opinion column
Immigration has crucial role in Canada's future are committed to welcoming W enewcomers to Canada. That’s what
we’re here to celebrate today – not just permanent residents, but all newcomers to Canada, from tourists, from people visiting family, to business visitors, students, temporary workers, and students on working holidays. Immigration has shaped the Canada we know today and it will continue to play a crucial role in our country’s future, ensuring our economic future, ensuring that the diversity of which we are so proud continues to deepen and broaden. As with other countries with aging populations and low birth rates, we know that Canada will have to rely increasingly on immigration to meet our economic and labour market needs, to ensure the jobs, growth and long term prosperity of the future. There’s no question in anyone’s mind that Canada needs skilled immigrants. But we must also ensure that the skilled workers we select have the right education and experience for our labour market, so they can begin working in Canada soon after they arrive. As we continue to admit high numbers of economic immigrants, our government has also been focused on how we can better meet labour market needs through immigration. We’ve made a number of changes, especially in the last five or six years,
to bring more speed and flexibility to our immigration system, to ensure our policies and programs are better aligned with Canada’s current and future economic needs. Express Entry is a new approach to managing and processing applications in our existing economic immigration programs. Express Entry, as these newcomers know, is not a new program. They’re benefiting from programs that existed long before January 2015. It’s a new way of delivering those programs and it’s a tremendous improvement on the old immigration system.
Chris Alexander, Canada’s Citizenship and Immigration Minister
I’m proud to say that Express Entry, with the results we’re demonstrating today, is the largest-scale, fastest most effective online pathway for economic immigration, certainly that Canada has ever had and that, I think, any country has at the moment in the world today. That’s good for the Canadian economy. It’s certainly good for newcomers. It’s certainly good for the employers that are looking to attract global talent. Essentially, our new Express Entry system will enable us to better select immigrants based on the skills and attributes that Canada’s economy currently needs and those who have the greatest potential to succeed. Express Entry is here to underpin the long-term viability of our immigration system which, of course, is itself driven by the prosperity, by the strength of the Canadian economy.
((Excerpts from speech at a News Conference to announce the first Permanent Residents under Express Entry)
|Manafez Dubai |May 2015 | 47