On the evening of December 14, the finance minister Chrystia Freeland presented the Economic and Fiscal Update by the Government of Canada in the parliament. In April, the government released the 2021 Budget, and this update is the first revised version of the economic forecast presented by the government since then.
The purpose of such announcements is to keep Canadians informed about the changing priorities of the federal government. For example, the last year’s fiscal update suggested that the government will be prioritizing child benefits by increasing their spendings, and the government made an announcement to launch $10-dollar-a-day childcare in the spring.
The budget and fiscal update presented by the Canadian government usually include action items, which in a way or other impact new immigrants. These policies implemented by the government on multiple issues, including healthcare, infrastructure, education, childcare, employment creation, and other concerns, affect all people living in Canada, whether they are Canadian citizens or immigrants. However, there are a few action items, such as in Budget 2021, which specifically target Immigration.
In the recent announcement, Freeland addressed different policy measures that the Canadian government is taking to recover from the social and economic damage caused by the pandemic. Freeland said, “Immigration is another important driver of economic growth and a Canadian competitive advantage. Our government is committed to bringing in 411,000 immigrants in 2022, the highest number in Canadian history. To help support this effort and reduce processing time for permanent and temporary resident and citizenship applications, we are investing $85 million in our immigration system.”
The statement suggested that the federal government is determined to fulfilling its immigration levels target decided under the Immigration Levels Plan 2021-2023. Furthermore, during her address, she touched on the requirement of reducing the processing times of immigration applications, as during the pandemic, the backlogs of these applications have significantly increased.
Five essential pledges regarding Immigration were included in the Budget 2021 (released in April), out of which a few have already been implemented, such as the funding for transitioning temporary residents to permanent residents, who were already living and working in Canada, and this was called as Temporary Residence to Permanent Residence (TR to PR) pathway.
In addition, it emphasized transitioning this outmoded Global Case Management System (GCMS) to a modern platform. GCMS processes the applications for Immigration and citizenship. The budget further called for certain prospect changes in the Express Entry system, which suggests the government may consider giving the immigration minister more authority to accept candidates depending upon the labour market requirements; however, completed information is not available on the same.
Moreover, increased spending is allocated to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) as per the Budget 2021. These increased funds will be utilized for the implementation of compliance inspections for employers to ensure that no worker is mistreated, as well as to support vulnerable foreign workers in securing open work permits in case they are mistreated by Canadian employers.
Lastly, Budget 2021 also announced increased spending on various measures and initiatives to better the employment opportunities for racialized female immigrants.
