Immigration

IN PARLIAMENT: VIDEO - Speak to support Bill C-242, the Reuniting Families Act

The heart of the issue of Bill C-242 is reuniting families. It is about ensuring that parents and grandparents can come to Canada to be with their loved ones. We know the value of that and cherish it as individuals. Like other people with children, I value the moments that my daughter and son spend with their grandmother and grandfather. Of course, my parents are immigrants here, so they get to enjoy that, but so many newcomers, so many immigrants who come to this country, are not in that fortunate situation. They did not bring their parents and grandparents here to Canada, and they cannot enjoy those moments. What Bill C-242 is trying to do is facilitate a process for those families to be reunited through the super visa process.
The super visa process is already in place, and the bill before us seeks to enhance it by addressing the high cost of the issue with respect to insurance coverage particularly, and then extending the period to which parents and grandparents can come to Canada under a super visa.

Interestingly, and because of petty politics, in my view, after the bill was tabled, we saw the government, through committee, literally in the ninth hour, bring forward ministerial instructions to try to kill the bill, which is exactly what happened. Despite government members saying that they have advocated for this for a very long time, the reality is that they did not act on it. I remember, because back in 2015 as a new member of Parliament, this was one of the issues that we studied. We studied parents and grandparents reunification, and there was a whole host of recommendations that were tabled, but then it just sat on a shelf and nothing happened. I express my congratulations to the member for actually pushing the government in this regard and getting this done.

With that being said, I do think there are flaws within the bill. Of course, my first choice would be for the government to lift the cap on parents and grandparents reunification so that all those family members could seek permanent residence status here in Canada in an expeditious way. Now, that did not happen.

IN THE NEWS: Hill Times - Immigration Minister Fraser takes heat for ‘short-sighted’ approached to processing backlogs

“Those people have already missed the boat with respect to that processing standard,” Kwan concluded. “And they’re going to probably get another problem because soon people will come back and say, ‘how come the newer applicants got processed before me?’” Kwan called it a “short-sighted way of dealing with the situation.”

“They’re trying to create this perception that they are somehow on top of things, when in fact, frankly, they’re not. And the system remains opaque. There’s a lack of transparency, and lack of accountability,” she said.

IN THE NEWS: G&M - Canada aims to welcome 432,000 immigrants in 2022 as part of three-year plan to fill labour gaps

NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan urged the government to introduce special immigration levels to give the 500,000 migrant workers already in Canada a path to settlement and help address the labour-skill shortage.

IN THE NEWS: New Canadian Media - Canada eyes 1.3 million immigrants to overcome labour pains

Jenny Kwan, the Vancouver East MP, who also acts as the NDP Immigration Critic, said the government is actually scaling back the Federal Skilled Workers Program by almost 50 per cent by shifting resources and immigration levels from one stream to another. 

“The immigration levels released today shows that the government is perpetuating the problems they created when they failed to adjust the levels to accommodate the new (temporary to permanent resident pathway) immigration measure,” she said.

IN THE NEWS: Hill Times - Public policies in place for Afghan refugees are being kept private

NDP MP Jenny Kwan (Vancouver East, B.C.), her party’s immigration critic, said she’s never seen an instance of the government not sharing information in terms of a policy that impacts the public. She understands that specific details about which groups the government might be working with or what their strategy is on the ground in Afghanistan needs to be kept private for security purposes. 

“But if there is flexibility with the current situation then we need to know what is that flexibility and how would it apply? Because at this stage, we don’t know. We’re all shooting in the dark,” she said. 

MEDIA STATEMENT - Jenny’s response to minister announcement on immigration procesing delays

Additionally, I am concerned that the Minister seems to be satisfied with the processing of family reunification applications. The backlog for outbound family reunification applications are significantly delayed, including the reunification of children of asylum seekers. ​For these refugee families, the current wait times ​in processing now reach upwards of two to three years for dependents of refugee, far from any processing service standards.

IN THE NEWS: CTV - Immigration procesing times to return to standard in 2022: minister

Jenny Kwan, NDP immigration critic, said while she is glad to hear the government is finally taking action to address the immigration backlog, these problems have existed for a very long time.

In an interview, she noted that Fraser excluded the need to address family reunification with respect to the backlogs.

The minister needs to create service standards for all industries and not only some, she said, adding that applicants in the caregiver stream do not receive timelines for processing their application.

IN THE NEWS: Hill Times - Confusion and chaos define Canada’s effort to resettle Afghan refugees

NDP MP Jenny Kwan (Vancouver East, B.C.), her party’s immigration critic, told The HillTimes that, despite having an awareness of what was to come in Afghanistan, the Canadian government did not adequately prepare. 

“The situation has been chaotic right from the get-go,” she said. 

IN THE NEWS: Toronto Star - Applicants to Canada’s skilled-worker immigration program will soon face 36-month wait times, documents reveal

NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan said the skilled worker program is an important immigration stream for Canada and the current pause “will not only put people’s lives in limbo, but result in missed opportunities for Canada, risking that applicants may choose to emigrate to another country that recognizes their talent and experience.”

“Failing to address the backlogs will ultimately create more work for immigration as documents expire and the circumstances of applicants change. It will also fuel additional inquiries by applicants because they are concerned about a lack of progress in their applications. All of this serves only to further tie up the department’s resources.”

IN THE NEWS: Hill Times - ‘In a perfect storm right now’: labour supply, record immigration complicate daunting housing supply problem, say experts

NDP MP Jenny Kwan (Vancouver East, B.C.) , her party’s housing critic, said that in terms of immigration, “the people who may be coming, would be a range of different people.”
“Some of them are already here who are working hard already to support the Canadian economy in a variety of ways, some of them are renters, some of them are trying to get into the market, and some of them may have the capacity to own,” said Kwan.

“What we absolutely need to do is to ensure that we provide housing in the full spectrum, and if we don’t, all that is going to do is put upward pressure on the demand for affordable housing,” said the MP in an interview with The Hill Times last week.