Report claims Canada favour temporary workers to permanent residents

A new report reveals that Canada’s immigration programme shows a clear preference for brining in temporary workers rather than permanent residents.

“Immigration, which is the idea of immigrants coming to Canada, having permanent residency, eventually becoming citizens, does not exist in Canada,” said Harsha Walia, a co-author of the report entitled Never Home: Legislating Discrimination in Canadian Immigration. “There are more people who come on temporary permits than those who immigrate permanently. Even those who do immigrate permanently have what’s increasingly becoming conditional permanent residency,” she added, citing changes which allow a sponsored spouse to lose permanent residence if the relationship ends within two years as an example.

The report noted that the number of temporary residents entering Canada exceeded the number of permanent residents for the first time in 2008.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada figures for 2013 show that 279,565 temporary workers came to Canada (not including foreign students or visitors), while in the same year, the country welcomed 258,953 permanent residents.

However, the report’s allegation that the current Canadian government is looking to completely replace permanent residents with temporary ones was strongly refuted by the country’s former Immigration Minister, Jason Kenney.

“When they dishonestly claim that we have displaced permanent residency migration with temporary residency, they are, as with everything, lying,” he said. “The average annual number of permanent residents admitted to Canada since the Conservative government took office has been close to 260,000, which is a record high, the highest sustained level in our history.”