Immigrant Song and dance.

Canada is known to be one of the most desirable places in the world to live. Countries don't get like that without some management of people who do and want to live there, and as far as I can tell the latest proposed changes to the IRPA do just that.

The changes, which amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, were included in the budget bill, making them a confidence matter. If they're passed, the changes would speed up the processing of applications for skilled workers, but they would also throw other claimants to the back of the line and reject others outright.

There is the usual eyewash about this all being a way to ethnically cleanse the immigrants to this country, but I'm not entirely clear who it is these naysayers think will be kept out by this. I see nothing racist about merit-based entrance to Canada, and I'm of the opinion that those screaming "racism" the loudest are the ones who protest too much.

If I say we need more educated/skilled immigrants and less of the tired, poor huddled masses, I am tarred as a racist (it's happened). Although at no point (then or now) did I say anything about what colour or extraction those desired immigrants were, my antagonists assumed I was talking about northern Europeans.

India alone has an educated, English-speaking middle class which outnumbers all of the "white" Dominions, the UK included, and I have no intention of keeping them out if they have what we need to keep the country economically viable. I use India as an example, but the lefty paternalist assumption that "skilled" means white is quite an insult to people from any corner of the globe who worked their ass off to get a good education and make themselves more attractive as potential citizens.

If you're hiring, don't you look for those with the best credentials? Well you do if you want to stay in business, and Immigration policy is just HR writ large.

There are ongoing problems with recognizing the credentials of immigrants, and there are at least noises about addressing that. I think letting more professionals in whose credentials won't be honoured is putting the cart before the horse, but maybe the politicians will surprise me and co-ordinate these efforts. If not, at least someone is planning to do something to actually screen would-be immigrants with an eye to who the country needs and who wants to be here for the right reasons.

As for the fact that the government tagged it onto a budget bill that would trigger an election should it fail, so what? It's a tactic, sure, but if this "new" policy is so horrible, all the opposition parties should unite to defeat it, damn the torpedoes. My conclusion from that is that the Immigration proposals are not so odious after all, and/or Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition (and hangers on) lack the moral fibre to follow their moral compass. That would make them hypocrites, not a character trait I'd be looking for in a citizen. Anybody want to trade some slightly used politicians for some doctors or electrical engineers?

Somehow I don't see too many takers...