Dear all fellow Canadians, As a Canadian with Chinese origin, I would go to my home country and tell the people there, those who are willing to give up everything to come to Canada: “So you are a Chinese, a foreigner and want to work in Canada immediately without any restriction? Easy! Just fall in love and marry someone with a foreign student or worker status in the country. You will be granted working authorization for the same duration as the person living temporarily in Canada for school or work. The process is surprisingly simple. If you are in the country legally as a visitor, just register your marriage to a foreign resident, gather the forms and papers, and mail your application to the processing office in Alberta, then wait for the permit to arrive in a few weeks. The process is even easier if you are from a visa-exempted country. All you do is to board a one-way flight to Canada with your passport, your marriage certificate, and your partner's residence paper. Upon arriving at a Canadian port of entry, you will proceed to any CBSA counter and tell them you want to join your partner and work in Canada. In less than an hour, you will walk away with an open work permit, which entitles you to unrestricted employments in Canada. No test on the legitimacy of your relationship, no sponsorship obligation, nothing, it's a paper-based process, it is a free ticket to Canadian job market, and as it is called, completely 'open'. Now that is not the end. If you have accompanying minor children, they will be granted Open Study Permit and they will be able to study at any public school in Canada for free. All of you will also be rewarded free universal health care in most Canadian provinces, so if you run into medical troubles, such as pregnancy or critical illness, Canadian taxpayers will pay for you in full. Just make sure at the end of your stay, after whatever number of years, if you decide to leave and do not wish to contribute to the tax system, spread the words about how generous you were treated in the country and were not required to make any commitment in return, thanks to the budget cuts to the basic services that our federal government is doing to Canadian citizens.” Do you think this is a joke that I make up? As a Canadian taxpayer who struggles to makes end meet in the critical economic downturn, I wish it was a joke too. In fact, it is the current policy for granting Open Work Permit to foreigners by Citizenship & Immigration Canada. The eligibility criteria, cited from CIC website, clearly states that you may be eligible for Open Work Permit if your spouse is a skilled worker in an occupation under the National Occupational Classification (NOC) skill type 0, A or B , or a foreign student. According the formal statistics, there are about 250,000 foreign students studying in Canada, most of them participate in the post-secondary levels. Assuming every one of them has a spouse, this translates to the eligibility of approximately 250,000 people from abroad, those who might not have any Canadian experience, the only connection they have with Canada is a marital partner who study in the country, but they are still easily qualified to come work in Canada. A few months ago, Hon. Jason Kenney, former Minister of Citizenship & Immigration, currently Minister of Minister of Employment and Social Development and Minister for Multiculturalism, along with his Conservatives government, have been accused of exploiting the Temporary Foreign Worker program. Due to the government’s mismanagement and the misinformed public, the number of temporary foreign workers has grown from 181,794 in 2002 to 491,547 in 2012. The federal government over the past few years, has actively promoted the message that “Canadian citizenship is not for sale”, targeting at fraudulent immigrants and people who do not have long-term commitment with Canada. On the other hand, by the policies in granting Open Work Permit to the foreign spouses from outside the country, they put Canadian job market on sale for the price that cannot be cheaper in anywhere else. In fact, none of the peer countries has a similar approach to the issue. The United States only allows spouses of foreign students (F1 Visa) to come in and stay with their partners as visitors (F2 visas). In Australia, in order to join the spouses who are going to school there, the foreign spouses must prove the legitimacy of their relationship, they must apply for the Accompanying spouse visas from outside Australia and if approved to come, they can only stay as visitors. What makes the Canadian government think that this country should give preferential treatments to the spouses and children of foreign students, opening an easy access door for hundreds thousands people to join the Canadian workforce while our national unemployment rate is currently on the rise, while provincial budgets are near deficit points, while public school systems are under depressing pressure to open more facilities for our Canadian children? In my humble opinion, Canadians, for sure, do not have any problem welcoming spouses of foreign students as we highly value the family reunification. We, however, cannot tolerate a system that put foreigners ahead of Canadian citizen in any social welfare aspects. They can come and go, as they are pleased, and as visitors. Hon. Jason Kenney responded to the TFW by freezing the program in some industries, tighten the rules of recruitment and increasing the fees required to process working visa. The government has done first part into the process of fixing the long overdue problem. The second part though, is to review the overall structure in granting Open Work Permits to foreigners. The government has shut the front entrance door, but is still leaving the backdoor unsecured. Let me remind everyone that there are about 10,000 foreign spouses of Canadian citizens and permanent residents, living right here in Canada, but are not allowed to work with an Open Work Permit, until their application for permanent residency is approved. They live here in limbo, without the right to work, no health care, no immigration status, until the initial review of their applications is complete, which currently takes at least 15 months. During the 15 months wait, these sponsored spouses, if becoming pregnant or requiring medical assistance, their entire medical bills will be paid for by the Canadian sponsors who are also taxpaying Canadian citizens and permanent residents. As the spouses of Canadian citizens and permanent residents, they do not have the same luxury of working, paying tax, having universal health care, freedom to travel, as the spouses of foreign students. This is what’s happening in the Canadian immigration, in our Canadian society. I call on everyone who is concerned about the Open Work Permit program, to research it, to discuss the issue with your local Member of Parliament, and please kindly forward this information to your fellow Canadians, so we can protect the integrity of our government’s program, our social welfare, and to ensure a fair and timely treatments to people in need. Joshua Yang-Ming Wang (Richmond, BC) http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/article18283523.ece/ALTERNATES/w620/image.jpg