DEAR ALL PLEASE GO THROUGH THE BELOW TEXT, SPECIALLY THE HIGHLIGHTED PORTION.... MINISTER IS APPLYING THE NEW SELECTION GRID TO ALL PRE-JUNE APPLICANTS (INCLUDING PRE-JUNE 2010 ALSO).... ALARMING SITUATION FOR ALL OF US.....
There is still no decision on my motion, asking the Court to order CIC to honour our Agreement. However, yesterday the following occurred:
1. Justice Barnes called for a meeting with counsel involved in the 87.4 litigation for September 27th at 2pm. The agenda was not disclosed.
2. Justice Barnes set November 23rd and 30th for motion concerning certification for a class-action in challenging s. 87.4, the provision which closed the unassessed pre-BIll C-50 FSW files.
3. Lawrence Wong provided a copy of the Minister's May 17th answers to questions a Senate Parliamentary Committee put to him. The most salient Q's&A's are:
Senator Callbeck: Welcome, minister, and thank you for appearing. I want to ask about the Federal Skilled Worker Program and the backlog. The 300,000 applications that came in before February 27, 2008, will be sent back. Were any estimates made on how much it would have cost to bring in the resources to deal with these applicants?
Mr. Kenney: First, to make a correction, it is 100,000 applications, representing 300,000 individuals. [Note: The Minister's using "300,000 applicants" in order to exaggerate the size of the backlog even followed Parliament.]
To answer your question, yes, we know the resources that would be required to bring them in. If we were to bring them all in at once, this would mean moving our immigration plan from about 260,000 permanent residents to about 560,000. That would be unlikely to meet public support.
Alternatively, we could continue with caps on new applications over the next few years and seek to process the 100,000 in the Federal Skilled Worker Program backlog. However, we believe, based on current levels, that it would take us until about 2017 or 2018 to admit all those people and eliminate the backlog. The cost would be static, whatever our operational costs currently are. [Note: If CIC had processed FSW files at the same rate in 2010 and 2011 as it had in 2009, the backlog would have been eliminated. If it processed all the files on hand on 31 December 2011 at the 2011 rate, which was half of the 2009 rate, it would take 34 months to finalize them all -- per CIC's own statistics.]
Senator Callbeck: It certainly does not seem fair that people have applied and have been on the waiting list for years, and now they will get their applications back. I know they are getting their fee back, but they have been waiting for years.
What about the people who are on that list from March 1, 2008? Will they be judged under the new criteria of this Federal Skilled Worker Program?
Mr. Kenney: Yes. It is our intention to apply the new criteria, which we intend to develop this year, to those who are in the backlog in the inventory. For example, I intend to pre-publish this June a new points grid for the Federal Skilled Worker Program that would then come into effect later in the year, and it would be our intention to assess applicants who remain in the backlog against those new criteria that we think are more pertinent, which better assess the likelihood of people succeeding in the Canadian economy.
In terms of fairness, I would reiterate our view that it has been unfair to have all our skilled worker applicants waiting in the queue for seven or eight years. I do not want to be too partisan about this, but this is not a problem that developed in the last five years. When the current government came to office, we inherited a backlog in the immigration system of 840,000 people waiting for years to come to Canada. We are trying to move beyond that, as other developed countries have, so we can attract people more quickly with a higher ratio of their having jobs already lined up so that they have higher levels of employment and income.
Senator Callbeck: The new criteria for the Federal Skilled Worker Program has not been established yet.
Mr. Kenney: No, although we have been very transparent. We have had widespread consultations. While we have not published it, I can tell you it is our intention to raise the points allocated to younger workers, essentially, to focus more on younger applicants, higher levels of language proficiency for those hoping to come into regulated professions, higher points for people with pre-arranged employment, and higher points for people with Canadian as opposed to foreign work experience. We also intend to create a new skilled trades stream that will facilitate the admission into Canada of people who can work in skilled trades rather than just professions.
Senator Callbeck: Can the 300,000 that are getting their applications back after they have waited for years reapply under the new criteria?
Mr. Kenney: Yes.
Senator Callbeck: Will they be fast-tracked?
Mr. Kenney: No, with a qualifier. If any of them can obtain an offer of employment with a Canadian employer, they can go to the front of the line
right now, and they can in the new system as well.
Senator Callbeck: Anyone can go to the front of the line?
Mr. Kenney: Anyone who has a credible offer of employment right now. We limit the number of new applications currently to the Federal Skilled Worker Program to only 10,000 per year as part of our backlog reduction strategy. The exception is that people can get into that fast-track program to be admitted in less than a year if they have pre-arranged employment.
http://www.parl.gc.ca/content/sen/committee/411/SOCI/17EVB-49555-E.HTM
When I asked CIC's witness in our litigation whether CIC would apply the new criteria retrospectively, CIC's witness stated under oath that they would not do so. He said so one week after the Minister told Parliament the opposite. Justice Rennie believed the lie, stating in Liang:
[55] The applicants also argue that they have a legitimate expectation to have their applications processed based on the selection criteria in place when their applications were submitted. The applicants appear to want the Court to pre-emptively prevent the Minister to decide in the future to change the substantive basis on which the applications will be considered. However, there is absolutely no evidence that the Minister will begin applying the new criteria retrospectively. On the contrary, the Minister has made it clear that all applications are to be processed in accordance with the criteria in place at the time the applications were submitted. Thus, there is no evidentiary foundation on which this argument can be based.
The Minister's intention to apply the new selection criteria to "the backlog" will apply, not only to those who applied before 27 February 2008, but to everyone who will have applied up to the date he picks to introduce the new criteria.
