Ottawa plans clamp down on foreign jobs-for-sale scam, and asylum reforms

Ottawa is preparing fresh reforms to the asylum system and to puncture an immigration scam where people hoping to find jobs in Canada are being forced to pay tens of thousands of dollars to potential employers here.

Immigration Minister Marc Miller said on Monday that he is looking at reducing an incentive for would-be immigrants to pay to get a Canadian employer to apply for a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA), a document showing there is a need for a temporary foreign worker so they can enter Canada.

“In the Labor Market Impact Assessment world … there’s a lot of money changing hands where a labour market assessment shouldn’t cost anything,” Mr. Miller told MPs on the House of Commons immigration committee.

The Globe and Mail has reported on open discussions on social media, including by an immigration consultant, about people in India paying to obtain an LMIA job. Ottawa faced pressure from legitimate immigration consultants and lawyers to clamp down on those illegally profiting from the LMIA program, including some in their profession who take a cut.

Once an employer obtains the LMIA from Employment and Social Development Canada, the foreign workers, many of whom hope to apply for permanent residence, can apply for a work permit to get to Canada.

Having an LMIA is worth 50 bonus points toward their application for permanent residence. Ottawa is looking at reducing the points an LMIA is worth so there is less of an incentive to obtain one.

“Clearly, 50 points for an LMIA creates value in something that shouldn’t be ascribed value in that context, and creates the incentive for less than good behaviour,” Mr. Miller said.

The minister said he also plans “to put forward more measures” to reform the asylum system. He faced questions from MPs about a spiralling number of claims from people whose visas have run out.

Mr. Miller said the vast majority of those who come here temporarily do leave. But he said an increasing number of international students are making asylum claims with “very little hope.”

He said being in Canada temporarily has to “actually mean something” and some people have been given false hope that they can stay. “It is not a right” to become a permanent resident or citizen, he said.

Earlier this month a senior official at the Immigration and Refugee Board disclosed it now takes almost four years for asylum claims to be processed in Canada.

“I want to reform the system. It’s not working in the way it should. That’s a function of volume, but also a function of efficiency,” Mr. Miller told MPs on Monday. “The growing claims that we see now inland are not unexpected. They’re ones that we saw with people having increasingly fewer hopes to stay in Canada and being counseled to file – I think unjustly – asylum claims where they shouldn’t have the ability to do so.”

Last year, MPs on the finance committee voted down proposals in the government’s omnibus budget bill to toughen up Canada’s asylum regime and speed up the processing of refugee claims.

NDP and Bloc Québécois MPs voted to quash proposed asylum reforms, including the suspension of refugee proceedings if the claimant is not in Canada.

Mr. Miller also faced questions from MPs on why the government is not doing more to help the families of Lebanese Canadians escape the conflict between Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah and Israel.

He said “my heart goes out” to them but the government’s focus is on the very large number of Canadian citizens and permanent residents in Lebanon and would remain so. “I think everyone would agree that the best way to ensure their safety is to make sure there’s a ceasefire,” he said.

Mr. Miller told MPs that Ottawa’s overall aim is to return immigration targets to prepandemic levels.

Last month, he unveiled plans to reduce permanent resident numbers to lessen pressure on housing and other services. The reduction marked a policy U-turn for the government.

Earlier on Monday, migrants’ advocates called for a reversal of the immigration cuts, saying that it is unfair to blame the housing and affordability crisis on people who come to Canada from abroad.

At a press conference on Parliament Hill, Karen Cocq, a spokesperson for the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, said the government is “unfairly scapegoating migrants.”