A People’s Party government will:
• Substantially lower the total number of immigrants and refugees Canada accepts every year, from 350,000 to between 100,000 and 150,000, depending on economic and other circumstances.
• Reform the immigration point system and the related programs to accept a larger proportion of economic immigrants with the right skills.
• Accept fewer resettled refugees (see Refugees policy) and limit the number of immigrants accepted under the family reunification program, including abolishing the program for parents and grand-parents.
• Limit the number of temporary foreign workers and make sure that they fulfil temporary positions and do not compete unfairly with Canadian workers.
• Change the law to make birth tourism illegal.
• Ensure that every candidate for immigration undergoes a face-to-face interview and answers a series of specific questions to assess the extent to which they align with Canadian values and societal norms (see Canadian Identity policy).
• Increase resources for CSIS, the RCMP, and Canadian Immigration and Citizenship to do interviews and thorough background checks on all classes of immigrants.
• Moving the technological infrastructure of immigration online and recording all interactions between immigration officers and applicants to help ensure oversight, fairness, and accountability.
• Introducing technology to speed application vetting by immigration officers.
• Increasing cultural awareness training and using remote meeting technology to match applicants with immigration officers who best understand the cultural context of the applicant.
• Letting applicants correct simple and honest mistakes in an application within a set amount of time.
° Currently, if a person makes an error in an application, the application is rejected, and the person is required to re-submit the application entirely.
— Canada's Recovery Plan, retrieved 2021-08-18
Reduce processing times that have been impacted by COVID-19 to under 12 months.
Introduce electronic applications for family reunification.
Implement a program to issue visas to spouses and children abroad while they wait for the processing of their permanent residency application, so that families can be together sooner.
— Forward. For Everyone., retrieved 2021-09-02
1. Update the citizenship guidebook
● Update the citizenship guidebook to include a more accurate history of Canada and Turtle Island that includes the harms of residential schools and the Indian Act.
2. Address all forms of hate and xenophobia in all aspects of settlement in Canada
● Address xenophobia in all aspects of settlement, including temporary visa liberalization, issuing of temporary permits (study, work, visit, etc.) and family reunification (including increasing capacity for family sponsorship and revision of adoption processes)
— Be Daring., retrieved 2021-09-11
Introduce exceptions for permanent residency and citizenship application costs based on household income (for many refugees, the $1,000 application fee for citizenship is unaffordable).
— Be Daring., retrieved 2021-09-11
One area this task force will study is credential pre-qualification – allowing people in other countries to acquire Canadian-standard proficiency through accredited institutions overseas or distance learning with Canadian institutions.
— Canada's Recovery Plan, retrieved 2021-08-18
● Review and update accreditation policies and licensing programs to better and more accurately reflect the current needs of our Canadian society.
● Collaborate with accreditation institutions in Canada to recognize foreign training and education.
● Allocate greater funding to provide training language skills, employment skills. and accreditation recognition for any newcomer legally eligible to work in Canada.
● Create incentives for employers to hire newcomers and refugee claimants.
— Be Daring., retrieved 2021-09-11
A People’s Party government will:
• Accept fewer resettled refugees (see also Immigration policy).
• Take every measure necessary, in partnership with our American neighbours, to stop the flow of illegal migrants at the US-Canadian border.
• Declare the whole border an official port of entry for the purposes of refugee claims to send back to the US anyone trying to enter Canada illegally.
• Fence off the areas where illegal border jumping is prevalent, such as Roxham Road in Quebec.
• Rely on private sponsorships instead of having the government pay for all the costs of resettling refugees in Canada.
• Stop our reliance on the United Nations for refugee selection.
• Give priority to refugees belonging to persecuted groups who have nowhere to go in neighbouring countries. For example: Christian, Yazidis, and members of other minority religions in majority Muslim countries; members of the Ahmadi community, and other Muslims in these countries who are persecuted because they reject political Islam and adhere to Western values; and members of sexual minorities.
• Take Canada out of the UN’s Global Compact for Migration.
• Replace public, government-assisted refugee places with more private and joint sponsorship places. All refugees arriving in Canada will do so under private or joint sponsorship programs, with exceptions in cases of emergency or specific programs (such as the human rights defenders program discussed below).
° This does not mean a reduced financial commitment to refugee sponsorship or lower overall numbers of protected persons. It means that public dollars will be directed through joint sponsorship programs where newcomers benefit from community support and the better outcomes associated with private sponsorship.
° Moving from “private” and “public” sponsorship streams to “private” and “joint” sponsorship streams ensures every refugee family arriving in Canada will do so with a group of dedicated and motivated Canadians, ready to make them feel welcome.
° This also ensures that private sponsors will not always have to bear the full costs of sponsorship, allowing them to help more refugees.
• These changes will revolutionize the experience of compassionate organizations conducting private refugee sponsorship. Sponsors will spend more time helping people in distress with more government support and less government hassle.
When it comes to financial allocations for joint sponsorships, Conservatives will prioritize the following categories:
• Support delivered to the most vulnerable.
• Support delivered through sponsorship agreement holders with a demonstrable track record of successfully integrating refugees.
• Support delivered through a new, specialized, “human rights defender” stream, welcoming human rights advocates such as notable Hong Kong protestors who are particularly vulnerable in their home country as a result of their willingness to stand up for the rights of others.
Canada’s Conservatives have a proud record of assisting the world’s most vulnerable refugees, including our pioneering assistance to LGBTQ+ people, especially from Iran, who would otherwise face a death sentence.
• Canada’s Conservatives will make the Rainbow Refugee Assistance Project a permanent government program. We will work with LGBTQ+ organizations in Canada to encourage and facilitate greater participation by these organizations in refugee sponsorship, and we will lead a global network of free countries to assist the world’s persecuted sexual minorities.
— Canada's Recovery Plan, retrieved 2021-08-18
• Allow private sponsorship of the most vulnerable victims of persecution directly from their country of origin.
• Work with Canadian communities to create a specific program to allow direct private sponsorship of persecuted religious and sexual minorities.
— Canada's Recovery Plan, retrieved 2021-08-18
Build on the Economic Mobility Pathways Pilot and work with employers and communities across Canada to welcome 2,000 skilled refugees to fill labour shortages in in-demand sectors such as health care.
— Forward. For Everyone., retrieved 2021-09-02
● Increase support for parent and grandparent sponsorship by IRCC by increasing the number of accepted applications and decreasing processing times.
● Review adoption bans from Muslim majority countries so that adoptive parents can remain together through their immigration process, as well as allowing adoption from these countries by Canadian citizens.
● Lower barriers for convention refugees to reunite with their children and bring them to Canada by making the process more accessible
● Remove visa requirements for most parents visiting their children - including international students, temporary workers, Canadian citizens and convention refugees.
— Be Daring., retrieved 2021-09-11
● Introduce exceptions for permanent residency and citizenship application costs based on household income (for many refugees, the $1,000 application fee for citizenship is unaffordable).
— Be Daring., retrieved 2021-09-11
● Develop safe strategies for temporary foreign workers and whistle blowers to report abusive employers without losing their status.
— Be Daring., retrieved 2021-09-11
• Allow family members of Canadians to come and live in Canada for up to five years without permanent status, renewing their stay for additional time, where appropriate, provided that they purchase health insurance.
• Allow those coming to Canada on a super visa to purchase health insurance from the government of their province or territory on a cost-recovery basis where the provincial or territorial government wishes to offer this option.
— Canada's Recovery Plan, retrieved 2021-08-18
Implement a program to issue visas to spouses and children abroad while they wait for the processing of their permanent residency application, so that families can be together sooner.
— Forward. For Everyone., retrieved 2021-09-02
Remove visa requirements for most parents visiting their children - including international students, temporary workers, Canadian citizens and convention refugees.
— Be Daring., retrieved 2021-09-11