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A group that advocates for the rights of migrants is pushing for changes to a recently announced short-term immigration program, calling it unfair, exploitative and exclusionary.
Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino announced last month a new immigration pathway that will allow up to 90,000 essential workers and international graduates already in Canada to convert their temporary status to permanent status.
The program — which will begin accepting applications on Thursday — is a rare opportunity for low-wage, low-skilled workers to obtain permanent residency and, eventually, Canadian citizenship through an immigration system that normally prioritizes highly skilled workers.
But the Migrant Rights Network says a huge number of workers, students and recent graduates with temporary or no documented immigration status don’t meet the application requirements. The group says those who do qualify are scrambling to obtain the necessary language test results and other required documents as they compete for a limited number of first-come, first-served spots.
“Any belief that the program would finally ensure rights, protection and dignity, even for workers in low-waged work, has been short-lived,” the group wrote in a report released today.
“Refugees, undocumented people and hundreds of thousands of other migrants have realized that the program exclusions and requirements shut them out.”
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That criticism targets an initiative the Liberal government hopes will help it accept 401,000 new permanent residents — after a year when travel restrictions and a processing backlog caused by the pandemic slowed immigration significantly.
Canada welcomed 184,624 immigrants in 2020 — the lowest number for any year since 1998, according to Statistics Canada. The pre-pandemic target set by Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada for 2020 was 341,000 new immigrants.
Under the temporary pathway announced last month, the immigration department will take up to 20,000 applications for temporary workers in health care, 30,000 applications for temporary workers from a list of jobs deemed “essential” and 40,000 applications for international students.
Survey of migrants
When the program was announced, the Migrant Rights Network created an online tool to help migrants find out whether they qualified for the program. The tool also allowed them to share information about their personal immigration situations.
The group says over 3,000 migrants filled out the survey and it analyzed some of those results in its report, which is not scientific or nationally representative.
Many reported they don’t meet the qualification requirements for one of the following reasons: they’re undocumented because they overstayed a temporary visa or their work permit lapsed, they’re a refugee claimant, they’re an international student who hasn’t graduated yet, or they’re a temporary resident in Quebec.
Others don’t qualify because they have medical issues or past criminal convictions, or because they don’t have valid eligible language test results proving they are proficient in English.
“The federal government has created a short-term program for a few that excludes many,” Syed Hussan, executive director of Migrant Rights Network, told a press conference today. “What we need is permanent status for all.”
Syed Hussan is the executive director of the Migrant Rights Network. (Jason Viau/CBC)
The Migrant Rights Network’s survey also flagged a number of barriers faced by migrants who do qualify for the program — the difficulty involved in booking English language tests at one of two approved testing centres, for example.
A second barrier is the fact that many workers don’t have enough money saved up to pay high fees for a permanent residency application, or to pay immigration consultants and lawyers to help them navigate the system.
“Collectively, this means that people who do not speak English, people who don’t have good jobs, people who don’t have money, people who are stuck abroad, primarily low-wage, working class essential workers, are being pushed to the bottom of the line,” said Hussan.
He said that those who don’t have permanent status have limited access to labour rights, health care and education. He called on Mendicino to sit down with his group to make the program more accessible.
