What has the leadership race been about so far? 11 year olds donating cash, nit picking on French, and tortured Hitler metaphors. In short, it’s been pretty devoid of policy.

With that in mind, I thought I’d draw attention to a blog post by David Cohen, reviewing Gerard Kennedy’s immigration platform. Mr. Cohen is a prominent immigration lawyer and given that he concludes that Gerard is not in “serious contention”, he’s certainly not a Kennedy supporter (but since his expertise is immigration and not law, I’ll let that slide). Here’s what he has to say about Gerard:

The Liberal Party leadership race has been a pretty uninspired affair so far. No candidate has yet to position himself/herself as the favorite, and the leading candidates haven’t distinguished themselves anymore than as “that guy who taught at Harvard”.

Out of this pack of mostly middle-aged white men comes an original immigration-based platform from Gerard Kennedy. While a middle-aged white man himself, Kennedy is distinguishing his campaign by positioning himself as an advocate for current and future immigrants to Canada. In fact, part of Kennedy’s Immigrant Success Platform calls for the creation of an immigration advocate position within the federal government.

Kennedy seems to have grasped the economic and cultural importance of continued immigration to Canada, and our need to better integrate immigrant populations into society at large. This includes working with the private sector to better recognize foreign credentials and reduce immigration income-gaps, and reworking the points-based immigration system to attract more diverse skilled workers that are currently shut out.

Hat Tip: The Dan Report