Canadian immigration law triggers complaints

Immigration lawyer Ravi Jain, a partner with Toronto-based Green and Spiegel, says he has received a number of complaints from highly educated people from the United States, the United Kingdom and elsewhere who "are extremely annoyed and a bit insulted" that Canada requires them to take an English language test to process their immigration papers.

Starting June 26, a ministerial instruction made the test compulsory for all skilled immigrant applicants. By doing this, "the government is violating its own laws," Jain told rediff.com.

The matter snowballed into controversy after a complaint from Sara Landreth, who reportedly has a PhD in English literature and has been hired to teach the subject in Canada.

'Yet her application for immigration will not be processed unless she submits to a $280 English language test,' says Globe and Mail report.

'It certainly strikes as ridiculous and a bit ludicrous,' Landreth has been quoted as saying.

'The irony of someone who is immigrating to Canada to teach English being asked to take an English test is probably not lost on most people.'

"The government gave itself enormous power when it pushed an immigration law through a budget bill back in June 2008 that allows the (citizenship and immigration) minister to establish categories of applicants; an order for processing; a number to be processed per year; and control over disposition of applications," said Jain.

"But the law didn't give the government the power to require that all applicants write a formal English test."

Section 79 (1) of the Immigration Act provides that a skilled worker must 'have their proficiency in those languages (English and French) assessed by an organization or institution designated under subsection (3); or provide other evidence in writing of their proficiency in those languages.'

The government, he said, "Is ignoring its own law and is universally requiring all applicants to write an English test even if they were born and educated in say England, the US or Australia."

But Jain's advice to Landreth and other potential immigrants is to take the test.

"Otherwise their applications will go nowhere," he said.

Winnipeg-based lawyer David Matas also questioned how Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney 'issued a ministerial instruction… that said only applicants who write a (English) test will be considered (for permanent visas)… It's the sort of power that, if accepted, would wreck havoc with all our laws.'

Kelli Fraser, spokesperson, immigration department, has been quoted as claiming that the ministerial instruction was issued as research revealed that 'official language literacy had a significant impact on immigrant earnings and that where literacy matched that of Canadian-born citizens, there was almost no gap in earnings for immigrants.'