ARCHIVED – Speaking notes for The Honourable Jason Kenney, P.C., M.P. Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism

At a news conference regarding the 2013 Immigration Levels for the Federal Skilled Worker Program, and the move toward a “just-in-time” immigration system

Toronto, Ontario
November 2, 2012

As delivered

Good morning, everyone. I’m delighted here today to make an important announcement about the future of immigration in Canada. As you know, immigration has always been a sustaining feature of our history and we continue to maintain our long tradition of openness and generosity.

Canada has welcomed about a quarter of a million new permanent residents each year since 2006, adding the equivalent of 0.8% of our population here through immigration, the highest per-capita level of immigration in the developed world. As I announced earlier this week, next year we’ll stay the course and maintain the highest sustained level of immigration in Canadian history to support economic growth.

For the seventh consecutive year we plan to admit between 240,000 and 265,000 new permanent residents to join us here in Canada. Despite these numbers, the fact remains that the demand to immigrate to Canada far exceeds the total number of immigrants we can accept each year according to our annual immigration plan. There are literally hundreds of millions, billions of people who would love to come to such a prosperous and free country and we can’t, as much as we would like, accommodate them all. There are practical limits.

This excess of demand to immigrate to Canada over our capacity to settle people has led to a large accumulation of backlogs in our immigration programs, as you know very well. In 2008, we reached a point where it was clear that we had to take action on the biggest backlog of all, that in the Federal Skilled Worker Program, our core economic immigration stream. Without any action that backlog would have grown even further to about a million people in that program alone by now, with wait times headed over a decade.

The system had become totally dysfunctional. It was broken and it was getting worse. Strong action was necessary. We provided that strong action starting in 2008-2009 with the Action Plan for Faster Immigration, where we’ve imposed limits on the number of new applications that we would receive. That had some success between 2008 and the earlier part of this year. We managed to cut the old skilled worker backlog in half, but the backlog was still too big and people were still waiting at the back of that lineup for years just for us to get a chance to look at their application to come to Canada.

That is why we took difficult but decisive action earlier this year through legislation to eliminate the largest portion of the remaining skilled worker backlog. As you know, we have returned or are in the process of returning some applications to some 280,000 individuals. Today I am pleased to announce to you that as a result of these difficult but necessary measures we are on the cusp of having eliminated the skilled worker backlog.

As of today, the skilled worker backlog stands at about 100,000 people. This compares to 640,000 four years ago. This is enormous progress. It is not very often that the Government manages to do things even faster than it promises. This paves the way for the fast and flexible immigration system that I have been speaking about for the past few months, a system that will do a much better job of connecting newcomers with the jobs that are available in Canada’s economy, like the jobs here at IBM.

There are employers right across the country, in every region and industry, who are facing skill shortages, even though we have too many unemployed Canadians. Where they cannot find Canadians to do that work we invite them to look abroad. Increasingly, the idea of our immigration system will be to match prospective immigrants with employers who need their precise skills. The newcomers arrive with a job already lined up, meaning they will have higher incomes, greater security, more certainty, greater confidence.

They will be able to work at their skill level rather than being underemployed, and they will most importantly realize their potential and contribute productively to our economy. We could not get to that fast system that matches employers with immigrants before they get to Canada unless and until we had eliminated this backlog, which we are now on the cusp of doing. We have now, as I say, substantially reduced that backlog, and I’m pleased to announce that the Federal Skilled Worker Program will continue to be our flagship immigration program.

It remains the single largest avenue for permanent immigration to Canada and, as such, next year we plan to welcome between 53,500 to 55,300 federal skilled workers, which includes their spouses and dependents. Combined with previous actions taken to manage the backlog, this means that by the end of next year we will be able to process new applications as they are received and aim to process them in less than a year instead of up to eight years, which was the situation in the past.

Practically, what does this boil down to? It means that when the applicants for the skilled worker program next year make their applications, we will be getting to their applications, making a decision and admitting them in a few months, certainly less than a year. That means their prospects of coming with pre-arranged employment are much, much higher.

As you know, next year we will also be implementing the new points grid for the skilled worker program which will place a heavier emphasis on younger immigrants, because our research tells us they tend to do better, on those skilled workers with higher levels of English or French language proficiency if they want to come into a regulated profession, for example.

We’ll also be creating a new skilled trades stream, which will have a lower benchmark for language proficiency. So that reflects the more flexible system that we are creating, and they will get more points for having a pre-arranged job in Canada or, of course, Canadian work experience.

Today’s announcement is complemented by what I announced two days ago, which is our expansion of the Canadian Experience Class. Next year, we plan to admit up to 10,000 new permanent residents through the Canadian Experience Class. The growth in that program is accommodated by a slight reduction in the projected intake of permanent residents under the skilled worker program.

Finally, all of this will allow us, by 2014, to move to the fundamental reform of our system which is the ‘Expression of Interest’ model. This is a system that was adopted by Australia and New Zealand in the past few years that has been extremely successful, creating a fast, flexible system that brings immigrants to higher levels of employment and income. We will have people making applications that are pre-qualified. Employers will then be able to identify their applications, do their research and offer them jobs if they’re qualified.

I think that means that companies like IBM will be able to draw on global talent through our immigration system much more quickly and efficiently. That’s good for the employers. That’s good for the immigrants. That’s good for Canada.

Ladies and gentlemen, at the end of the day, when newcomers succeed, Canada succeeds, and that’s why we are pursuing these important reforms, finally unshackling Canada from the outrageous backlogs and wait times of the past, finally moving to an immigration system that is flexible but that brings people more likely to find and keep good jobs and earn good incomes, contributing fully to our economy.

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