DESPITE RECENT legislation aimed at raising the quality of independent immigrants, opportunities for immigration to Canada could increase as the country looks to develop its skilled working population away from the big cities.
Concerns had been raised that the new immigration law, formulated by the Canadian Naturalisation and Immigration Department, was a pre-cursor to a clamp -down on the number of workers making the trip north.
However, in an interview with the Toronto Star this week, Canada's Immigration Minister, Denis Coderre, indicated that an increase in immigration was more likely. "If we need a million skilled workers within five years, then we have to do something about it," he told the Canadian newspaper, indicating that the present immigration rate of 1% of the total population may not be sufficient. The current rate of immigration is around 250,000 a year.
If numbers are to be raised, he continued, it may be necessary to direct new immigrants away from the traditional immigrant destinations of Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal and into other areas. He envisaged a temporary work permit of three to five years in less popular areas for skilled workers with industry or provincial backing with the incentive of a permanent visa at the end of the contract.
According to Immigration Councillor at the Canadian High Commission in Kingston, Brian O'Connor, 5,853 temporary work permits were granted to Jamaicans through the Kingston office. However, 5,300 of those were under the Caribbean Seasonal Agricultural Workers' Programme, indicating that skilled Jamaican workers from other sectors struggle to make the grade.
O'Connor indicated that roughly 2,200 permanent visas are granted each year, 75% of which are family related applications.
Although he doubted that any new possibilities for work-related visas would be coming soon, O'Connor told The Gleaner yesterday that the prospect of working away from the main cities would not necessarily put people off.
"It is a long way from becoming policy, how to spread out newcomers has been an issue for years," he said. "But these new ideas may be an incentive for some people who may not qualify for permanent resident visas and who are prepared to work in, say Fort McMurray, Alberta."
Public Affairs Councillor at the Canadian High Commission, Robert Richard, dismissed the idea that there was a problem with the number of foreign residents in the bigger Canadian cities, attributing Coderre's new ideas as means to attract "highly qualified residents to the more eccentric parts of Canada."
He was also keen to emphasise that family related applications were unlikely to be affected by any changes to work-related applications.
Nonetheless, the shift towards raising the standard of skilled immigrants remains central to the Canadians' immigration drive and it is hardly surprising. As reported earlier in the year, the City of Toronto published a survey showing that 50 per cent of Jamaicans living in Canada are living below the poverty line, with over 55 per cent of men in low-skilled jobs.
