ARCHIVED – Annual Report to Parliament on Immigration, 2010

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Message from the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism

I am pleased to present the Annual Report to Parliament on Immigration 2010.

Canada has a proud tradition of welcoming newcomers from around the world, and immigration has made an important contribution to the building of our country. In 2009, while other countries scaled back immigration during tough economic times, we maintained historically high immigration levels, attracting more than a quarter of a million permanent residents as we began to recover from the downturn.

The year 2009 was the first full year of operation of the Action Plan for Faster Immigration, which allows new federal skilled worker applications to be assessed according to Canada’s labour market needs. This Action Plan is paying off: as of March 31, 2010, the overall inventory of federal skilled worker applications has been reduced by 16 percent, and processing times have improved, with the majority of new applications processed in six to 12 months.

In order to support our economy as it continues to recover from the downturn, we adjusted Canada’s immigration plan for 2010 to increase economic immigration and help ensure employers have the workers they need to supplement our domestic labour supply. In 2010, we will again welcome more than a quarter of a million permanent residents from all over the world. In fact, admissions will likely be at the upper end of the range of 240,000 to 265,000, allowing more immigrants in the economic category than originally planned. In 2011, we intend to welcome between 240,000 and 265,000 permanent residents.

We maintained our commitment to family reunification, introducing special immigration measures that allowed families affected by the January earthquake in Haiti to be reunited in Canada through early admissions and priority processing measures.

We also continued to uphold our long-standing and proud humanitarian tradition by offering protection in Canada to more than 22,000 refugees in 2009, including more than 12,000 refugees resettled from abroad. Working with the international community, we resettled close to a thousand Bhutanese in 2009 as part of our multi-year commitment to bring to Canada up to 5,000 Bhutanese refugees who have been living in United Nations camps in Nepal. In response to ongoing appeals for additional resettlement support to the displaced Iraqi population, we resettled more than 4,000 Iraqi refugees last year.

In addition, we pursued reforms to improve Canada’s asylum system, culminating in the introduction in March 2010, and subsequent passage into law in June 2010, of the Balanced Refugee Reform Act. The Act’s implementation will mean faster protection for those who truly need it and faster removals of those who do not. The Government has also made significant progress since 2009 in filling vacancies on the Immigration and Refugee Board. As a result, the Board has been above 95 percent of its full complement since November 2009.

In partnership with provinces and territories, we launched the Pan-Canadian Framework for the Assessment and Recognition of Foreign Qualifications, which will improve the recognition of foreign credentials and facilitate the integration of internationally trained newcomers into the Canadian labour market. In continuing to advance our foreign credential recognition efforts overseas, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) will assume responsibility for the delivery of in-person orientation services, under the Canadian Immigration Integration Project, in India, China and the Philippines starting in October 2010, and in the United Kingdom in 2011.

Enhancements to language training and other settlement programs will also help newcomers settle in Canada and participate fully in all aspects of Canadian society. We launched a pilot project to test whether directly receiving a language training voucher raises awareness and uptake of language training by eligible newcomers. We also re-issued the Welcome to Canada publication and began substantial revisions and updates to the settlement information provided to newcomers.

In addition, we sought to increase civic memory and participation, promote a sense of belonging to Canada, and strengthen the value and meaning of Canadian citizenship. To help achieve these objectives, we introduced Discover Canada, our popular new citizenship study guide with content and an associated knowledge test that focus on Canadian history, institutions and values, as well as the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.

In 2009, we also put in place new objectives for the Multiculturalism Program: building an integrated, socially cohesive society; improving the responsiveness of institutions to the needs of a diverse population; and actively engaging in discussions on multiculturalism at the international level. The new focus of the program emphasizes fostering intercultural understanding, citizenship, civic memory and pride, respect for core democratic values grounded in history, and equal opportunity for all Canadians.

These efforts demonstrate our ongoing commitment to meeting Canada’s immigration needs, upholding Canada’s humanitarian tradition, and building an integrated society by helping newcomers settle and succeed.

I want to thank everyone at CIC for helping make these and other achievements possible. Together, we are building Canada’s future prosperity by welcoming industrious, talented and hardworking newcomers who share our dream of a true north strong and free.

For more information on CIC and the work we are undertaking, please visit our website at www.cic.gc.ca.

The Honourable Jason Kenney, PC, MP
Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism

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