Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
| Picture Credit score: Reuters
Canada is additional lowering the variety of examine permits it’ll grant to overseas college students and tightening eligibility for work permits in a bid to chop down on the variety of short-term residents within the nation, the federal government mentioned on Wednesday (September 18, 2024). The announcement comes as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal authorities, trailing within the public opinion polls and coming off a significant by-election loss this week, seeks to scale back the variety of short-term residents – together with worldwide college students and overseas employees — within the nation.
The problem has change into some of the contentious in Canadian politics with a federal election due no later than October, 2025.
Additionally Learn | Research permits for Indian college students in Canada dropped because of dispute: Immigration Minister
The modifications introduced on Wednesday would scale back the variety of worldwide examine permits issued to 437,000 in 2025. Canada accepted 509,390 in 2023, in response to immigration division information, and 175,920 within the first seven months of 2024.
The modifications would additionally restrict work allow eligibility for spouses of some college students and short-term overseas employees.
As Canada sees a spike within the variety of refugee claimants, the federal government mentioned Wednesday it deliberate to assessment measures to strengthen visa integrity and was “reviewing visa decision-making in order that our extremely educated officers have the appropriate instruments to detect fraud and cut back the variety of non-genuine guests.”
“The fact is that not everybody who desires to come back to Canada will be capable of—identical to not everybody who desires to remain in Canada will be capable of,” Immigration Minister Marc Miller mentioned in a press release.
The federal government has already pledged to scale back the variety of short-term residents to five% of the full inhabitants. It was 6.8% in April. Canada’s short-term overseas employee program has come beneath hearth for being, within the phrases of a damning United Nations report, “a breeding floor for modern types of slavery” — language Miller known as “inflammatory.”
“The Ministers made no point out not even as soon as about employees’ rights, as an alternative persevering with to obsess about numbers and cuts,” Syed Hussan, government director of the Migrant Employees Alliance for Change, mentioned in a press release.
“Lowering the numbers of migrants is not going to cease their exploitation; giving them equal rights and the facility to train these rights will – and that’s solely attainable by way of everlasting resident standing for all.” Economist and Atkinson Fellow on the Way forward for Employees Armine Yalnizyan mentioned she was upset Wednesday’s announcement didn’t embody a plan to transition migrants from short-term standing to everlasting.
“These usually are not short-term jobs. Why aren’t we facilitating permanence for these individuals?” she requested.
“We aren’t going to develop economically with out extra newcomers. So we have to be very clear on what the longer term path is.” Migrants have been blamed for societal issues together with an absence of inexpensive housing and ramped-up value of dwelling, at the same time as post-pandemic inflation slowed to the Financial institution of Canada’s goal of two% yearly in August.
Immigrant advocates and a few economists argue the hyperlink between migrants and financial malaise is an oversimplification, and that weak newcomers can’t be held accountable for complicated financial issues. Polls have proven a rising slice of the general public thinks Canada is bringing in too many immigrants, and anti-migrant rhetoric and assaults have risen in Canada, as soon as famend for its welcoming stance towards newcomers. Nonetheless, after years of accelerating Canada’s ranks of short-term residents, its federal authorities is in search of to drag again.
In January, the federal government positioned a two-year cap on worldwide college students, whose approvals are projected to lower by nearly half this 12 months. Earlier this month, the federal government walked again 2022 expansions to the short-term overseas employee program. In some sectors, it decreased the utmost share of any employer’s workforce that may be made up of low-wage, short-term overseas employees. It additionally ended, in some sectors, low-wage short-term overseas employees in communities with excessive unemployment charges.
Printed – September 19, 2024 09:41 am IST
