There have been on-again off-again threats about forcing a federal election on Canadians from both the government and all three opposition parties for at least the last year. It's now looking like an election is a distinct possibility this fall.

Prime Minister Steven Harper has been muttering about a dysfunctional parliament, even though he's also been bragging about the Conservative legislative record. He asked the leaders of the opposition parties to meet with him before Parliament's scheduled return on September 15 to see if they would commit to his agenda. Both Liberal Leader Stephane Dione and Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe agreed to meet on September 9, the day after three scheduled by-elections, all of which the Conservatives are expected to lose. Today Harper told reporters he won't wait to meet with all the opposition leaders before he decides on a fall election. This is in spite of the fact that Harper's party got a bill on fixed election dates passed in 2007. At that time, one of the reasons the Conservatives gave for the legislation was fairness - that a fixed election date would eliminate the advantage given to the government party to call an election when conditions are favourable to that party. Ah, well. Who ever said there was consistency in politics?

The Tories have some good reasons to want an election sooner rather than later. One is that a win by Barack Obama in the U.S. election could give a boost to the Liberals in Canada. A second is the expected downturn of the Canadian economy.

More on Canadian Federal Elections
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The Canadian federal government is introducing a new immigration class for some temporary foreign workers and international student graduates who have Canadian work experience. Unlike other classes of Canadian immigration, the Canadian Experience Class will consider the immigration applicant's Canadian work experience as a key factor in the immigration selection process.

This new class will take into account the applicant's experience with Canadian society and knowledge of the Canadian labour market, as well as his or her language skills, in a way that the Skilled Worker Class, which was designed for workers applying from overseas, cannot. The Canadian Experience Class will have the additional benefit of spreading the benefits of immigration to more parts of Canada, since temporary foreign workers and international students are located more broadly across Canada because of employer demand or the attraction of a specific college or university. The new class could also allow more skilled tradespersons to immigrate permanently to Canada, since they often lack enough formal education to qualify under the federal Skilled Worker Program. Read more...

Updated: Wednesday August 27, 2008

A national and deadly outbreak of listeriosis has been definitely linked to recalls of meat products from a Maple Leaf Foods plant in Toronto, officials from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the Public Health Agency of Canada confirmed in a news release.

So far five people have died with listeriosis as the underlying or contributing cause of death, and the role of listeriosis is being investigated in another 10 deaths; 29 cases of listeriosis have been confirmed; and another 31 cases are under investigation. Since the symptoms of listeriosis can occur for up to 70 days after eating contaminated food, it is likely the numbers of confirmed and suspected cases will grow over the next few weeks.

Maple Leaf Foods has been cooperating with federal, provincial and local health authorities, and when the results of initial product tests come back the company announced they were recalling more products as a precaution. The Toronto plant has been temporarily shut down and is being sanitized. Read more...

Canada has a huge backlog of immigration applications - well over 900,000 - and hundreds of thousands more people apply every year. Many people have been waiting years for their applications to be processed. The federal government says the first-come, first-served immigration process has also prevented Canada from admitting individuals with the skills and experience that Canadian employers need.

In an attempt to come to grips with the problem, amendments to the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Protection Act were passed this summer. The major changes to the process mean that Citizen and Immigration Canada will no longer have to process all immigration applications. They can now return applications (and refund the corresponding application fees) without processing them. The amendments also give the Minister of Immigration the power to issue instructions to set priorities for certain skills and occupations to allow labour shortages in Canada to be filled more quickly.

The federal government is currently consulting with provincial and territory governments and other relevant groups to define the priorities. The government says it still aims to keep "a balance between the economic, family reunification and refugee protection goals of Canada’s immigration system."

More on Immigration to Canada
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Immigration to Canada