the minister to override the established criteria by directing that whole categories be not processed and by giving the minister the power to direct that applications be processed despite them not meeting the objective criteria," Waldman warned.
   
   The bill could also terminate the processing of humanitarian applications from overseas and limit the number and type of applications each person could file.
   "Nothing could be further from the truth," Finley said yesterday on CTV's Question Period. "We have to make it easier to get more people here faster. We have a backlog right now that the previous government ballooned from 50,000 to 800,000. It has since grown to 900,000."
   
   Finley said the changes will help fill jobs that go empty while qualified people wait, as well as provide the option of faster processing for applicants from troubled areas.
   
   -- Nicholas Keung
   Immigration/Diversity Reporter

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