There are far better ways to deliver a fair and effective immigration system than giving the minister of immigration sweeping subjective power to pick and choose immigrants. Some suggestions:

1. Change the point system and give extra points to applicants with in-demand skills and to those who have relatives in Canada. In Australia, this logical and objective approach to the point system is widely regarded as one of the most efficient and progressive and has recently been adopted by the United Kingdom.

2. Increase the annual number of permanent immigrants into Canada from 260,000 to 330,000, one per cent of the Canadian population.

3. Hire more staff in overseas visa offices to process the backlog rather than arbitrarily discarding tens of thousands of family members of Canadians, all of whom deserve fair treatment.

4. Take advantage of existing technology and establish an e-filing system so the application process is more transparent, faster and more effective.

Canada is ripping off the best and the brightest from developing nations while wasting their talents in Canada.

Medical professional bodies need to provide more internships for foreign trained doctors and expedite their credential recognition.

Until this happens, does it really make sense to bring in doctors from developing countries only to have them drive taxis?

It is time for our country to increase funding for post-secondary and training initiatives, stop demanding repayment of students loans until after their internships and halt the brain drain from developing countries.

Olivia Chow is New Democratic party member of Parliament for the riding of Trinity-Spadina.

This article was taken from “The Vancouver Sun“