Canada West Foundation Blog

by Robert Vineberg, Research Fellow

On November 4, the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC) announced that a delegation of fifteen university presidents will undertake a seven day tour of India to promote Canada as a destination of choice for Indians who wish to pursue post-secondary education abroad. This is good news for a number of reasons. First, until now Canadian universities are, for the most part, unknown in India.  According to the AUCC, only 3,000 Indian students chose to study in Canada in 2008. By comparison, in 2007, over 63,000 Indians chose to study in Australia.

Why the huge difference? Certain factors are beyond our control. Australia is closer to India and its climate is milder. But the major reason is that Canada has never gotten its act together to effectively promote Canadian universities as a desirable destination for Indians. To their disadvantage, too many Canadian universities have regarded their competition for foreign students to be other Canadian universities, leaving Canadian universities to promote themselves, individually, without the critical mass that comes through collective promotion.  In reality, the competition for all Canadian universities is other countries, such as Australia. The Australian universities and the Australian government learned several years ago to promote the country of Australia as a desirable place to study, not a specific university, and the results have been fantastic for Australia. It also recruits many of its best immigrants from the ranks of its foreign students.

This is why the delegation of fifteen universities working together to promote education in Canada is good news. We need to beat the Australians at their own game by promoting the value of a Canadian degree from any Canadian university. The Canadian government recently caught up to the Australians by changing immigration regulations to allow foreign graduates in Canada to apply for immigration from inside Canada, as foreign graduates can do in Australia. Now is the time for Canadian universities to catch up to the Australians as well. By promoting a degree from Canada rather than a degree from Alberta or McGill or Manitoba, we will attract more of the best foreign students.  Some may want to stay in Canada and many will return to careers in their home countries but, either way, Canada and the foreign students stand to benefit.

Let us hope that this delegation of university presidents to India will be the start of a new, coordinated, approach to promoting a Canadian post-secondary education to the world.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada has just released the 2009 preliminary immigration numbers. See CIC, Facts and Figures 2009 . The overall total number of immigrants to Canada grew by only 5,000 from 247,246 in 2008 to 252,124 in 2009, however, 4,600 (92%) of that growth occurred in the West— specifically in the prairie provinces. While immigration to BC slipped about 2,500 from 2008, Alberta gained almost 3,000, Manitoba 2,300 and Saskatchewan 2,000. Together, the four western provinces received 88,846 new immigrants in 2009.

The table shows that the West has now caught up with Ontario in terms of receiving the same share of immigration relative to total population at 0.8% of population in 2009. In fact, BC and Manitoba now receive higher proportions of immigration than does Ontario.

It is encouraging to note that, more and more, immigrants are recognizing that the jobs and opportunities of Canada’s West make it an ideal destination.

Posted By: Robert Vineberg

On May 4th, the House of Commons Committee on Citizenship and Immigration opened its hearings on Bill C-11, intended to streamline Canada’s refugee determination process. Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, Jason Kenny, was the first witness and he defended the provision in the Bill that would allow him to designate countries as “safe.” Refugee claimants from a country designated as safe could still have their hearing but would not be able to appeal the result. Given that there have been recent refugee claims against such obviously democratic countries as the United Kingdom, Germany and the United States, some claims are clearly frivolous and are designed only to allow a claimant time to work in Canada while his or her claim is heard. Therefore, having a list of countries or parts of countries designated as safe makes great sense.

The Bill proposes a new Paragraph 109.1 (1) stating that, “The Minister may, by order … designate a country or part of a country or a class of nationals of a country if, in the Minister’s opinion, they meet the criteria established by the regulations.” And new Paragraph 109.1 (4) would provide that, “The regulations may govern matters relating to the application of this section and may include provisions establishing the criteria to be applied and the process to be followed with respect to a designation made under subsection (1).”

The problem is that the regulations will be promulgated only after the legislation is approved by Parliament. Therefore, we do not know the criteria to be applied in defining a “safe” country. The ability to exclude someone from the refugee determination process is a reasonable exercise of authority to limit abuse of Canada’s very generous refugee regime. However, if the power is abused by including, on the list, countries that do produce some genuine refugees or by including countries due to political or diplomatic pressures to designate a country as safe, this provision could call into question the legitimacy of Canada’s entire refugee system. Minister Kenney assured the committee that the process to designate safe countries will be “fair, objective, transparent and reported to Parliament”.

Parliament is right to question the Minister on his intentions and while a “safe country list” is needed, Parliament needs ensure that there is a mechanism to guarantee this process is indeed totally objective and free from interference.

Posted By: Robert Vineberg

On March 30, 2010, Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, Jason Kenney, introduced long overdue reforms to the refugee determination process in Canada (Bill C-11).

In its famous 1985 “Singh Decision,” the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the paper process for refugee determination, then in place, did not provide the opportunity for an oral presentation by the claimant and this constituted a denial of Charter rights. This was a wise decision as the old process gave claimants no opportunity to state their case and to know the Minister’s case against them.

In response, the Federal Government created the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) and provided that all refugee claimants in Canada would have an in-person hearing before a panel of members of the Immigration and Refugee Board. These members are Governor-in-Council or political appointees. The Government reaction was an over-reaction because the process soon became bogged down by the sheer volume of claimants.

The problem was that legitimate refugees had to wait in line with all the bogus claims, resulting in waits of up to five years for a decision. The Supreme Court decision only required that claimants being refused would be entitled to an oral hearing. There should have been a faster process to deal with legitimate claims.

Later reforms have reduced waiting periods to the current 19 months and the new proposals aim to conclude refugee determination within 60 days. However, it is unclear how new cases can be dealt with in this time period.

The Government’s “backgrounder” on the reforms states that “individuals who are determined to be eligible to make an asylum claim would meet with a public servant at the IRB within only eight days of being referred to the IRB. During this information-gathering interview, information on the claim would be collected, forms properly completed and a hearing scheduled before another public servant at the IRB within 60 days.”

The problem with this new proposed process is that the IRB is not in a position to meet these time standards. It only has offices in Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver and while the bulk of refugee claimants are in those three cities, at the end of 2008, over 4600 claimants were living outside of Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia. The largest number of these claimants is in Alberta but there are over 100 claimants in every province except Newfoundland and PEI.

These claimants should be treated in the same way as claimants where the IRB has offices but they will either have to wait for an IRB officer to visit their city or they will be expected to travel to an IRB office, at their own expense or, perhaps, make their all-important claim by video conference. This is not satisfactory and not equitable.

Meanwhile, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) has some thirty offices from St. John’s to Victoria to Yellowknife.

If public servants with the IRB are going to make the initial refugee determination, why not give this responsibility to public servants with CIC? After all, CIC officers overseas already do refugee selection abroad. CIC has the network of offices and trained officers in every major community in Canada.

If this plan is to work, the government should amend Bill C-11 to provide that CIC officers make the initial refugee determination in Canada with the IRB having responsibility to hear appeals, as is the case for all other immigrant decisions. It will also eliminate the possibility of conflict of interest in IRB appeal decisions.

Will the IRB members, at appeal, be more likely to overturn a decision made by a CIC officer, who they do not know, or that of an IRB officer with whom they work closely?

Clearly, assigning responsibility for the initial refugee determination decision to CIC is the more cost effective and the fairer way to implement these important refugee reforms.

Posted By: Robert Vineberg

On March 9, Statistics Canada released a report entitled Projections of the Diversity of the Canadian Population 2006 to 2031.

This report is understandably making news but there is nothing in it that is really all that new.  When the Diefenbaker government removed most restrictions to immigration on the basis of origin in 1962 and the Pearson Government eliminated all such discrimination in 1967, the Canada of today was a foregone conclusion.  These farsighted decisions, taken half a century ago, have led directly to the great diversity of the Canada of today.

However, as Canada opened its doors to people of all origins and all colours, it was felt that we needed to measure this phenomenon and the concept of ‘visible minority’ was born.  Its legal definition is found in Section 3 of the Employment Equity Act:

“members of visible minorities” means persons, other than aboriginal peoples, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour.

I do not dispute the fact that there is still a need for employment equity programs but let’s come up with a more respectful and less divisive description of those who may need those programs.  The ‘visible minority’ concept may have made sense when there were relatively few “non-white” people in Canada, apart from the aboriginal peoples.  However now it seems quite presumptuous for “whites” to lump everyone who is “non-white” into the same grouping.  The people of the world are blessed with a wide range of skin colours and those who live in Canada now reflect every colour and every hue.  “White” is only one of many.

So, before we arrive at the point of having to deal with the ludicrous oxymoron of a “visible minority majority” let’s abandon this term that is becoming more and more irrelevant and, possibly, insulting to the very people it was designed to help.  We no longer are debating if Canada will become a diverse society.  It has become a very diverse society, particularly in its urban areas.  The challenge now is to ensure that Canada is a welcoming society and provides everyone with equal opportunities to achieve his or her potential.

Currents 2010 V3 March Print

Posted By: Robert Vineberg

In 1999, during the Pan American Games in Winnipeg, the political cartoonist of the Winnipeg Free Press drew a cartoon depicting the pictographs for major sports.  It included the symbols for seven real sports and added a new one: a runner carrying a suitcase.  He labeled it “defections.”

Making a refugee claim during a major sporting event is not a new phenomenon in Canada.  There have been spectators and participants who have made refugee claims at the Pan Am Games in Winnipeg in 1967 and, again, in 1999; at the Calgary Winter Olympics in 1988, at the Victoria Commonwealth Games in 1994 and at the Francophone Games, hosted by Ottawa and Hull in 2001.  Citizenship and Immigration Canada and Canada Border Service Agency officials plan for the likelihood of claims being made and have procedures in place to deal with such cases.

So the news that four people who came to Canada, ostensibly to watch the Vancouver Olympics, have made refugee claims should not come as a shock to anyone.  Canada is an exceedingly attractive country to most people in the world and the opportunity to come to Canada is an opportunity to try to stay.

The Immigration and Refugee Board reports that some thirty six thousand refugee claims were filed in 2008-09.  Given the thousands of athletes and officials and hundreds of thousands of visitors to the Olympics, it is almost a statistical certainty that some refugee claims would be made.  Some might be legitimate and others may not be.

It is the job of the Immigration and Refugee Board to decide which are well-founded claims and which are not and due process will take its course.  As a signatory to the United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, Canada is generally obliged to hear all refugee claims made within her territory.

Some may say, we should keep all potential claimants out of Canada, but that is an impossible task, unless we close our border to all visitors and never hold an international sporting event.  Indeed, Section 53 of the Olympic Charter requires countries to accept the Olympic identity and accreditation card as “a document which establishes the identity of its holder and confers upon the latter the right to take part in the Olympic Games.

Together with a passport or other official travel documents of the holder, the Olympic identity and accreditation card authorises entry into the country of the host city.  It allows the holder to stay and perform his Olympic function for the duration of the Olympic Games, including a period not exceeding one month before and one month after the Olympic Games.”

So the price of holding the Olympics is allowing the International Olympic Committee to decide which athletes and officials come into Canada for a period of up to two months.  If a few of the participants or visiting spectators make a refugee claim, let’s not get too excited about it.

They are really paying Canada the ultimate compliment!

Posted By: Robert Vineberg

Do you remember the not-so-long-ago good times, when all western Canadians had to worry about was sustaining long-term growth?  An aging workforce, the pending skill shortages and underemployment were the headline issues just 18 months ago.  How things change.  These issues haven’t gone away, but there is nothing like an economic downturn to focus us on the here and now problems and hope the future will take care of itself.

So it’s not surprising if you have missed hearing about an important little agreement that might go along way to stabilizing Canada’s future workforce needs, particularly across the West.  At the end of November, the federal government, provinces and territories agreed to a Pan-Canadian Framework for the Assessment and Recognition of Foreign Qualifications. Take notice, as this may be the long awaited breakthrough that will start to make credential recognition faster and easier.

Inside the Framework
The stated goal of the Framework is to “articulate a new, joint vision for governments to take concerted action to improve the integration of immigrants and other internationally-trained workers into the Canadian labour market.”

The Framework is merely a statement and is not a legal document.  However it is the first government commitment to improve qualification assessment and recognition practices across Canada.  The Framework commits governments to develop a fair, transparent, timely and consistent qualification recognition process.  The fairness criteria will be crucial to the success or failure of the system.  They are:

• Standards must be objective, reasonable and bias-free.
• Methods for assessment must be not only necessary but also sufficient for determining whether occupational standards are met.
• Canadians and internationally-trained applicants must be treated equally respecting requirements to be met.
• Assessment results have to include a clear explanation for the decision.
• Assessment processes must be efficient and avoid duplication, particularly where multiple assessments are required by different authorities.

For those whose credentials are not recognized, skills upgrading has to be available if they are close to meeting requirements and guidance on employment in related occupations has to be in place if they have no chance of qualifying.

Timeliness is also crucial. The stated goal of rendering decisions within one year of application will be a vast improvement over most situations that exist today.

Priority will be placed on regulated occupations and this is appropriate because this is where the biggest obstacles lie.  The first goal is to implement the Framework for Architects, Engineers, Financial Auditors and Accountants, Medical Laboratory Technologists, Occupational Therapists, Pharmacists, Physiotherapists and Registered Nurses by December 31, 2010.  By December 2012, a second group of occupations consisting of Dentists, Engineering Technicians, Licensed Practical Nurses, Medical Radiation Technologists, Physicians and Teachers (K-12) is to be added.

Filling the Holes
Western provinces will face shortages of skilled workers in the coming years and immigrants can and should fill many of these expected vacancies given a better system of credential recognition.  For far too long, many skilled immigrants who have chosen Canada arrived here only to find that Canadian institutions chose to ignore the contribution they wanted to make to this country.  Thanks to this Framework the first step toward resolving a waste of talent has been taken.

Posted By: Robert Vineberg

Following the devastating Indonesian earthquake and tsunami in 2004, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) moved quickly to expedite applications of Family Class applicants – those with close family members already in Canada – who had been seriously and personally affected by the disaster. Also, Canada waived all the processing fees for these applicants. I fully expect Canada to do the same for Haiti.

And, given that Canada is so much closer to Haiti and daily military flights will be going back and forth for the foreseeable future, we also have the potential to bring these people to Canada quickly, once Canadian citizens have been evacuated.

Officials at the Canadian Embassy in Port-au-Prince, of course, face the same obstacles as others in returning operations to some sort of normalcy, but they have the advantage of all the resources in Canada to support them and to bring in additional immigration staff to speed processing.

The majority of Haitian-Canadians live in the Montreal area, but there are small communities in western Canadian cities and provincial governments should also volunteer financial or other assistance to their residents of Haitian origin to help them bring their relatives Canada. All the western provinces have Provincial Nominee Agreements with CIC that allow the provinces to select immigrants to meet regional needs. They should encourage applications from Haiti, via their relatives in Canada, and waive all fees and financial requirements associated with those applications.

Given that it is estimated that fully one-third of Haiti’s nine million people have been affected by the earthquake, the proportional scale of this disaster is overwhelming and unprecedented. Canada has a long association with Haiti and our large relief effort should be matched by a large and generous immigration relief response as well.

Posted By: Robert Vineberg