James Metcalfe – Pace Immigration: Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney tabled legislation in the House yesterday. Sweeping changes proposed in a new immigration bill would give new powers to the minister of immigration, including the ability to deny entry to visitors for public policy reasons and to override the rules to let otherwise inadmissible people come to Canada.

Jason Kenney’s announcement is a major change in what I see as a ‘law and order agenda’ on immigration.  His latest initiative is a change in the law which will make it easier to remove non-Canadian citizens form Canada for serious criminal offenses and limit any appeal process. In practical terms, persons who are sentenced to periods of incarceration of more than six months will be removed from Canada.

I believe average Canadian citizens have limited tolerance for non-Canadians who break our laws and that this change will have popular support.  While there must be checks and balances in any system, I believe that considering more than 80% of criminal offences result in jail terms of less than 6 months, these changes are not unreasonable.