Documents suggest Canada is setting immigration quotas; Canadian Ukrainian agency concerned about flexibility (10/05/97)

Documents suggest Canada is setting immigration quotas

Canadian Ukrainian agency concerned about flexibility

by Andrij Kudla Wynnyckyj
Toronto Press Bureau

TORONTO - Documents obtained by Canadian immigration lawyer Richard Kurland from his country's Department of Citizenship and Immigration under the Access to Information Act suggest that the government is setting visa quotas.

Lila Sarick reported in the Toronto-based daily Globe and Mail's September 16 edition that this is the first time that "targets for the number of independent immigrants that Canadian visa offices around the world are to consider have been revealed."

Immigration Ministry spokesman Réné Mercier was quoted as saying that "it doesn't mean to say we're limiting that number to that country. We feel we're going to get that many in [the independent immigrant] class."

The Globe item also mentions the federal government's official line that the numbers provided in the documents are not quotas, but "final disposition targets" for individual missions.

In the article Mr. Mercier goes on to add that "targets do not single out particular nationalities because some missions, such as Vienna, handle immigration applications for a number of countries ... and immigrants can apply to visa posts outside their own country."

A graphic accompanying Ms. Sarick's piece suggests that the Canadian visa mission post in Kyiv is expected to process 805 cases (55 for those destined for Québec and 750 for the rest of Canada) out of a total of 110,860.

Mason Loh, chairman of a large Vancouver-based Chinese social services agency, told the Globe reporter that he was "shocked" to learn of the targets.

"It's been the cornerstone of our immigration policy for the last 30 years that people can come to Canada as long as they meet objective standards in immigration rules. This thing is a complete departure from that concept."

CUIAS and UCC comment

Eugen Duvalko, executive director of the Toronto-based Canadian Ukrainian Immigrant Aid Society and Ukrainian Canadian Congress spokesman on immigration issues, was more sanguine about the report.

"That the government does this kind of thing is something we've known all along," Mr. Duvalko told The Weekly. "Our concern is to what extent these numbers are flexible."

Mr. Duvalko said the Immigration Department's target for the Ukrainian capital was low. "Certainly we want to see Kyiv as a more robust office" in terms of the number of independent immigrant applications accepted.

"We certainly expect a larger number because of the link our community in Canada has to Ukraine," he added.

But Mr. Duvalko offered guarded agreement with Mr. Mercier's contention about particular missions. "Moscow, for example, which has a target of 1,750, actually does a lot of Ukrainian business."

The CUIAS official also pointed out that while Canada expects to admit a total of 5,000 immigrants from the U.S. by origin annually, the mission post in Buffalo, N.Y., is listed as being allotted 23,000 "final dispositions" in the document published in the Globe.

"Anybody who is familiar with our work knows that we take applicants from Ukraine and elsewhere for landed immigrant status to the Buffalo office for processing," Mr. Duvalko said.

The largest target for a European office was Paris, expected to issue a total of 6,800 independent immigrant visas (with 4,650 going to Québec), followed by London (6,500, with all but 190 going to the rest of Canada), Moscow (1,750, 300 to Québec), Bonn (1,710, 110), Belgrade (1,665, 165), Bucharest (1,600, 700), Vienna (1,045, 45) and Warsaw (1,000, 50).

Buffalo was expected to be the busiest post worldwide, followed by Delhi, India (10,820, 320 to Québec), Hong Kong (10,180, 680), Manila (7,200, 200) and Singapore (6,950, 950).

The Globe article pointed out that Canada annually sets targets for immigration and that Immigration Minister Lucienne Robillard expected her ministry to acept up to 113,000 economic immigrants into the country this year, based on their job skills, fluency in Canada's two official languages and adaptability.

In the September 16 item, the former chairman of the Canadian Bar Association's immigration section, Winnipeg-based lawyer David Matas, opines that "allocating levels by visa post was developed to help the Immigration Department manage its human resources."

"The problem is the staffing at the visa posts in relation to the demand," Mr. Matas said. "It's favoritism by impact, not necessarily by intent."

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