As Jason Kenney “balances” out another aspect of the Immigration System, should we be worried?

On March 30 Immigration Minister Jason Kenney announced reforms to be made to improve the current asylum system for refugees; shortening the lengthy processing time of refugee claimants, thus reducing the cost considerably.

Critics especially immigration lawyers however accuse Ottawa of ‘slamming the door’ on those desperately in search of a welcoming home in Canada.

Kenney, whose recently implemented " balanced " changes to the Live-in caregiver program, which all but went under the radar in terms of media coverage, have resulted in nothing more than reducing the number of foreign nationals entering Canada, has again fallen back on his familiar tactic of “balancing” out the system in the name of fairness.

But judging by the results of his changes to the Live-in Caregiver program effective April 1, 2010, what does this mean for the asylum system.

The Live-in Caregiver program (LCP) is an immigration program that facilitates overseas caregivers coming to Canada to fill the deficit in Canadian applicants. They reside in their employers’ home and provide care for children, the elderly and disabled. Families hiring overseas caregivers legally required meeting all costs to do so. The full list of this includes the caregiver’s airfare to Canada and all other travel costs, health insurance, workplace safety insurance, and all “third party” costs or Recruitment fees.

As the program now currently stands, there is no protection at all to the average Canadian family who may be out thousands of dollars should the caregiver choose not to honour the agreed upon employment contract. When announcing these changes in December, Kenney referred to them as “balanced and responsible”*.

Suffice to say the typical Canadian family has stopped hiring overseas caregivers and the industry has been left devastated.

ACNA Canada (Association of Caregiver & Nanny agencies), a fairly new industry association conducted a survey of 175 caregiver agencies across Canada to determine the effects on the industry post the April 1, 2010 changes. The results as shown on their twitter account has been close to 90 % decrease in the number of families hiring an overseas caregiver on the Live-in caregiver program. This means the changes Kenney developed have taken away the opportunities for thousands of overseas caregivers, predominantly Filipinos, to work in Canada.

Needless to say if the improvements were truly balanced, the outcome would be very different.

So the question remains, what is Jason Kenney’s definition of balanced?

Does balanced mean Kenney having his way and conveniently manoeuvring the Government into passing reforms that reflect his own personal beliefs and agendas.

Based on the Live-in caregiver program changes, a 90 % decrease of applications, balanced would not cross my mind. We must be very careful before the Government agrees to another balanced bill recommended by Kenney.

Based on his recent blunders like the George Galloway disaster, omitting gay marriage reference to the Citizenship guide and his most recent actions in conveniently diminishing the Live-in caregiver program we must be careful and definitely question his sound judgement at times.