ARCHIVED – Speaking notes for The Honourable Jason Kenney, P.C., M.P. Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism

Friends, I'm delighted to be here because, when I think of Surrey, you know I think of immigration. This is a community that has, for the past two or three decades, been one of the most important municipalities in the country in terms of receiving newcomers. Over the past five years, our government has been maintaining historic high levels of immigration to Canada, the highest sustained levels of immigration in our country's history, and the highest per capita levels of immigration in the developed world. At the same time, we've also been receiving one out of every ten resettled refugees worldwide. We receive more refugees per capita than any other developed country.

And so we are enhancing Canada's special identity as a land of opportunity for people from around the world, and we're doing so because we believe that it is in our country's best interests. We know that, with our aging population and our shrinking workforce, we need the talent and energy and drive of newcomers to fuel our prosperity now and in the future, which is why Canada was just about the only developed country in the world to maintain high levels of immigration during the global economic downturn, when many of our peer democracies like Australia and western European countries and the United States were cutting immigration levels.

And so we remain a country that is open and welcoming for the talents and hard work of newcomers, who arrive in this country often with not much except a determination to become good Canadians, to work hard, and to pass on to their children a better standard of living than they might have had in their country of origin. And that is one of the reasons that Canada is such a great nation.

But the truth is this: For too long we have seen the economic outcomes for immigrants on the decline. And for me, this is a problem that we can no longer turn away from. It's one that we must address. We must ensure that equality of opportunity isn't just a slogan but that it is a lived reality for newcomers from across the world.

What do I mean by lower economic outcomes for newcomers? Well, we have seen that, right now for example, immigrants in Canada face a rate of unemployment that is twice as high as that of the general population. Immigrants with university degrees have an unemployment rate that is four to five times higher than it is for people born in Canada with university degrees. Thirty-five years ago, immigrants generated, on average, 90 percent of the average Canadian income. That's declined to the point where immigrants are generating, on average, 60 percent of the average Canadian income. And for me, that's just not acceptable.

Behind those statistics lie too many tragic stories of too many people who left behind their highly educated professions at the top of the social-economic strata of their countries of origin, coming to Canada only to find themselves stuck at the bottom of our labour market, stuck in survival jobs, and struggling to get ahead. I have met too many newcomers who feel that the promise of Canada's prosperity was never really available to them.

I remember just a few months ago, I was in Vancouver at a Persian community event, where I met a woman immigrant from Iran who was a radiologist, and her husband was a paediatric surgeon. She told me that she had been in Canada for three years, struggling to try to get her license so she could practice medicine here. And she said after three years, she was no further ahead. She actually broke down in tears in front of me to say that she had depleted the family's savings, they didn't feel like there was any point in staying, and that she was thinking now, she said: “As much as I hate the government of Iran because of its extremism, I feel I may have to go back there so I can work again as a physician to generate an income to put my son through UBC, so that he can realize his dream to become a medical doctor who discovers the cure to cancer.” I've heard so many tragic stories like that.

A few years ago, I met a Syrian woman who was an obstetrician. She had worked delivering babies, thousands of babies, in her home country for many years. She came to Canada, originally to BC and then Alberta, and for five years, she had been cleaning hotel rooms. I can think of the Algerian immigrant who I met in Montreal, an engineer, who was working in a corner store, feeling like the promise of Canada was just an impossibility for him to achieve.

Friends, this is a country of opportunity, but for too many, we have failed to really give people that real opportunity. And that is why we must pursue an agenda, in my view, of transformational change in our approach to immigration and integration.

How does it make any sense, as we hear about the drama and the tragedy on one side for too many newcomers, and yet on the other side, we have the employers who I have met, who feel like they are going to have to shut down their businesses because they don't have enough skilled people to do the work that's necessary to fill their orders, to meet their contracts. How does it make any sense that we would be welcoming more than a quarter of a million newcomers every year, many of them - too many of them - to face unemployment or under-employment in an economy with huge and growing labour shortages? It makes no sense.

And that is why I have embarked on a program of transformational change in our immigration programs: So that we can match the newcomers who arrive in Canada with the jobs that are available; So that immigrants can arrive, as much as possible, with pre-arranged jobs where they can go to work at their skill level, fully realizing their potential and contributing to the productivity of the Canadian economy: so that we can stop this waste of human talent, we can end this enormous, in economic terms, opportunity cost; And so women like that Iranian radiologist or that Syrian obstetrician can actually go to work in Canada at their skill level upon arrival.

Let me just tell you one interesting statistic. We recently did a major study of the newcomers over the past few years who arrived in a federal skilled worker program. And it showed us that those who arrived with pre-arranged jobs were on average generating incomes of $80,000 after their third year in Canada, twice as much as newcomers who arrived without pre-arranged employment. So that tells me that there's something there, that as much as possible we should be linking employers with newcomers, and the government should just be facilitating that process. Because employers know better who can work at their skill level doing the required work than a government system does. And that's where we're going. That's the kind of system we want.

So friends, we've looked closely at the data, we've studied all of our programs, we've looked at international experience in places like Australia and New Zealand. And we have realized that one of the reasons for the problems in our system has been that our system became slow and rigid. When I say slow, what do I mean by that? Well, for years, we just had no common sense in the management of our immigration system, and so we accepted unlimited numbers of applications, when obviously there was always a limited number of people we could accept. Even though it's a big limit, even though it's over a quarter of a million, even though it's the highest in our history and the highest in the developed world, there is obviously a practical limit to how many newcomers we can accept and integrate.

But every year, for years, we were essentially selling 300,000-to-400,000 tickets on the plane to Canada, for which there were only 250,000 seats. What does that mean? That year after year there were more and more people who purchased their tickets who couldn't get on board and they were waiting in the queue. And the queue grew and grew over the years. When our government came to office six years ago, we opened the filing cabinet, as it were, in the Immigration Department, and it just kept opening and opening and opening. And it turned out that there were 840,000 applications, waiting – on average – seven to eight years in our various immigration programs, as a result of that poor management of the new applications.

Parliament gave the government capacity to limit the number of new applications, so that we could reduce the backlog and speed up processing times. For us to get to an immigration system that actually produces better results, that actually has more people coming here with pre-arranged jobs, it has to be a fast system. What employer is going to offer someone from overseas a job if they're waiting in the back of an eight-year-long queue? The answer is none, no one. So that is why we must move towards a fast and flexible system. In order to do that, we must deal decisively with this big legacy problem of the enormous backlogs in the system. And that's exactly what we are doing through Bill C-38, the Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act, making the difficult but, I believe, necessary decision to return about three-quarters of the applications in our own backlog.

Now, I regret – for people who have been patiently waiting in the queue to come to Canada – that they may have to reapply under new programs in the future. But here's the good news: This backlog reduction strategy means that by 2014, we will have a just-in-time immigration system, so that applicants won't have to wait in the queue for seven or eight years. If they are qualified, we will be able to process and admit them within a few months. And if they have a pre-arranged job, we will be able to do so within two to three months' time. That's a revolutionary change in our system.

The competition for many of the world's best and brightest is a growing competition. I was in Mumbai, India three years ago, and I met one of the top graduates of the Indian Institute of Technology in Hyderabad. This is the top university in South Asia, one of the top in the world. You know, the top graduates of the Indian Institute of Technology are kids who got 99 or 100 percent through high school, and have done the same all the way through university. These are the future Bill Gates, right? And I said to this young fellow, “It would be great if you came to Canada. We need people with your ingenuity, your intelligence.” And he said, “Minister, that interests me, but what would it take?” And then I thought about it. And I said, “Well, you file an application, and we'll probably get back to you in about seven years.” He said, “Minister, I have friends that I graduated with who have gone to New Zealand and Australia just six months later.”

So colleagues, what we've ended up with is a system where we were losing in the competition for many of the world's best and brightest. Why would they wait seven years to come to Canada if they wanted to go to a developed country when they could get to Australia or New Zealand in six months or less? Now finally, we'll be in the game. And, I believe – if we can offer those opportunities quickly – that we will attract many of the world's best and brightest.

A number of things that we have already done have helped massively to improve immigration in Canada. For example, we've introduced the new Canadian Experience Class. This allows foreign students who have completed a two-year degree or diploma and one year of work in Canada to get permanent residency on a fast-track basis. Now, if you can believe it, in the past we used to tell these bright, young, foreign students who had Canadian degrees, “If you want to stay in the country, great. Please leave, get in the back of the seven-to-eight-year-long queue, and we'll let you know.” Now we are saying to them, “You have a degree or a diploma that will be recognized by Canadian employers. You have perfected your English or French language skills. You are integrated, you have an understanding of the soft social skills to succeed in the Canadian labour market. Please stay in Canada.” And now we're opening the doors of opportunity to many of those bright, young, foreign students, and to highly skilled people who are here on work permits, after one year.

We also have expanded something called the Provincial Nominee Program. This invites provinces, working with employers, to nominate people from abroad to come in on a fast basis. It really reflects the best of what we hope to do with the Federal Skilled Worker Program in the future. As a result of the expansion of this Provincial Nominee Program, we have seen a much better geographic distribution of newcomers across the country. One of the problems in our old system was that nearly 90 percent of immigrants were going to Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, meaning Vancouver proper. And this meant that the regions of the country, many of which have the biggest labour shortages, weren't getting any immigrants, or very few.

Now, as a result of the changes we made by expanding the Provincial Nominee Program, we have seen levels of immigration to the Prairie Provinces triple, to Atlantic Canada double, and more newcomers establishing in the Interior of BC, where there are a lot of those acute skill shortages. And that's good news. But by further empowering employers in the new federal immigration system to select people, we believe that they will go to where the jobs are. There's really no point in newcomers establishing in communities where people are already struggling to integrate or find jobs, when there are job shortages in other regions of the country.

So the new system, in part, will be based on what's called an expression of interest system. Newcomers from around the world will make an application online if they want to come to Canada. They'll fill out a basic form. And eventually, with that form, they'll have to attach a pre-assessment of their credentials that we will run by the national bodies representing the professional licensing organizations. What is the point of bringing someone to Canada if they want to be an engineer if in fact what they really have is an equivalent of a vocational institute diploma for being an engineering technician? Shouldn't we tell them beforehand that is unlikely to qualify them to be a fully registered engineer in Canada? Isn't it doing them and us a favour to be up front about that? And so the new system will require that they go through a pre-assessment of their credentials, if they want to come and work in a licensed profession, to make sure that we don't mislead people into coming here only to find that they can't get their credentials recognized.

We'll also be doing a pre-assessment of their education to look at its relevance to Canada. In the past, if you can believe it, we looked at only the quantity of education, but not its quality. So not every degree and every diploma around the world is equivalent. And we want to make sure that those folks who come to Canada actually have a chance of getting those degrees or diplomas recognized by Canadian employers. And so, once they've done those pre-assessments, they'll go into a pool of applicants, having given us consent to share their names, to share their applications with employers and with provinces that have Provincial Nominee Programs.

In a practical sense, what does this mean? Well, for the employer who is on the verge of a nervous breakdown because he's about to shut down his business with a labour shortage, he will be able in the future – under this new, fast, flexible, employer-driven program – to go online, register with us, and do a search in that pool of pre-qualified applicants, to look for precisely the people who have the skills that he needs and have expressed an interest in coming to Canada. He can then contact them, do his due diligence, interview them on Skype, hire an overseas recruitment agency, do what he needs to do. And if he's satisfied with their skills, he can offer them the position. We verify the person's application, and then bring them here in two-to -three months.

Imagine. The old system was: “Wait in a queue for eight years, and typically come to one of our three biggest cities. We'll drop you into the middle of the labour market to sink or swim,” and many people struggled to keep their head above water. The new system, you make an expression of interest online, the employer who is desperately searching for people they can't find in Canada connects with you, you come into the country, you arrive at YVR, you get stamped in as a permanent resident, knowing with confidence that you will be going to a job that suits your skill level, realizing your potential, making good income, and contributing productively to the Canadian economy. This is not a pipe dream. They've done this in New Zealand. They're doing it now in Australia. We can do it in Canada.

Today, there are people arriving at YVR who feel overwhelmed, even though we're now giving them pre-arrival counselling. For 85 percent of our selected economic immigrants, we're giving free seminars and personalized counselling now overseas on how to find a job, how to apply for their credentials, all the basics of integration. Even though we're working with the professional agencies to try to speed up and streamline the whole process of credential recognition, even though we've tripled funding for integration services and free language classes and job search skills, even though there's more support than there's ever been for their integration, even though there are good organizations like the Immigrant Employment Council and the municipalities doing more to support the newcomers, it's still – as you well know – a daunting experience for people who are arriving, looking at this new world, at the huge challenges that they face.

And that is why, as much as possible, if that person can get off the plane knowing where they are going, where their job is going to be, that gives them a enormous head start – just as with the expansion of the Canadian Experience Class. It's my hope that will really be the core future immigration program to Canada, getting these bright, young, foreign students to stay in Canada. They're pre-integrated and have strong language skills, and degrees and diplomas recognized by Canadian employers. All of our data, all of our research, tells us that they are set to succeed. And so this just gives you a short overview of some of the changes we're making.

Another important change: We will be introducing a new Skilled Trades Stream for federal economic immigration. Because in the past, unless you had a university degree or high levels of language proficiency, there was basically no way you could get to Canada as an economic immigrant. And yet employers are probably looking for skilled tradespeople, and you don't need a university degree, you don't need English language fluency to be a skilled tradesperson. You do need some language proficiency. You need appropriate levels of training and experience. And that's what we will be assessing through our new Skilled Trades Stream to help to replace the retiring generation of welders and boilermakers and heavy equipment operators, whose skills are essential as we face a resource boom in our economy. They too will go into this expression of interest pool that can be drawn upon by employers.

So what we're actually talking about is a more intelligent system, a more flexible system. Yes, we will be – in the new system – requiring higher levels of language proficiency in English or French for those who want to work in licensed professions. Because, let's face it, if your English isn't more or less fluent, it doesn't matter if you get your license to practice as a medical doctor in Canada; you're not going to be able to succeed. So you need high levels of language proficiency in a lot of those regulated professions. But you don't need to speak fluent English in order to work as a welder. You need some level of proficiency. And so our system will be more intelligent in assessing language in the future.

Now, friends, these are dramatic changes that we're making at the same time that we are reinforcing the integrity of our system. For too long, Canada developed a reputation around the world – particularly amongst the industry of unscrupulous immigration agents overseas – as a soft target for queue jumping, for immigration fraud. And this created the perception that our system wasn't really fair. What we're trying to do is to reinforce the integrity of our system so that there is confidence in Canada and abroad that our immigration system is based on the consistent application of fair rules.

That's why we've brought in new measures to deal with immigration marriage fraud, to crack down on unscrupulous immigration agents – so-called ghost consultants here in Canada – with a new regulator and a new law, with real sanctions for those who would exploit vulnerable immigrants or visitors. It's why we're bringing forward a new and faster, but also fairer, asylum system to deal with the large number of fake asylum claimants who seek to jump the queue and abuse Canada's generosity. And all of these measures are designed to say, “If you want to come to Canada, we appreciate your interest. If you're qualified, we'd love to receive you. As much as possible, try to find a job. Get a job lined up. But please come the legal way.” That is increasingly the message that we are sending, and I think it's the right one for Canada.

So friends, I want to thank you. And I want to say, in closing, that organizations like the Surrey Board here have an important role to play. Because we want to make sure that our new immigration system is relevant to small- and medium-sized enterprises. The new system will be relatively easy for large companies, large employers, to use, because they've got their own human resources departments, they've got immigration lawyers on staff, they can figure out how to use the system to their advantage. But I am concerned about the small- and medium-sized entrepreneurs who are facing acute skill shortages. And I want to make sure that this system is user-friendly for them, so if they feel they need to go abroad to bring in skilled talent, they can do so relatively easily. And that's why we look forward to working with the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the local Chambers, with settlement organizations, with groups like the Immigrant Employment Council, to help make this new system work, so that Canada renews its promise as a land of opportunity for people from around the world, and so that we do continue to fuel our growth.

I'll just close by saying we should be so grateful to live in this country, the greatest country in the world: A country that provides freedom of expression for my friends outside, a country that is a beacon of hope for people from around the world. Open up the newspapers. Look at what's happening in Europe today: Governments teetering on the verge of bankruptcy, the United States running a $1.4-trillion-dollar deficit, even emerging Asian economies slowing down. But here in Canada, we have the strongest economic growth in the G7, we've seen the creation of 760,000 net new jobs in the past two years. We have the strongest fiscal position, the lowest deficit as a share of our economy, the lowest debt as a share of our economy amongst the major developed economies of the world. Forbes magazine has said that Canada is now the best place in the world in which to create a business. The World Bank has said that Canada is the best place in the world in which to invest.

This is amazing. This is a tremendous momentum that we see in our economy today. We want to keep the momentum going. We believe that newcomers can help us to fuel that momentum, and that – by making these commonsense changes that should have been made long ago to our immigration system – we will ensure that Canada remains a land of opportunity well into the future. Thank you very much. I look forward to your questions.