Liberals to reduce intake of workers, increase family and refugees in 2016

By Stephanie Levitz, The Canadian Press

OTTAWA – Refugee resettlement is driving a shift in Canada’s immigration plan for 2016 as the Liberal government seeks to admit record numbers of new permanent residents while backing away from a previous focus on skilled labour.

The Liberals are nearly doubling the number of humanitarian admissions, including tripling the number of spots for private sponsors, compared to the previous Conservative government, while also increasing available spaces in the family program compared to past years.

Increases in the two streams are driving the government’s maximum target for new permanent residents this year to 305,000, the highest in decades despite their planned decrease in economic immigration.

A maximum of 162,400 will be accepted, down about 24,000 people from last year’s high target, though it’s in line with the years before that.

Immigration Minister John McCallum said the plan is grounded in Canada’s tradition of being a welcoming and generous country.

“It outlines a significant shift in immigration policy towards reuniting more families, building our economy and upholding Canada’s humanitarian traditions to resettle refugees and offer protection to those in need,” McCallum told a news conference in Brampton, Ont.

The head of the sponsorship agreement holders association, which oversees the privately sponsored refugees program, said the overall increase in refugee intake is good news. Private sponsors will now have up to 18,000 spots, compared to 6,500 under the Tories. A total of 46,000 resettled refugees will be accepted overall.

Brian Dyck said he hopes it means the government is preparing to work though a backlog in private applications to sponsor refugees from Africa while also accepting applications for Syrians.

Private groups are also concerned about the caps the government is placing on where it will accept applications from. In previous years, there was no maximum for Syrians or Iraqis but it appears a cut-off will be set this year.

“There is a lot of frustration about the caps in the (sponsorship) community because we all get a lot of pressure from people to sponsor refugees from many populations and the interest in resettling Syrians through the (privately sponsored program) is growing as well,” he said in an email.

Meanwhile, Opposition critic Michelle Rempel said the decrease in the number of economic immigrants will be felt by provinces, even those with struggling economies like her home province of Alberta.

Immigration policy isn’t made for today but for the future, she said, and employers will need those skilled workers when things pick up.

“I think that what the government has failed to do today is explain how their immigration programs are going to affect the Canadian economy,” she said.

The Conservatives had introduced a new application system for economic immigrants last year called Express Entry that was supposed to get more skilled labour to Canada faster. McCallum said that system is now under review, as is the application processing system for other immigration streams like family reunification.

While the overall numbers in the family program are higher this year — up to 82,000 from a high of 68,000 under the Conservatives — there is still a massive existing backlog of cases. Existing backlogs are a problem in the caregiver program as well, and the government has cut spaces in that program this year a maximum of 22,000, down from 30,000 last year.

McCallum said the government intends to learn from the Syrian program when it comes to getting applications moving faster.

“If we can transfer the lessons learned from Syria to how to deal more quickly with caregivers and family class applications than we can make a lot of progress,” he said.

Follow @StephanieLevitz on Twitter

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