As predicted here, the Liberal Party of Canada stood by today, and will let the Harper government institute dangerously discriminatory changes to immigration policy. Standing up for immigrants would have required standing up to the Conservatives and facing the Canadian people, two things that terrify the Liberal Party.
The absent opposition continues to grovel for the government while yapping loudly against legislation they have no intention of opposing.
For now, they allowed it thru.. but perhaps not for much longer:
ReplyDeletehttp://farnwide.blogspot.com/2008/04/liberal-election-dance.html
They had a chance to stop it. They've had many chances to stand up to the Harper agenda. It's beginning to look like they find it a more congenial legislative program than their rhetoric suggests.
ReplyDeleteThe old wheeze about the NDP being the Liberals in a hurry? Maybe it would be more accurate to call the Tories Liberals in a hurry.
How is the legislation "dangerously discriminatory"? I'm not a fan of shifting powers to Ministers (via regulations), but the status quo of 3 year delays is unacceptable. And compared to the American Green card lotery (that accepts as many candidates from China as from Northern Ireland)...
ReplyDeleteAs you said yourself, shifting too much power to a Minister is a bad idea, Worse its designed to be power without oversight as the Minister responsible has said that the standards and 'wish lists' of skills will never be publicized to keep the immigrants from trying to tailor their applications to them and swamp the system.
ReplyDeleteWell that makes no sense at all once you think about it for second; If the goal is to fast track certain types of skilled workers and certain skill sets based on the needs of the job market, why not advertise those needs as part of the system?
Or would that introduce even a minimal amount of accountability to legislation that seems to be designed to be utterly cloaked and arbitrary?