Sociology Canadian Policy

Question: Discuss about theSociologyfor Canadian Policy. Answer: Introduction: There is no point in stating the fact that Canada has emerged to be a country that has the highest per capita immigration rate in the entire world. Rich in natural sources, Canada has always enjoyed the benefit of a strong and fully developed economy, that in turn has attracted a huge number of immigrants. However, while the Canadian policy of immigration has remained lenient since the year of 1967, the immigration policy has been made far more selective by the introduction of the new Express Entry system (Mas, 2017). Chris Alexander, the Minister of Immigration of Canada, has revised the immigration policy, that intends to offer permanent residency status to people, who have a Canadian job offer. However, from a sociological perspective, this policy will tend to cause wider social and economic gap of equality among the immigrants denied of permanent residency status and the skilled immigrants, who are being granted the same. Hence, the purpose of the report is to critically analyze the current event , and carefully examine the potential social impact of the same on the Canadian population, both the residents and the immigrants (Knowles 2016). Body: Discussion: Since the Express Entry system is meant to put greater emphasis on the employability skills and status of the applicant for immigration the less skilled and sub skilled workers, along with the older people, applying for the permanent residency status are likely to get affected. Since the nation will prefer the job holders, an integral section of the society- the elderly as well as the less privileged part of the population will be marginalized in the process. This is likely to create greater social divide among the existent residents of Canada as well. Since the government, presently is getting governed by the commercial logic, it is offering 600 points to any immigrant applicant if he is holding a job offer from Canada under the high skill category. Undoubtedly, the new revision has been introduced to ensure that the number of jobs available in Canada is equal to the number of skilled applicants, so that the unemployment problem of skilled immigrants can be reduced. However, this new policy is no way desirable as it tends to overlook the basic needs and amenities of the less privileged people. While the new system can potentially attract the high profile job seekers, such as IT analysts and engineers and highly qualified health practitioners, it will tend to lose out its attention on the less skilled workers, who are in real need of money. Earlier, the policy was much lenient and considerate to the needs of the semi skilled as well as highly skilled applicants, but however the system had some flaws. For example, often the high skill jobs were not available and the immigrant engineers had to end up working in convenience stores. Further, the employers of Canada look out for highly skilled foreign workers, and hence it was important that filtration is done while offering permanent residency status to the immigrants. Hence, the Conservative government introduced these restrictions that are guided by the materialistic motives (Root et al., 2014). Sociological Concept: Social stratification is an important concept in sociology, and the implication of this concept is that a society ranks and categories the dwellers of the society, according to the rank, status and wealth (Hollifield et al., 2014). In case of the new immigration policy, the immigrant population will encounter a social divide, as people with high employability skills, will get an upper hand in getting permanent residency status, while the people with less or mediocre skills, will not gain access to the wealth, power or social prestige of the former (Porter, 2015). Again, social control is also an important concept that intends to govern, control and restrict the actions of the human beings for the overall welfare of the society. In case of this immigration policy, the social control mechanism is being used by the Canadian government, in trying to control the employment status or the residency of the immigrants of Canada. While this social control mechanism intends to serve the motives of the employers in finding suitable candidates, it is failing to offer an equal treatment to the immigrants (Bpucher Cerna, 2014). Last but not the least the social conflict is also an important sociological concept that refer to the possibility of conflict in thoughts or actions when people having opposing ideologies oppose each owing, for attaining scarce resources. Since all the immigrants are applying for stable jobs as well as permanent residency status in Canada, the special favor shown to the economically privileged ones is likely to ignite social conflict (Bertoli et al., 2014). Sociological Paradigm: The structural functional approach of immigration is an important theory of immigration. According to the theory, the socio-cultural factors of a country can largely affect the lives, status or the economic condition of the immigrants (Pratkanis et al.,2014). According to this sociological paradigm, each member of a society lives in the society in order to serve and fulfill the common goals, that in turn will tend to fulfill the motives and interests and thus the preservation of the social order forms an integral aspect of this sociological perspective. However, as a result of the recent immigration policy, the possibility of social cohesion is being denied in the country (Ferrer et al., 2014). While the structural functional approach essentially upholds the importance of creating a society that not only involves the participation of the people of the society but also offers equal access to resources. However, here the job participation of the low skill workers of Canada is being den ied, while the high skill working immigrants are being granted every form of amenity available to a permanent resident of the Canadian society. This has resulted in a social divide (Johnstone Lee, 2014). Conclusion: To conclude, it is to be noted that the revised immigration policy intends to serve the economic policy of Canada that aims to achieve maximum skilled international workers to aid economic development of Canada. However, this is likely to create a greater social divide among the immigrants, besides staling away the jobs of the native Canadian employees as well, in case there is an excess of highly qualified working immigrants pouring in the Canadian job market. Reference List: Bertoli, S., Dequiedt, V., Zenou, Y. (2016). Can selective immigration policies reduce migrants' quality?.Journal of Development Economics,119, 100-109. Boucher, A., Cerna, L. (2014). Current policy trends in skilled immigration policy.International Migration,52(3), 21-25. Ferrer, A. M., Picot, G., Riddell, W. C. (2014). New directions in immigration policy: Canada's evolving approach to the selection of economic immigrants.International Migration Review,48(3), 846-867. 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