Rules to Reduce Canadian Immigration Backlogs Approved

Bill C-50 passed a final vote and was approved in a "confidence vote" Monday evening, permitting the minority Conservative government to include the changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act by including them in a larger budget implementation. As a minority government, the Conservative Party made the Bill a confidence issue, meaning that defeating it in the House of Commons would have toppled the government, forcing an election shortly afterwards. Although some opposition exists to some of the new rules, as discussed here in earlier posts, NDP and Liberal opponents were not prepared to create an election scenario immediately.

The changes in the rules will help to reduce the backlogs which are causing tremendous delays for those Skilled Workers that the Canadian labour market so desperately needs at this time. Provisions will permit the Minister of Immigration to specify the categories of cases which most benefit the labour market and to facilitate the processing of those cases.

Although no opponents to the changes question the need to reduce the backlogs, which are rapidly approaching 1 million people, its critics question the transparency of the process. Canada's Minister of Immigration and the Conservative government have responded with numerous problems that the rules will be implemented in a fair and transparent fashion.