Curry in a hurry leads to flurry of better policies
Jason Kenney has been dubbed Canada’s Minister of Curry in a Hurry thanks to the effective way he has, if you will, curried favour, with the nation’s ethnic communities.
But unlike the often distasteful pandering to ethnic groups that has so characterized the immigration portfolio for decades, gobbling back tasty food is also not what has endeared the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to Canada’s newest citizens and ethnic communities.
Indeed, Kenney’s popularity and the resulting majority win of the Conservatives in the May 2 election came about largely because Kenney dared to stop patronizing immigrants with what politicians have long thought they wanted to hear, and started talking about values he knows are shared by those willing to risk so much to start a new life in a strange land.
“The most important thing I’ve learned in this job is that immigrants to Canada want to integrate and want an immigration system that serves Canada’s national interests and which is characterized by the rule of law,” said Kenney Wednesday during a meeting with the Herald’s editorial board.
“A lot of what I’ve done has taken a lot of risks. Issues like political correct- ness, issues like refugee reform, cultural relativism, the misunderstanding about multiculturalism and so forth, I’ve taken on in a very direct way and I’ve done so, frankly, in part because I’ve had the confidence from my very intense contact with new Canadians that they would support that agenda.”
In other words, he had the curry, but he wasn’t always in a hurry and he really listened to those with whom he broke bread.
“I think my predecessors were terrified that cracking down on the abuse of the asylum system would be misunderstood by new Canadians as being antiimmigrant, or saying that barbaric practices or that ancient hatreds and conflicts are not welcome in Canada would somehow be negatively perceived, or that cracking down on fake immigration marriages and crooked immigration consultants would somehow be misconstrued as being anti immigrant.”
On the contrary. For the vast majority of immigrants who play by the rules to enter Canada legally, Kenney says they are the ones who insisted that it was time to force everyone to play by the rules. New legislation that’s expected to pass in the fall sitting of Parliament, will help address abuses of the system by unscrupulous human smugglers and those who abuse our asylum system to jump the queue.
“Our core message was very simple,” explained Kenney. “Vote your values. If you believe in entrepreneurialism, low taxes, a strong family unit, respect for tradition, respect for religious faith and you believe in democratic values, you’re probably a conservative.”
There are those who are trying to paint Kenney and the conservatives as meanspirited for proposed laws that would crack down on human smuggling and fake refugee claimants and speed up a system that let those who arrive at our shores illegally to draw out the appeal process for as much as seven to 20 years. But the facts don’t bear that out. And new immigrant voters clearly didn’t buy it.
Last year, Kenney’s office admitted 281,000 permanent residents, the most in Canadian history.
Also, how, asks Kenney, is it compassionate “to put people on a shelf for seven years” owing to the huge backlog of applicants that the Liberals allowed to mushroom over their 13 years in power?
The Liberals on average admitted about 240,000 people per year but they were accepting over 400,000 applications per year, said Kenney.
“So there were 240,000 seats on the plane but they were selling 400,000 tickets, so the backlog of people waiting just grew and grew, so when we came to office there were 900,000 people waiting as much as seven years in the queue for their application to be processed.”
Since then, the Conservatives have taken corrective measures. They are limiting the number of applications to reduce the backlogs, speeding up the process and eventually moving to a “rational immigration system” where the number of applications the government accepts is similar to the number of people allowed in.
What’s more, Canada will move toward more job nominee programs and limit family reunification, so elderly family members won’t immigrate here just in time to be a drain on our burdened medical system. That’s compassionate to Canadians who have paid taxes their entire working lives.
Kenney also just launched a series of national consultations that will seek stakeholder input into ways to improve Canada’s immigration system, including industry groups, employers and community associations that help immigrants better assimilate.
Immigration is vitally important to Canada — a land of immigrants. Our immigration process needs to be quick and competitive to ensure we attract the best and brightest to our shores, adds Kenney.
Suppose you’re a bright new graduate from a technical institute in India — the “next Bill Gates” — and you’re interested in immigrating.
“Well, Australia and New Zealand will get you in within six months and Canada was saying, take a number, we’ll get back to you in seven years.”
Kenney, the MP for Calgary Southeast, has sped that process up to less than a year and hopes to do more.
Canada is fortunate indeed to have a minister of immigration who doesn’t only eat curry in a hurry but has been able to devour a sluggish system of red tape and digest what changes were needed so quickly. LICIA CORBELLA IS A COLUMNIST AND
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR. LCORBELLA@CALGARYHERALD.COM