By Vernon Daley, Staff Reporter
HUNDREDS OF Jamaicans applying to emigrate to Canada are likely to be turned down under new immigration rules set to be implemented by next year June.
On Tuesday, the Canadian Naturali-sation and Immigration Department released a detailed package of proposed regulations to flesh out a new immigration law which was passed last month. The legislation introduces a new points system that will shut the door on many independent immigrants, unless they have very close family in Canada and a job offer.
Rene Mercier, senior spokesman for the Canadian immigration department, told The Gleaner yesterday that the changes became necessary because over the last few years there has been a decline in the quality of immigrants arriving on Canadian shores.
"Many of them have not been as successful as they used to be," he said.
According to him, there is a deliberate attempt by immigration authorities to attract people who were flexible and capable of adapting to the changes brought on by free trade and intense global competition.
With economists estimating that a person will have to change his job at least six times during his working life, Mr. Mercier said immigration authorities had to ensure that the immigrants they were taking could survive in a changing work environment.
A report commissioned by the City of Toronto last year showed more than 50 per cent of Jamaicans living in Canada are living below the poverty line. About eight per cent of them are university graduates. Eighteen per cent between ages 25 to 64 are unemployed, with over 55 per cent of men in low-skilled jobs.
An average of 2,300 Jamaicans have emigrated to Canada each year over the last three years. They are split into two categories: independent immigrants who are selected for their skills according to a points system and family-class immigrants who are sponsored by family members already living in Canada. These persons don't have to go through the points grid.
However, under the new system the pass mark for independent applicants will be 80 points out of 100, up from 70 points out of 100 under the old system. This will slash the number of Jamaican and other immigrants who make it into Canada each year.
The new system puts more emphasis on education, language skills, work experience and such ties to Canada as having family in the country as well as job offer. It also eliminates the old practice of giving points to certain occupations.
The new rules which will apply retroactively, have been greeted by harsh criticism from some sections of Canadian society. The Canadian Bar Association which represents Canada's lawyers reacted strongly to the proposed rules.
"The Government is basically going to wipe out hundreds of thousands of applications and keep the money," Ben Trister, head of the immigration section of the Bar Association was quoted as saying on Tuesday. He suggested that the real motive behind the move was an attempt by the immigration department to cull its backlog of more than 500,000 applications by rejecting many of them.
According to the Bar Association, the new rules set a much higher threshold that will reject a large number of applicants who would have been qualified under the old system.
