A Liberal MP on the immigration committee is sponsoring a petition that demands the government fast-track permanent residency and federal aid for temporary residents. Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel Garner is calling for the Liberals to be transparent about their plan for the over three million temporary residents in Canada.
Liberal MP Amandeep Sodhi has sponsored a petition to the House of Commons, calling for “realistic pathways” to permanent residency for “hundreds of thousands of temporary residents,” including international students and foreign workers, as first reported by Blacklocks Reporter.
The petition also asks the government to fund “dedicated guidance and community support programs” for temporary residents “facing status insecurity and distress.”
It asks the federal government to “prioritize the needs and futures of temporary residents” already living in Canada over increasing new immigration and to “publicly recognize” that temporary residents are “not to blame” for challenges in Canada’s economy and social systems.
“Despite the recent immigration levels plan, government messaging remains vague and inconsistent: Canada must provide clear timelines and realistic pathways to permanence for those who have already demonstrated their commitment to this country,” the petition reads.
Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel Garner told True North she is concerned the government will try to solve the backlogged immigration system by “rubber-stamping” those waiting for approval or rejection. She noted there are still many unknowns regarding the Liberal government’s immigration levels plan.
“Any sort of message that the Liberals might send that just rubber stamping through what could be hundreds of thousands of claims would certainly not reduce the incentives for people to abuse the system,” Rempel Garner said in an interview. “But it would also further erode people’s confidence that the immigration system is fair, or that the levels that the Liberals, are bringing in could ever be sustainable.”
She argued the Liberals have allowed unsustainable numbers of temporary residents with work permits into the country over the last several years.
“Unsustainable in terms of housing, healthcare and jobs, being able to support the numbers that they brought in, which you can’t right now,” Rempel Garner said. “There are over three million temporary residents in the country, which is over seven per cent of Canada’s population right now, which is far higher than the less than two per cent that number was 10 years ago.”
Rempel Garner wants Sodhi to explain how the Liberals plan to provide enough housing, healthcare, and jobs for migrants before discussing fast-tracking the over three million temporary residents currently residing in Canada on expired or other visas.
Sodhi did not respond to True North’s requests for comment.
During a series of committee meetings this year, Conservative MPs on both the immigration and health committees were repeatedly told that the federal government failed to consult healthcare experts on the impact of the Liberals’ immigration levels on healthcare, social services, and housing.
“Even the number of new temporary residents that the Liberals put in their most recent immigration levels forecast doesn’t take into account that there are three million people in the country that they have no plan to get to leave when their visa expires,” Rempel Garner said.
She noted that the Conservatives have called for the abolition of the temporary foreign worker program but said the glaring issue is that the Liberals “don’t have a plan” to remove people whose visas are set to expire or have expired, as the feds repeatedly said they expect those individuals to leave Canada on their own volition.
“We’ve called for the abolition of the temporary foreign worker program. Still there. We’re in the middle of a youth jobs crisis. They still don’t have a plan to remove people who are non-citizens who have expired visas or visas that are about to expire from the country,” she said. “There are already (an estimated) 500,000 people in Canada who are undocumented, and the thing is, without that plan, what does that mean for their levels forecast?”
The federal budget projects that the feds will welcome 2.2 million new immigrants from both temporary and permanent streams in the next three years. If the government agreed with this petition, it could mean that all those new immigrants could potentially become permanent residents, in addition to the three million temporary residents already in Canada.
Rempel Garner also highlighted record-high youth unemployment, noting that the Liberals continue to bring in temporary residents on work permits to fill jobs that young Canadians could fill.
Conservative MP Jamil Jivani has noted at several “Restore the North” free speech events, which are hosted on campuses, that Conservatives are looking at how they can address the International Mobility Program, which, unlike the temporary foreign worker program, does not require Canadian businesses to prove that a Canadian was unavailable for the job.
Rempel Garner said she doesn’t believe the Liberals understand their own “unsustainable levels” and haven’t shown that they have made substantive policy announcements to make the immigration system “fair” again.