The Integrity of our Immigration System

Opinion Editorial

Like many Canadians from across the country, Conservatives have questioned Justin Trudeau and the Liberal government’s ability to preserve the integrity of our immigration system.

When asked to explain their mistakes, Trudeau and his Liberals respond the way they always do when confronted with criticism: with more rhetoric and personal attacks.

In four years, the Liberals have not only undone the progress the previous Conservative government made to strengthen our immigration system, but they have also managed to undermine the long-standing consensus that immigration is indeed a positive thing for this country.

As many of you know, Liberal messes are nothing new.

On the immigration file, Conservatives have cleaned up after Liberals before and we are prepared to do it again with fairness, order, and compassion as the pillars of our efforts.

It’s no secret that as Baby Boomers retire, we will need workers, innovators, and risk-takers to sustain and grow our economy, and ensure we can maintain the high standard of living that we, as Canadians, enjoy and rightly expect.

We need the world’s best and brightest to choose Canada and we want them to integrate fully, socially and economically.

We need newcomers to contribute, as previous generations have done, to building the Canada we know and love, and to ensure it remains the great country it always has been.

That is why Conservatives have put together an immigration plan that restores fairness, order, and compassion to our immigration system and I am happy to share it with you here.

We will:

• safeguard and emphasize economic immigration.
• stand up for families and ensure that spouses and children can be reunited.
• ensure that our system prioritizes people facing true persecution – focus government sponsorship on the victims of the four atrocity crimes – and restore integrity to our system by supporting the consistent application of fair rules.
• improve credential recognition and make it easier for new Canadians who have existing skills that meet our standards to ply their trades here.
• work to allow those who enter Canada as low-skilled workers a permanent path to residency, making sure wages are fair and worker abuse is prevented.
• work to reunite survivors of genocide who have already resettled in Canada more expeditiously.
• bring back the Office of Religious Freedom so that we can protect our shared humanity and promote interest in the dignity of all people.
• put an end to illegal border crossings at unofficial points of entry like Roxham Road by closing the loophole in the Safe-Third Country Agreement that allows some people to skip the line and avoid the queue.
• do more to promote private sponsorships of refugees.

This plan demonstrates that Conservatives fully understand that when newcomers to Canada succeed, Canada as a whole succeeds.

In October, the choice is clear: a Liberal government led by Justin Trudeau, creating a mess in our immigration system OR the Conservative plan of a fair, orderly and compassionate immigration system that works for all Canadians.