On September 20, Canadians will elect the country's 44th parliament, concluding just over five weeks of campaigning in which federal party leaders pledged to combat climate change,
address a worsening housing crisis, stop the COVID-19 pandemic and improve the immigration system and schemes.
In these elections, all of Canada's main parties are pushing for immigrants. However, there are still problems in the immigration system that need to be addressed.
Backlogs in application processing, outdated technology and no one understand what to do with the Parents and Grandparents Program (PGP) are among the issues. Here's what Canada's
major parties have to say about immigration and related problems.
Liberal Party
The Liberal Party of Canada, considered to be centre-left on the political spectrum is led by Justin Trudeau.
Liberals immigration platform for the 2021 election has yet to be announced. The party is gradually revealing platform details.
If re-elected, Trudeau has pledged to resettle up to 20,000 Afghans. This isn't the first time Trudeau has made a campaign commitment to welcome a large number of refugees. He won
the election in 2015 after calling for Canada to welcome 25,000 Syrian refugees.
Since taking office in 2015, the Liberals have increased immigration targets every year. They promised to expand immigration numbers to historic highs even during the pandemic. They
justified the hike by citing immigrants' contributions to Canadian society.
“New Canadians work hard across the country, teaching our children, caring for us when we're sick, launching new businesses and creating decent jobs,” stated Brook Simpson,
a Liberal Party spokesperson. “As we emerge from a pandemic that has had a tremendous impact on our country and its labour force, these contributions are more important than ever.”
Immigration plans by Liberals: The Liberals introduced a multi-year immigration levels strategy in 2017 to give stakeholders more time to prepare for huge influxes of immigrants. The
Global Talent Stream, a fast-track work permit programme for tech professionals, was introduced the same year.
The Agri-Food Pilot, an immigration programme for agri-food workers; the Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot, which assists municipalities in nominating immigrants; and the Atlantic
Immigration Pilot, which assists Atlantic Canada employers in hiring foreign talent, are a few of the Liberals' other initiatives.
Also Read: Canada Election 2021: An overview on immigration system and impact of elections on immigrants
Conservative Party
The official opposition, Conservatives are a centre-right political party. The party holds the second-largest number of seats in the House of Commons. Erin O'Toole, the party's
leader has previously won elections in immigrant-rich ridings.
The Conservatives advocate for an immigration system that welcomes foreign talent, provides refuge to human rights activists and those fleeing persecutions and reunites families in their
election platform for 2021.
They want an immigration system that is fairer and aim to record all interactions between immigration agents and applicants as well as transfer operations online. They claim that this
will “help in ensuring oversight, fairness, and accountability” in the immigration process.
Party aim to improve cultural awareness training and match applicants with immigration officials who are most familiar with their cultural context. They also want to provide candidates
with a limited length of time after submitting their application to rectify errors.
For the Parents and Grandparents Program (PGP), the Conservatives would eliminate the lottery system and replace it with a first-come, first-served system. They foresee a weighted system
in which applicants' language skills, as well as whether or not they provide child care or family support, will be valued. They would also devote more resources to speeding the application process.
Conservatives also advocate allowing foreign members of Canadians to stay in the country for up to five years without obtaining permanent residency. If family members obtain health insurance,
they will be permitted to extend their stay for an additional period.
Also Read: Canada Elections: Liberals and Conservatives could not secure a comfortable lead yet
New Democratic Party
On the political spectrum, the New Democratic Party (NDP) is considered left-wing. At the federal level, Canada has never had an NDP government. Party's leader, Jagmeet Singh, reportedly
is the most popular candidate in this election.
The Parents and Grandparents Program (PGP) cap would be lifted, and backlogs will be addressed, according to the NDP's 2021 platform.
The party pledge to prosecute fraudulent immigration consultants and ensure that the industry is regulated by the government. The NDP aim to reduce the backlog of asylum seekers for
refugees, yet their policy does not specify how.
They would also make pay equity a priority in order to eliminate wage discrimination based on gender, which adversely impacts immigrant women. They would accomplish it by requiring employers
to be honest about wages and enacting pro-active pay equity legislation immediately.