While it's premature and speculative to talk about what the outcome of the next federal election will be and how that will affect immigration in Canada, one thing it is helpful for is to get further insight into how the Canadian government works, generally speaking.
I wasn't aware about Bill C-24 until now, and while it seems like it is a difficult case to prove in front of a court, I can also see how easily weaponizable that Bill is. Intent is not something you can definitely prove and yet it is also not something you can definitely rule out. All it takes is suspicion from IRCC's perspective and that's it: you're in the spotlight. All it takes is a politician who has an agenda against immigrants and a good understanding of how the government works in order to apply it based on his/her view-point. Now having said that: even the bill about the current residency requirements for citizenship took about 2 years to pass and take effect, so a reasonable assumption is that any equivalent change in the opposite direction would take the same amount of time.
One thing that I find that left-leaning politicians don't do nearly enough is to document and explain how the current immigration system works to their audience, especially systems like Express Entry. There are citizens in Canada who genuinely believe that the current government is just bent on bringing millions of refugees from Syria so that they can mooch off the system. This is such a gross mis-representation, and one that Conservatives are all too happy to vocalize, and they cannot see that it's a tiny portion of immigrants, while the majority of immigrants who actually come here are originally as students who then get work permits or PR and finally citizenship. It's pretty shocking that they are so mis-informed but the symptom of mis-information is clearly there. They don't even know that there is a system called Express Entry which is a points-based system made to provide PR to people who are highly educated, highly skilled, young and who are already in Canada as students or workers with temporary status.
They (throughout this paragraph, "they" refers to those mis-informed people) don't see, for example, the amount of young people who come to Canada to do their undergraduate/graduate programs in Canadian universities. They also don't know that these students pay higher tuition fees due to being international students and in the case of international graduate students: don't benefit from research grants from organisms like NSERC to do their research. They don't know or realize that Express Entry is a system that was introduced to incentivize people to stay in Canada rather than going south of the border. They don't see that after completing their programs, if you give these students a work permit right after completing their University programs: these students can join the workforce and start paying taxes and contribute to the local economy. Those who are highly-skilled and are at the bleeding edge of technology in their field even take the time to go back to University to teach that to students. Green, NDP and Liberal politicians need to vocalize that and explain the rationale behind the current immigration policies (e.g. how Canada needs skilled immigrants, how it emphasizes on bringing people in while they are young, invest into them getting top-level education in Canadian universities and then give them a reasonable path way to PR and citizenship to incentivize them to stay and get the highest return from them as tax-payers and as educators/teachers for the future generation). I don't see any who do and I think that is a major mistake. Conservative politicians don't thrive with highly educated or skilled constituents because they will challenge them and call them out on policies that are not future-proof, they cater to a less forward-thinking constituency and that's a choice they seem happy to honour.
It's a healthy debate to determine what constitutes "enough" for getting a grant of citizenship. The current requirements about physical presence, language ability and showing that you pay your taxes seem fair, in my opinion. And the way IRCC applies them to judge citizenship applications also seems to be fair, even if there are large variances between how different offices work. Perhaps that is the reflection of the current Liberal government, which is generally fair when it comes to applying the rules.
I wasn't aware about Bill C-24 until now, and while it seems like it is a difficult case to prove in front of a court, I can also see how easily weaponizable that Bill is. Intent is not something you can definitely prove and yet it is also not something you can definitely rule out. All it takes is suspicion from IRCC's perspective and that's it: you're in the spotlight. All it takes is a politician who has an agenda against immigrants and a good understanding of how the government works in order to apply it based on his/her view-point. Now having said that: even the bill about the current residency requirements for citizenship took about 2 years to pass and take effect, so a reasonable assumption is that any equivalent change in the opposite direction would take the same amount of time.
One thing that I find that left-leaning politicians don't do nearly enough is to document and explain how the current immigration system works to their audience, especially systems like Express Entry. There are citizens in Canada who genuinely believe that the current government is just bent on bringing millions of refugees from Syria so that they can mooch off the system. This is such a gross mis-representation, and one that Conservatives are all too happy to vocalize, and they cannot see that it's a tiny portion of immigrants, while the majority of immigrants who actually come here are originally as students who then get work permits or PR and finally citizenship. It's pretty shocking that they are so mis-informed but the symptom of mis-information is clearly there. They don't even know that there is a system called Express Entry which is a points-based system made to provide PR to people who are highly educated, highly skilled, young and who are already in Canada as students or workers with temporary status.
They (throughout this paragraph, "they" refers to those mis-informed people) don't see, for example, the amount of young people who come to Canada to do their undergraduate/graduate programs in Canadian universities. They also don't know that these students pay higher tuition fees due to being international students and in the case of international graduate students: don't benefit from research grants from organisms like NSERC to do their research. They don't know or realize that Express Entry is a system that was introduced to incentivize people to stay in Canada rather than going south of the border. They don't see that after completing their programs, if you give these students a work permit right after completing their University programs: these students can join the workforce and start paying taxes and contribute to the local economy. Those who are highly-skilled and are at the bleeding edge of technology in their field even take the time to go back to University to teach that to students. Green, NDP and Liberal politicians need to vocalize that and explain the rationale behind the current immigration policies (e.g. how Canada needs skilled immigrants, how it emphasizes on bringing people in while they are young, invest into them getting top-level education in Canadian universities and then give them a reasonable path way to PR and citizenship to incentivize them to stay and get the highest return from them as tax-payers and as educators/teachers for the future generation). I don't see any who do and I think that is a major mistake. Conservative politicians don't thrive with highly educated or skilled constituents because they will challenge them and call them out on policies that are not future-proof, they cater to a less forward-thinking constituency and that's a choice they seem happy to honour.
It's a healthy debate to determine what constitutes "enough" for getting a grant of citizenship. The current requirements about physical presence, language ability and showing that you pay your taxes seem fair, in my opinion. And the way IRCC applies them to judge citizenship applications also seems to be fair, even if there are large variances between how different offices work. Perhaps that is the reflection of the current Liberal government, which is generally fair when it comes to applying the rules.
