Aligning Workers' Lives with the Profit Motive and Vagaries of the Market Place
- Diane Johnston -
For years now, governments in Canada have played havoc
with the lives of foreign workers by continuously
changing the programs and regulations through which they seek
to permanently settle in Canada. In Quebec, various governments
have adopted regulatory amendments altering the number of points
allotted for certain selection criteria and raised the points
threshold applicants must meet to qualify for a Quebec Selection
Certificate (CSQ) in order to apply for permanent residency.
Those amendments, once adopted, take immediate effect and have
been consistently applied retroactively to a backlog of thousands
of application requests, despite the fact that those wishing to
settle in Quebec spent time, money and a lot of painstaking
effort in preparing their forms, certain they would qualify for
residency.
Evidence of the inhuman government treatment became
clearly known
on February 19, 2018 when the Superior Court of Quebec
authorized a class action against the Minister of Immigration and
the Government of Quebec with regard to the Quebec Regular
Skilled Worker Immigration Program. The authorized action alleged
that the defendants were unjustly enriched, committed a tort,
and acted in bad faith by refusing to offer to reimburse the
application fees paid by those class members whose CSQ
applications were doomed to failure as a result of amendments to the
Regulation respecting the
weighting applicable to the selection of foreign nationals.[1] A settlement
agreement
has since been reached and the Court will be hearing an
application for approval on June 19.
Before the June Court hearing, on February 7, Quebec
Immigration
Minister
Simon Jolin-Barrette introduced Bill 9, an act the government
fraudulently said is "to increase Quebec's socio-economic prosperity
and
adequately meet labour market needs through successful immigrant
integration." The proposed legislation would allow the Minister
to "impose conditions on the foreign national which affect the
permanent residence granted under the Immigration
and
Refugee
Protection
Act," to ensure, among other things, "the meeting of
regional and sectoral labour needs, the regional or sectoral
creation of enterprises or the financing of such enterprises, or
the foreign national's linguistic, social or economic
integration."
As part of the government's development of
"reception, francization and integration programs" for
immigrants, foreign workers would be forced to learn about and be
tested on so-called democratic and Quebec values as a condition
for permanent residency. This violates the right to conscience in
as much as applicants must either agree to imposed values or fail
the "test." Quebec citizens are not required to swear allegiance
to values at this point in time and dividing the polity on this
basis is unacceptable. Only the people themselves can express their
values, which can certainly not be defined and imposed by those who,
without the consent of the people, claim to act in their name.
Through Section 20 of the proposed legislation,
the
Legault government is attempting to terminate a backlog of some
18,000 CSQ applications filed before August 2, 2018 under the
Regular Skilled Worker Program, if on February 7, the date of the
bill's introduction, the Minister had not yet made a selection,
refusal or rejection decision on the application. As if this
provides redress for playing with people's lives, the legislation
says "Any required fees paid by an applicant having filed
such an application must be returned, without interest, to the
applicant." The same section also stipulates that "No damages or
indemnity may be claimed from the Government, the Minister or any
of their subordinates or mandataries in connection with such an
application."[2]
To counter the Legault government's move to stop
handling the
backlog of CSQ applications, the Association québécoise
des
avocats et avocates en droit de l'immigration (AQAADI), which
includes some 250 immigration lawyers, filed an
application for an injunction with the Superior Court of Quebec.
They argue that Quebec's Immigration Minister "acted
illegally in suspending the handling of the pending Regular
Skilled Worker Program (RSWP) applications" for a CSQ. They also argued
that the decision
"jeopardized the immigration plans of tens of thousands of
candidates, close to 6,000 of whom are already living in Quebec."
They sought the injunction to "direct" the Minister to
immediately resume evaluating the applications. AQAADI also
argued that the Minister has no discretionary power or other
statutory authority to refuse to handle the backlog of CSQ
applications. "Far from it -- the refusal ensues solely from the
premature application of a bill that has not yet been adopted by
the National Assembly and therefore has no binding force."
On February 25, the Superior Court of Quebec issued a
provisional interlocutory injunction ordering the Minister of
Immigration to continue handling the backlog of 18,000 CSQ
applications. In response to that
order, Immigration Minister Jolin-Barrette released a
statement declaring that his ministry "will respect the decision
of the Superior Court of Quebec. The Ministry of Immigration,
Diversity and Inclusiveness will continue to handle and take
decisions relating to applications for a [QSCs] within the framework of
the Regular Skilled Worker
Program until the adoption of the bill."
The bill is expected to be adopted before the National
Assembly's summer recess in mid-June, which once again means that
the files of thousands of CSQ applicants could be permanently
terminated, with no legal recourse afforded them. This inhumanity
is becoming increasingly intolerable. No society can afford to
permit such things as governments which act with impunity in the
name of the rule of law.
Notes
1. Quebec
Ministry
of
Immigration,
Diversity
and
Inclusiveness.
2. Quebec National Assembly
website,
Bill 9, An Act to increase Quebec's socio-economic
prosperity
and adequately meet labour market needs through successful
immigrant integration.
This article was published in
Volume 49 Number 17 - May 11, 2019
Article Link:
Aligning Workers' Lives with the Profit Motive and Vagaries of the Market Place - Diane Johnston
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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