Just-in-time immigration system imminent: lawyer

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney meets with his provincial counterparts this week in Toronto.

OTTAWA — Wait times for immigration are dropping dramatically, according to an analysis by leading Canadian immigration lawyer Richard Kurland who says Canada is now very close to a first-come-first-served, merit-based, just-in-time immigration system if not for the provincial nominee program.

He’s urging Immigration Minister Jason Kenney and his provincial counterparts to agree to a cap on the number of applications the provinces approve each year when they meet in Toronto on Friday. That would ensure the federal government doesn’t end up with a processing backlog since there is a limit to the number of individuals that are allowed into each province under this program.

“Once that happens that PNP and the feds are on the same dance step, immigration processing in Canada is going to be about as controversial as a driver’s license application,” Kurland said, adding it wouldn’t surprise him if all were in place just before the next election.

“The pilot of the supertanker has already sent in the instructions for just-in-time inventory, the ship is turning in that direction and they should hit port in another 12-18 months. Mission accomplished.”

Meanwhile, some provinces will be asking the federal government to raise their cap on annual intake levels. The distribution of funding for settlement services — of which Ontario now gets a smaller share — and a new initiative that will allow provinces to cherry pick immigrants from the backlog are also likely to top Friday’s agenda.

The PNP is supposed to grant permanent residency within a year to newcomers willing to fill labour gaps in specific parts of the country. But according to Kurland’s analysis, some immigrants applying through PNP this year will have to wait more than three years for their papers, despite the fact that many are already in Canada on work visas and therefore beholden to their current employer for better or worse.

Globally, average wait times for PNP rose to 16 months from 11. Wait times were significantly longer for applicants from London, Hong Kong, Islamabad, Damascus and Nairobi.

“The federal data is showing that what was promised is not being delivered by the provinces because they have not capped their intake,” Kurland said.

“The two have to act in concert, get their act together and agree on an amount that PNP will deliver in a year and that (Citizenship and Immigration) will process in a year.”

The figures, compiled from CIC data, compare wait times in 2009 and wait times in 2012 — after the government enacted legislation allowing it to throw out some 280,000 applications from skilled workers and their dependents.

Average global wait times across all immigration streams from economic immigrants, to family class, to refugees remained stable at a little over two years. Regionally, however, some of the busiest intake offices made “major service improvements” that resulted in significant reductions in processing times, Kurland said.

For example, New Delhi reduced average wait times from 58  months to 24, while Singapore cut wait times from 46 months to 26 months. They went up, however, in Hong Kong to 38 months from 26.

The skilled worker category, which represented a big chunk of the overall backlog before the pre-2008 applications were eliminated, has already been reduced to eight months this year from 60 in 2009.

He expects wait times to really plummet once immigration officials get through the remaining skilled worker backlog and the parent and grandparent backlog, which should be easier since the government has issued a moratorium on new applications in both categories.

Global wait times for spousal sponsorship, however, rose to 16 months from 13 with significantly longer wait times in places like Islamabad and Singapore. Kurland attributes this to increased efforts to combat marriage fraud.

As for Friday’s meeting, Saskatchewan Minister of Economy Bill Boyd has one main thing on his wish list. He wants to be able to accept 6,000 newcomers through PNP as opposed to the current 4,000, and thinks provinces that don’t reach their quota should fork over their allotment to provinces like his.

“We have a significant labour shortage in Saskatchewan,” he said, adding the region desperately needs customers service reps as well as skilled tradespeople and engineers and has demonstrated much success attracting people from places like the Philippines, Ukraine, Ireland and South Africa.

“We feel we’re in a good position to make the argument that Saskatchewan could easily take more immigrants and we can match them with a job based on our track record.”

Kenney has argued that the provinces don’t need more space, they just need to manage the space they have better. Too many dependents and individuals who qualify under other federal programs, he’s argued, are coming in through provincial programs, thereby taking up space that’s supposed to be for workers.

Boys said that’s not the case in Alberta as the province has taken steps to limit, for example, the number of family members who can be sponsored.