Immigration Canada

fields a question from a community member at the All Candidates Forum at McKenzie Lake Community Centre in Calgary's Southeast on January 14th, 2006. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Nicholas Keung
Immigration Reporter

Ottawa has suffered a major setback in eliminating its immigration backlog after the federal court ruled the government is obliged to process all applications it accepted into the system.

About 900 applicants under the federal skilled workers’ program sued Immigration Minister Jason Kenney for violating the pledge to assess and finalize decisions in a timely fashion.

They asked the court to order the immigration department to process their applications within a reasonable time frame.

In a decision released Thursday, Justice Donald Rennie rejected the minister’s argument that the delay is justified because he has the authority to make policies.

“The minister can set instructions that permit him to return some applications without processing them at all, and thus obviously there is no further duty in respect of those applications,” the judge wrote in a 24-page decision.

“However, for those that are determined eligible for processing, the duty to do so in a reasonably timely manner remains.”

In February 2008, the law was changed to give Kenney authority to issue ministerial instructions regarding which applications would be eligible for processing and to remove the obligation to process each application received.

As a result, the litigants argued, their applications were “warehoused” in a lengthy backlog from five to nine years.

Despite the new measure, the court said Ottawa still failed to finalize a file within the six and 12 months Kenney promised — the first ministerial applications have been outstanding between 24 and 52 months.

Immigration has until Oct. 14 to finalize the application of the case’s lead litigant, an IT project manager in China.

Although the court falls short on making an order for all 900 applicants, Thursday’s decision sets the stage for the prompt processing of the other litigants.

“So long as the applicants are not to blame for the delay, a fair application of Justice Rennie’s ruling would require Ottawa to finalize their applications by October 14,” said their lawyer, Tim Leahy.

The decision is final because the court refused the minister’s request for appeal, added Leahy. The next step is for opposing counsels to determine how to proceed with the remaining cases.

Citizenship@MaRS (Photo credit: mars_discovery_district)

Peter O'Neil, Postmedia News

OTTAWA — Immigrants who work in ethnic “enclaves” in major cities earn less than other Canadians and have a tougher time adapting to this country’s economy, according to an internal federal government document.

“Studies found that enclaves have a negative impact on the earnings growth for male and female immigrants,” says a report obtained under the Access to Information Act by immigration lawyer Richard Kurland.

The point was included in a federal report prepared in early 2011 to assess minimum language standards for immigrants brought to Canada under the “provincial nominee” (PN) program.

The report focused on concerns within Citizenship and Immigration Canada about the ability of program nominees in some provinces to speak one of Canada’s two official languages.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney recently acted on those concerns, announcing in April that program applicants in semi- and low-skilled jobs will be required to meet minimum language standards in English or French starting July 1.

More than 38,000 workers and their families came to Canada in 2011 under the program, which has become hugely popular with provincial governments seeking to meet severe labour shortages.

The report obtained by Kurland cited research showing that immigrants who can speak English or French adequately have earnings comparable to their Canadian-born counterparts.

But those who don’t speak an official language struggle in the labour force and often end up working in “enclave” immigrant communities in major cities.

The report said the number of immigrants working in a non-official language jumped 14 per cent between 2001 and 2006, involving 611,000 people.

Roughly one in six immigrants “only” used a non-official language and of this group, close to 60 per cent indicated they couldn’t conduct a conversation in English or French.

“While some researchers point to the possibility of such immigrants becoming employed in an ethnically sheltered (enclave) economy, several recent studies have shown that there are many disadvantages to doing this,” according to the report.

Several studies, for instance, showed that jobs in these enclaves are mostly in the lower-paying service industries, and taking those jobs can put the employee in a rut.

“Exposure to one’s group reduces the accumulation of skills specific to the host country’s labour market, decreases the knowledge of the local native language and impedes immigrants’ economic progress,” the report said.

The report also found that workers who speak little or no English or French face greater risks in terms of occupational health and safety, since they tend to be in physically demanding occupations and may be unaware of their rights.

Language proficiency also plays a critical role in the social integration of immigrants and their young children, it said. “It has a direct relationship with newcomers’ ability to settle, adapt and integrate into Canadian society.”

A federal government-funded 2009 research paper by University of British Columbia geography professor Daniel Hiebert, which looked at immigrant enclaves in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal, said those areas have higher unemployment levels and that residents are “slightly” more dependent on government transfers.