Abolishing the immigrant applications backlog is a slap in the face of Canada’s fundamental values

(Gabriel Yiu) I wrote this article on July 1 when we’re all supposed to be celebrating Canada.

In regard to the Conservative government’s decision to abolish the 105,491 skilled worker immigrant applications (each applications could have more than one person) which have been waiting in line for eight years, I feel ashamed and frustrated. What the Conservatives have done flies in the face of the spirit of contractual and procedural justice. It is against the values that Canadians cherish: compassion, justness and fairness. It also undermines Canada’s international integrity and reputation.

Canada is built up by immigrants and we open our door to people around the world, beckoning them to join us. The federal government sets the rules and requirements for selecting those who want to immigrate to Canada. Our rules are impartial and non-discriminatory because irrespective of the applicants' origin, skin color, religion, sex or sexual orientation, once they meet our set criteria, the government will accept their application.

The skilled worker immigrant applications which are going to be abolished come from those who applied in and before February 2008 (some as early as 2004). These people filed their applications according to the rules and requirements set by Canada. When they submitted their applications, they were promised that their applications would be examined within 24-30 months. They waited year after year and when they inquired about their applications at our foreign consulate or embassy, our representatives there reaffirmed Canada’s commitment to assess their files. The applicants were asked to be patient.

When Jason Kenney became immigration minister in 2008, he declared that he would deal with the huge application backlog. He put the blame for the backlog on the former Liberal government and at the same time established a new skilled worker immigration category to solicit applications. He suspended the processing of the applications filed before 2008 under the old system. Seeing the unusual practice, the immigrant backloggers asked our consulate staff whether they should follow the new system to re-file their application but the reply they got was, “No, your application will be processed. Please be patient.”

Until March 29th this year, in response to the queries about the status of their application, the Canadian Consulate General in Hong Kong replied with the assurance that the applications were not forgotten. They would be processed according to the rules in place when they were submitted, and urged the applicants to be patient.

Then the Conservatives tabled a legislation to abolish the pre-2008 skilled worker immigration applications as a way to resolve the accumulated backlog.

Instead of blaming the Liberals, the Conservatives must bear the biggest responsibility. First, it was their decision to suspend the processing of the pre-2008 skilled worker applications and therefore to let the new applications jump the queue.

Second, if we take a look at the numbers in the skilled worker application inventory and cases our immigration department has processed in recent years, we can see that the government has the capacity to resolve the backlog problem, provided the minister has the will to do it.

Number of Federal Skilled Worker Files Finalized

2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011
79,447	70,900	72,326	114,549	93,242	57,253

Federal Skilled Worker Inventory, 6 January 2012

2004 to 26 Feb '08	27 Feb '08 to 25 Jun '10	26 Jun '10 to 30 Jun '11	1 Jul '11 to 6 Jan '12	Total
105,491	43,994	9,371	5,495	164,351

If the Conservative government had maintained the level of processing witnessed in the year 2009 in recent years, they would have cleared the entire backlog already. It is unfortunate that the minister’s will was only shown during the 2009 election. Once the Conservatives formed the majority government, the processing numbers dropped. The latest announcement is that the government would stop processing all the skilled worker and investor classes of immigration applications.

In order to deal with the backlog issue, rather than refunding the application fees, the government should use the fund (estimated at over $100 million) to increase the staff to process the accumulated applications. It’s unfortunate that Conservatives did not look for a decent honourable way out.

It appeared that the Conservatives had been planning to abolish the backlog for quite some time. In 2008, the government legislated to change the word “shall” to “may” in terms of processing immigration applications, plus granting the power to the minister to shelve, destroy and return the applications and thus opening the door for abolishing the pre-2008 applications. The Conservatives waited until they formed the majority government to implement their plan. Under the recently passed Bill C-58, the government further removed the right of applicants to appeal their case in court.

The Conservatives might choose to pass a law forbidding the victims to appeal their case in court, but like the head tax and the Chinese or East Indian exclusion acts in the past, these discriminatory laws may not be subject to legal ramifications, but an act that violates the contractual spirit, fairness and justice would be subject to condemnation by history.

Since many of these backloggers filed their applications with the assistance of professional immigration consultants, they knew their case met the requirements and they have been preparing to migrate to Canada. Many people put aside their career and business opportunities (when your superior knows that you’re going to immigrate, he/she will pass you in favour of someone else if they want to promote one staff member.) There are even cases of women waiting to get to Canada before they will give birth; they have waited for eight years.

Like us immigrants who have settled in Canada, the backloggers are from different parts of the world (with a large proportion in China and India). They yearn for the Canadian way of life; they appreciate our democratic, free and just society. They have faith in our country and trusted that Canada would act according to its set rules, commitment and principle. They waited year after year, but in the end, their applications and dreams are tossed to the garbage bin.

The Conservatives' abolition act destroyed the dreams of some 105,491 applicants and their family members at one fell swoop. It also tarnished Canada's international reputation and integrity which it has taken years for successive governments to build up.