Liberal accuses: Getting into Canada Harder for Some Immigrants

by Barry Artiste | February 11, 2008 at 06:33 am

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Liberal Member of Parliament accused the Conservative Government of Discrimination over it's immigration wait times policy where Immigrants from China are processed faster (4 months) in coming to Canada, yet is a year and a half for the former Soviet Union. The Conservatives counter they inherited the failed backlog from the former Liberal Government.

What the Conservative government hesitated to mention is for decades under Liberal Government Rule the Canadian Immigrant Processing in China was rife with corruption as Immigration officials would hired local Chinese citizens to assist in the immigration process. Corruption by some Canadian Immigration officials in the taking of bribes was quite common by some Canada Immigration personnel by Chinese Nationals and Canadian Officals may explain one reason why the Immigration process was so expediant. This not to mention Liberal politicians whose election chances were hedged in ethnically favoured regions such as British Columbia and Ontario, so it was a given to get as many votes in these regions as possible in what some saw By Hook or by Crook.

It should be noted Canada Immigration routinely hire foreign nationals in host countries the world over to assist in everything from processing to translation to immigrants who wish to immigrate to Canada. Certainly there will be room for corruption and bribery by both the criminal element and immigrants wishing to seek a better life in Canada.

Of course this Liberal MP and Liberal Opposition not wanting to bring up their own past failures on Immigration should keep their festering yap shut, lest the Conservative Government start opining on the decades old Liberal corruption in China and their Canada Immigration Policies.

Immigration wait times have surged more than 20% since 2004, according to statistics released by the political opposition in Ottawa.

The figures also reveal great disparities in the way Canada processes applications from one country to the next.

Some groups of immigrants are forced to wait a staggering 2,300% longer than others depending on where they're from and what immigration category they fall under.

A dependent child whose file is dealt with by Canadian officials in Beijing, Seoul or Ankara, for instance, has an 80% per cent chance of being processed within four months. But a child's average wait time is 13 months in Singapore, 19 months in Guatemala and 34 months in Cairo.

Similar disparities occur in the skilled workers category.

A skilled worker could expect to be processed within 14 months in Lima and 15 months in Paris but would likely wait up to 71 months in Kiev.

LIBERALS' FAULT

"There's no excuse for discrimination," said Liberal MP Jim Karygiannis.

"Why are we not looking at people as people? ... Things should move at the same length of time -- whether it's from Greece, from Europe, from south Asia, or from China," he said.

Karygiannis obtained the figures from Citizenship and Immigration Canada through the Access to Information Act.

The Conservative government did not dispute the figures.

But the Tories say they inherited the problem upon taking office in early 2006 after years of Liberal rule.

They say they found themselves having to deal with an 800,000-person backlog that had swelled from 50,000 over the course of the Liberals' years in office.

A spokesman for Immigration Minister Diane Finley said the government has responded by pouring its resources into priority categories -- especially family reunification.