What's new in Immigration?
Apparently, Canada now has a new Immigration Minister. This change happened on July 26th, 2023 during the shuffling of government departments by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The former immigration minister, Sean Fraser got moved into the Housing department and was replaced by Marc Miller, a Member of Parliament for Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs in Montreal, Quebec.
The Prime Minister Trudeau stated that the shuffling of cabinet team members was a means to promote renewed focus on government’s economic priorities since the Cabinet ministers are responsible for different sectors of the executive branch of government, as well as advising the head of government on the areas of their influence.
More About The New Immigration Minister
Minister Miller, the new immigration minister has degrees in Political Science from the Université de Montréal, as well as Common Law and Civil Law from McGill. He was born and raised in Montreal and has been a member of the Parliament of Quebec. Miller has advocated for increased federal investment in affordable housing, public transit, and the Canada Child Benefit.
What This Change Means for Canadian Immigration
The immigration minister in Canada, is usually responsible for Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), which includes passport services, immigration, and temporary residence.
Since the new minister is part of the liberal party which set a mandate to overcome 1.45 Million newcomers within the next three years with the category-based selection for example, we don’t expect much change in policies unless an election comes up and a new political party wins.
However, some people have raised concerns over how Miller’s Quebec Parliament membership might affect the rigidity of the immigration laws for non-French speaking foreigners.
Hopefully, these speculations will will just be that- speculations. Especially since people have been pleased with the recent Canadian immigration policies so far under Sean Fraser, the recently replaced immigration minister.
He had made some impressive changes during his tenure that has positively paved way for foreign immigrants so far. He oversaw the introduction of occupation-specific draws to the Express Entry system, which started successfully at the end of June. Despite having a backlog of more than 2.5 million applications due to a pandemic-induced reduction in processing capacity in 2021, he successfully took up the challenge to keep the immigration system going by allowing thousands of people in Canada temporarily to become Permanent residents.
The new Immigration Minister, Marc Miller shows promise to continue in this stead and hopefully do better for the immigration system in Canada.
We can only watch and wait for the outcome of this new administration. We hope for more positive momentum for Canada and immigrants at large.