FEDERAL Liberals’ pressure has forced the Conservative Government to back down from its ill-conceived plan to impose language testing on spousal sponsorship applications, said John McCallum, Liberal Critic for Citizenship and Immigration, on Thursday.

“Pressure from the Liberal Caucus in the House of Commons has forced [Immigration] Minister [Chris] Alexander to clearly and publicly state that his government will abandon their rumoured plan to impose these ridiculous, Orwellian language tests on the spouses of Canadians,” said McCallum.

It was leaked earlier this week that the Conservative Government was considering imposing language requirements on spousal sponsorship applicants. Liberal MPs raised this issue repeatedly in the House of Commons and at the Immigration Committee.

“Liberals were able to quickly show this Conservative Government the error of their ways,” said McCallum. “Hopefully, we can take Minister Alexander at his word and trust that this plan is dead and buried and we have one less Neanderthal Conservative idea to deal with.”