Liberals sit out as Tory changes to immigration act pass final Commons vote

Bruce Cheadle, THE CANADIAN PRESS
OTTAWA - Controversial changes to Canada's immigration act passed their final hurdle in the House of Commons on Monday evening.

The changes, which were larded into a financial bill by the minority Conservative government, permit Immigration Minister Diane Finley to fast-track skilled immigrants of her choosing, while making it more difficult for others to get in.

The government will also be able to limit the number of applications Canada looks at in any given year.

"I'm absolutely delighted," Finley said as she left the Commons.

Conservatives say the measures are needed to speed up the migration of critically needed labour into Canada while reducing a massive backlog of applications.

Critics say the measures put too much discretionary power in the hands of the minister, reduce transparency and leave the system open to abuse.

All three opposition parties, representing a majority of elected parliamentarians, are sharply critically of the changes - but enough Liberals absented themselves from the House that the vote easily passed 120-90.

The only way to stop the immigration changes would have been to kill the budget implementation bill, topple Stephen Harper's minority government and spark a summer election campaign, something Liberal Leader Stephane Dion said he's not prepared to do at this time.

Liberal MPs have been left telling unhappy supporters that they'll reverse the immigration changes once they're elected into government.

"Obviously there's frustration, we recognize that," Liberal MP Navdeep Bains said Monday.

"It's a tough one for me," said fellow Toronto-area MP Jim Karygiannis after the vote, which saw only about a dozen Liberals in the House.

NDP Leader Jack Layton said the Liberals missed a historic opportunity to stop a woefully misguided policy change.

"The government is treating these immigrants as economic units to have the economic value squeezed out of them and then be sent back home," said Layton.

"That's not how we built this country successfully and we shouldn't start now."

The rule change applies to those seeking a Canadian home after Feb. 28 or March 1 this year, but not to the more than 900,000 would-be immigrants currently waiting in the queue.

Finley said the budget bill gives "extra resources to deal with the backlog because, by law, the backlog has to be processed under the old rules."

The selection criteria remains murky, but Finley said last month she'll base the processing of applications on input from the provinces, employers, organized labour and stakeholders.

"Once it gets through the Senate and gets royal assent, we'll be proceeding very rapidly," she said Monday.

NDP MP Olivia Chow said her last hope is that the Liberal-dominated Senate stalls final passage of the bill long enough for opposition to regroup in the fall.

"But I don't think they're going to do that," she said. "They're far too intimidated by the Harper Conservatives. Mr. Dion is running and hiding."

Critics such as the Canadian Bar Association have countered that the changes "could lead to an erosion of the rule of law - a principle whereby everyone, including governments, are subject to the law, and the law itself must be fair and free from the influence of arbitrary power."

The manner in which the legislative changes were made also meant that Parliament's citizenship and immigration committee didn't get to hear witnesses and debate the matter. Interested parties were instead directed to make their representations to the finance committee.

No amendments could be made by MPs, and the ultimate hammer of a confidence vote on the federal budget was used to browbeat the Liberals into accepting the immigration makeover.

"What you have through this bill is an insidious undermining of the democratic process by which a bill becomes law," immigration lawyer Amina Sherazee said this spring.

© The Canadian Press, 2008