Employers to decide Canada visa applications

Mr Kenney's efforts have attracted criticism and praise in equal measure and, while his latest announcement has been no different, Mr Kenney maintains that current Canada visa policy creates further problems in the country and fails to address its problems.

"We're bringing hundreds of thousands of people into the country to end up, many of them, unemployed or under employed in an economy where there are acute labour shortages," said Mr Kenney.

The government in Ottawa wants to change the Canadian immigration process to reduce the number of skilled migrants who arrive in Canada to find their skills and qualifications are redundant or unnecessary and end up unemployed or in menial jobs by allowing employers to specifically target skilled migrants who will address certain staffing needs or requirements.

"Employers are going to do a much better job at selection than passive bureaucracy," said Mr Kenney, "because they can't afford to recruit people to come to Canada who can't work at their skill level on arrival."

Critics have accused the government of xenophobia by proposing market driven, draconian policies yet Mr Kenney refutes these claims.

"To string [migrants] along for years as they get stuck in survival jobs, as their skills deteriorate and they deplete their savings, is almost inhumane."

As part of last week's Budget, Mr Kenney, along with Minister of Finance Jim Flaherty, announced that almost 300,000 visa applications made before 2008 would be returned to the applicants in order to eradicate an overwhelming backlog.

The move has been widely condemned but Mr Kenney contends that it is a necessary step in creating the new immigration system.

"We could continue with this incremental approach to backlog reduction and eventually by about 2018 we would get to a working inventory. By returning these applications now we'll get to the working inventory in about 18 months' time."

Ratna Omidvar, president of the Maytree Foundation, a private company committed to tackling poverty, said reforming the immigration process was a good idea but would fail to address the needs of migrants already in Canada who are struggling.

"The government needs to invest more resources in internships, in mentoring, in bridge training programs," said Ms Omidvar.

"All this talk about fixing the system for the future takes our eyes off the ball."

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The Canadian Visa Bureau is an independent migration consultancy specialising in helping people make their application to the Canadian Embassy.