Nick Noorani Website

On July 3, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Diane Finley announced that consultations would be held across all territories and provinces to assess Canada’s immigration priorities. The consultations are in direct response to the hotly debated changes to the country’s immigration legislation under the controversial Budget Bill C-50.
Giving Minister Finley the authority to hand down instructions on how potential newcomers are prioritized and selected for approval to immigrate to Canada, many have questioned just what Bill C-50 what this will mean for applicants trying to enter the country and our core democratic values at large.
Karolina Rous
July 08, 2008

In response to the announcement of the consultations, founder and publisher of Canadian Immigrant, Naeem “Nick” Noorani, spoke with anchor Marci Ien on set at Canada AM on July 7 in Vancouver to share his views and opinions on these consultations and what they will mean for potential immigrants and Canada’s immigration policies at large.
The consultations are aimed at identifying critical areas of occupational shortage in various work sectors. The department will consult with each province and territory, which will be represented by key stakeholders; business, academic and labour professionals and organizations; and both non-government and government representatives, respectively.
As Noorani explained to Ien, “According to CIC, and I quote here ‘Representatives from business, labour, academic and non-government organizations will be invited to these sessions.’ Given the fact that the consultations are not open to the public, what will make the difference is who will be invited to attend.”
“If it is filled with one-sided people, it will be quite farcical and could have the optic of being a pre-election gimmick.”
Elaborating on the direction he thinks the consultations should take, Noorani suggests that government bring in immigrants based on labour requirements.
“Our point system does not allow unskilled labourers access, and thus they come in through temporary employment,” he stated.
“Temporary workers are not a long-term solution to our labour needs. With an aging baby boomer population and declining birthrates, we should have more immigration — not less!” Additionally, temporary labour sends income to home countries and the benefits to the host country are meagre.
When asked about what Bill C-50 will mean for people trying to immigrate to Canada, Noorani stated that “The most dangerous aspect of the Bill is something all Canadians should be concerned about — not just those interested in immigration — and that is that this Bill subverts the democratic system we subscribe to, whereby decisions are made by an individual and not in Parliament thereby leaving it more subjective and open to bias.”
“My concern is that this government is putting more emphasis on temporary workers than on immigrants and that is, in my opinion, a band-aid approach. We need to work on long-term strategies in order to ensure our population is able to fund our social programs as we age!”
When asked about what he felt could be done to reduce wait lines, Noorani had this to say: “We need to increase the number of processing officers and create an unskilled labour category within the immigration framework.”
http://www.canadianimmigrant.ca/settlingincanada/politicsadvocacy/article/1217