Harper stands up for new Canadians
[Harper stands up for new Canadians
03 October 2005
In their latest pre-election plan, the Liberals suggested increasing Canada's immigration levels by 100,000 per year a move that even Liberal MPs are criticizing.
• There are over 600,000 people in the immigration backlog. Liberal mismanagement of the immigration process means that it can now take years to process routine immigration applications.
• Media reports suggest that the federal government is now proposing to actually meet its 1993 Red Book promise that yearly immigration numbers would equal at least one per cent of the population, some time before 2010. The Liberal’s have failed to meet their 1993 Red Book promise of 1% for 12 years. How can they be trusted now?
• Every year, thousands of skilled doctors, teachers, engineers and specialists are prevented from achieving their full potential by practicing the trades and professions they were trained for.
• Hundreds of thousands of New Canadians are currently under-employed due to the Liberal’s failure to implement a national plan for recognizing foreign credentials.
• According to a Statistics Canada study, six in 10 newcomers are working in fields unrelated to their training. Fully 70 per cent of the 164,000 immigrants who settled in 2000 and 2001 had difficulty finding work.
The Conservative Party believes that it is premature to debate levels when fundamental flaws in the system have yet to be corrected. Until problems in the immigration application and settlement processes are fixed backlogs will increase and immigrants will continue to be poorly served.
A Conservative government will stand up for New Canadians. We will implement a national program for recognition of foreign credentials, and this program will be designed to meet Canada's needs, not those of the Liberal Party.
For more information on the Conservative Party’s immigration policies visit
www.cpcimmigration.ca
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Phoney Liberal Immigration Rhetoric
04 November 2005
Conservative Party has real plan to help Immigrants
Ottawa ? Rahim Jaffer, Member of Parliament for Edmonton Strathcona today condemned the continuing phoney rhetoric of Liberal Immigration Minister Joe Volpe’s most recent campaign musings about the Conservative Party’s plan to help immigrants.
“It is unfortunate that the Liberals have resorted to unsubstantiated personal attacks. Minister Volpe knows he failed to be accountable and has instead chosen to use gutter-style rhetoric in the lead-up to the election,” said Jaffer. “Mr. Volpe is more concerned about playing partisan games than getting real results and substantive help for newcomers. The Conservative Party is committed to holding the government accountable when spending taxpayers’ money.”
On Tuesday, Jaffer and other members of the Citizenship and Immigration Committee asked the minister to clarify government plans as part of their due diligence before approving Supplementary Estimates. The Minister failed to provide the Committee with specifics and provide any substantive framework for real solutions. Conservative members were therefore not willing to give him a blank cheque. At Thursday’s Committee meeting, Conservative MPs kept their commitment to newcomers and motioned to reinstate the Supplementary Estimates if Joe Volpe returned to the Committee to answer questions in a clear and concise manner.
“Despite Liberal spin, the Conservative Party seeks to ensure that newcomers and potential immigrants are served well by the Government of Canada,” continued Mr. Jaffer. “We are seeking to ensure that the government remains committed to providing real solutions for improving the immigration system. Until problems in the immigration application and settlement processes are fixed, backlogs will increase and newcomers will continue to miss out on opportunities in Canada.”
At its policy convention in Montreal, the Conservative Party passed a number of strongly-supported motions outlining a fair plan for newcomers and their families and to ensure that Canada receives the full benefit of immigration.
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