On October 19, 2015, Canada will have a federal election. There are four political parties that will likely win seats in Canada’s Parliament. One of them is the Liberal Party. The Liberal Party has made the following election promises regarding immigration: Expand Canada’s intake to 25,000 refugees from Syria and Iraq through immediate, direct sponsorship by the government of Canada. We will also work with private sponsors to intake even more. Invest an additional $200 million over this fiscal year and next to increase – without reducing health and safety standards – refugee processing, as well as sponsorship and settlement services capacity in Canada. Provide an immediate $100 million new contribution to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees to support the critical relief activities in the region. Fully restoring the Interim Federal Health Program. Establishing an Expert Human Rights Panel for determination of designated countries of origin and to provide a right to appeal refugee decisions for citizens from these countries. This panel will include representatives from international human rights groups. Ending the practice of appointing individuals without subject matter expertise to the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada. Nearly doubling the budget for family class immigration processing, in … Read More
Does Party Affiliation Affect Views on Immigration?
Recently, the Conference Board of Canada published a series of articles relating to immigration. One of them, written by Nick Nanos, talks about extensive polling on Canadian opinions regarding immigration. It has been widely quoted in the media that while Canadians approve of immigration, they generally want the numbers to stay the same. I made summaries of four of the seven questions that Mr. Nanos asked respondents. In making the following tables, I merged “% agree” and “% somewhat agree” into one category. I did the same for disagree. The results are as follows: Question 1. Immigration is a key positive feature of Canada as a country? Voter Profile % Agree % Disagree Liberal 87.8 10.5 Conservative 79.6 18.4 NDP 86.9 10.0 Bloc 77.1 22.9 Green 90.5 9.5 Undecided 73.9 21.1 Question 2. In 2008, Canada admitted 247,202 permanent immigrants. Do you think Canada should increase, decrease, or keep the same number of new permanent immigrants each year? Voter Profile % Increase Numbers % Keep Same % Decrease Liberal 21.7 40.0 31.6 Conservative 19.1 38.4 36.3 NDP 29.5 41.4 23.5 Bloc 17.3 47.8 31.1 Green 29.3 45.3 23.5 Undecided 18.6 33.2 36.1 What these two tables indicate is that Liberals … Read More