Foreigners do not pay for our expensive gold plated legal system. Judges expect to make big bucks for their time, well over $10,000 a month. Yet a judge from the Federal Court will hear a case that allows foreigners to overturn Canadian laws. Foreigners are not Canadian citizens and do not live in the country. This is nuts. These people can just reapply, no problem.
Politicians, not unelected judges or immigration lawyers should control the immigration system.
Our judges are not that busy, time to lay them off and save some money.
Ottawa
Ottawa’s immigration backlog wipeout illegal, lawyers argue before Federal Court
Published on Thursday January 17, 2013
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Nicholas Keung
Immigration Reporter
The Federal Court has been asked to strike down legislation passed by the Conservative government last year to wipe out immigration backlogs because it breaches the Charter of Rights and the rule of law.
Lawyers representing 1,000 people affected by the move to toss out nearly 98,000 immigration applications allege that the Tory government had discriminated based on the national origins of the applicants.
While Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has the power to set priorities and policies, he must apply the rules equally, consistently and fairly, argued lawyers for the litigants, some of whom had waited in the immigrant queue for as long as eight years.
The court heard this week that 81.4 per cent of the files in the skilled worker backlog that were tossed out by Ottawa under the Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act were from Asia, the Middle East and Africa.
“The backlog was not a function of volume (of applications),” said Mario Bellissimo, one of nine lawyers on the case. “It was a policy choice.”
On Feb. 28, 2008, Kenney launched so-called “ministerial instructions” to restrict eligibility for the skilled worker program to candidates in specific occupations. The new and old files were to be processed simultaneously. The backlog then was 229,457 files, representing 640,813 people.
In June, when the move to wipe out the backlog took effect, the remaining 97,715 cases, representing 278,391 people — all of them in the queue before Feb. 28, 2008 — were simply thrown out.
Government lawyer Keith Reimer argued that the lawsuit boiled down to “who gets to control Canada’s immigration program.”
“The government is entitled to change the law and control Canada’s immigration program,” said Reimer, adding that eliminating the backlog was crucial to a “just-in-time” system that responds to Canada’s labour market needs.
Instead of long delays, skilled immigrants can benefit from quicker processing and better prospects from new, targeted selection criteria, he noted.
However, Justice Donald Rennie questioned why the backlog and just-in-time approach had to be “mutually exclusive” and warned Reimer to focus his arguments on the new law’s benefits to Canada.
“I hope you are not taking a paternalistic approach to immigrants,” Rennie said.
Lawyer Matthew Jeffery said Kenney must follow the rule of law and cannot use his ministerial power to shield “arbitrary state action.”
“Ethically, he’s in the wrong,” Jeffery told Rennie. “There is a clear and obvious unfairness here.”
Immigration department flip-flops on backlogs did not help, lawyers said.
Kenney initially ordered that all applications in the backlog would be terminated as of March 29, 2012, when the plan was announced. The cutoff was changed to June 29 after a legal challenge, because the bill had not become law at that time.
Lawyer Lorne Waldman said processing of the “terminated” applications had been inconsistent, with some being processed even when they did not have a selection decision before the old cutoff, and others offered permanent resident visas on humanitarian grounds.
The affected applicants were entitled to the right of notice, or they should be granted exemption on humanitarian grounds, Waldman said.
Politicians, not unelected judges or immigration lawyers should control the immigration system.
Our judges are not that busy, time to lay them off and save some money.
Ottawa
Ottawa’s immigration backlog wipeout illegal, lawyers argue before Federal Court
Published on Thursday January 17, 2013
Share on twitterShare on facebook
Nicholas Keung
Immigration Reporter
The Federal Court has been asked to strike down legislation passed by the Conservative government last year to wipe out immigration backlogs because it breaches the Charter of Rights and the rule of law.
Lawyers representing 1,000 people affected by the move to toss out nearly 98,000 immigration applications allege that the Tory government had discriminated based on the national origins of the applicants.
While Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has the power to set priorities and policies, he must apply the rules equally, consistently and fairly, argued lawyers for the litigants, some of whom had waited in the immigrant queue for as long as eight years.
The court heard this week that 81.4 per cent of the files in the skilled worker backlog that were tossed out by Ottawa under the Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act were from Asia, the Middle East and Africa.
“The backlog was not a function of volume (of applications),” said Mario Bellissimo, one of nine lawyers on the case. “It was a policy choice.”
On Feb. 28, 2008, Kenney launched so-called “ministerial instructions” to restrict eligibility for the skilled worker program to candidates in specific occupations. The new and old files were to be processed simultaneously. The backlog then was 229,457 files, representing 640,813 people.
In June, when the move to wipe out the backlog took effect, the remaining 97,715 cases, representing 278,391 people — all of them in the queue before Feb. 28, 2008 — were simply thrown out.
Government lawyer Keith Reimer argued that the lawsuit boiled down to “who gets to control Canada’s immigration program.”
“The government is entitled to change the law and control Canada’s immigration program,” said Reimer, adding that eliminating the backlog was crucial to a “just-in-time” system that responds to Canada’s labour market needs.
Instead of long delays, skilled immigrants can benefit from quicker processing and better prospects from new, targeted selection criteria, he noted.
However, Justice Donald Rennie questioned why the backlog and just-in-time approach had to be “mutually exclusive” and warned Reimer to focus his arguments on the new law’s benefits to Canada.
“I hope you are not taking a paternalistic approach to immigrants,” Rennie said.
Lawyer Matthew Jeffery said Kenney must follow the rule of law and cannot use his ministerial power to shield “arbitrary state action.”
“Ethically, he’s in the wrong,” Jeffery told Rennie. “There is a clear and obvious unfairness here.”
Immigration department flip-flops on backlogs did not help, lawyers said.
Kenney initially ordered that all applications in the backlog would be terminated as of March 29, 2012, when the plan was announced. The cutoff was changed to June 29 after a legal challenge, because the bill had not become law at that time.
Lawyer Lorne Waldman said processing of the “terminated” applications had been inconsistent, with some being processed even when they did not have a selection decision before the old cutoff, and others offered permanent resident visas on humanitarian grounds.
The affected applicants were entitled to the right of notice, or they should be granted exemption on humanitarian grounds, Waldman said.