Big Brother is watching

 

 

Welcome to the new normal.

 

Starting January 2013, Citizenship and Immigration Canada will implement a host of changes that will overhaul the entire immigration system—from revising the point grid for selection of new immigrants to the new Skilled Trades Stream designed to address labour shortages to facilitating travel to Canada if you’re visiting or working. “These changes are long overdue and will help us move to a fast and flexible immigration system that works for Canada’s economy,” Canada Immigration Minister Jason Kenney announced in a recent press release.

 

Underneath all these new changes is a seemingly harmless but potentially discriminatory policy to require nationals from 29 countries and one territory to provide their biometrics when they apply to travel to Canada to visit, study or work. Requiring fingerprints and photographs, Minister Kenney stressed, is “one of the most effective ways to identify individuals entering the country. By providing immigration officials with greater certainty, biometrics will facilitate legitimate travel to Canada.”

Since the events on September 11, 2001, the biometric community
has made vast technological improvements in protecting the United
States and its borders. Click link to view "Biometrics Since 9/11,"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dnXWGxn20w

This new requirement for biometrics applies to all persons from the following countries: Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Bangladesh, Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, Colombia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Jamaica, Jordan, Laos, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestinian Authority, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, South Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, Vietnam, and Yemen.

 

One can only begin to speculate why these countries were selected, with the exclusion of others. A common thread that binds these countries is the ongoing war or civil strife in their territories that makes them a natural breeding ground for Islamic terrorists and intransigent rebel groups, or for criminals to operate. Right away, biometrics stigmatizes applicants from these countries since there is a putative perception they are being targeted precisely for the purpose of singling out undesirables like those engaged in terrorism or criminality.

 

Canada Immigration is using code words such as “legitimate travel” and “to protect the safety and security of Canadians” which Mr. Kenney has emphasized in his press release. This means that those who are engaged in terrorism and criminality pose a great danger to Canadian society and should be not be allowed to enter the country. But in identifying a pool of specific countries that should provide biometrics, Canada Immigration is immediately marking people from these source-countries as potentially unwelcome in Canada.

 

Biometrics has long been used in criminal proceedings, as well as in private and commercial transactions. But the infamy of September 11, 2001 ushered in greater concerns to control and secure the border from unwanted individuals. The U.S. Congress passed the Patriot Act in October 2011 requiring all foreign visitors to provide machine-readable, biometric travel documents, and put into place an entry-exit system to monitor movements to and from the country.

 

Next year, before newcomers are allowed to step into Canada, their biometric data will be checked to ensure that the individual who was approved to travel is in fact the same person who is entering Canada. The use of biometrics in immigration and border control will bring Canada up-to-date with other countries already using the system which includes the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, countries in the European Union Schengen Zone, Japan, South Korea, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Saudi Arabia.

 

Biometrics are physiological or behavioral characteristics used to recognize or verify the identity of a living person. They are digital fingerprints and photographs that are to be embedded in a Canadian visa. Any one of the different types of biometric information can allow border security guards to make rapid and precise, one-to-one (authentication) or one-to-many (verification), identity checks.

 

There are, however, significant human rights ramifications inherent in the collection, processing and distribution of a person’s biometrics which creates hostility between public policy and the individual’s right to privacy. This friction is now at the heart of the biometrics debate.

 

Rebekah Thomas, an associate policy and research officer at the Global Commission on International Migration in Geneva and a specialist in international human rights law, has urged policy makers to look at the biometrics debate “from the migrants' perspective because the development of biometric technology is particularly discriminatory towards migrants, both in its application and its effect.”

 

In When Biometrics Fail: Gender, Race, and the Technology of Identity, Shoshana Amielle Magnet contends that very often these technologies fail to work. Magnet is an assistant professor in the Institute of Women’s Studies and the Department of Criminology at the University of Ottawa. Her study shows that at the moment when biometrics fail, these technologies prove that they work differently and fail to function more often, on women, people of colour, and people with disabilities. Prof. Magnet’s book evaluates the state’s use of biometrics to control and classify vulnerable and marginalized populations—including prisoners, welfare recipients, immigrants, and refugees—and to track individuals beyond a nation’s territorial boundaries.

 

Things that once seemed like science fiction are now easily usable and can be shared to track immigrants, criminals, welfare recipients or terrorists. In the United States, for example, DNA is now collected from almost anyone who comes in contact with the criminal justice system, and the expansion of DNA collection is becoming a real and serious threat because DNA has the potential to reveal so much information about an individual. The frontier is being stretched and we are not sure which areas could be next.

U.S.  Senators Chuck Schumer and Lindsey Graham say that a federally issued
ID card with biometric information is necessary to curb illegal immigration to
the United States. Click link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFewUlszMTQ
 to view "The National Biometric ID Card: The Mark of the Beast?"

Critics of the use of biometrics in immigrant tracking suggest biometrics should enhance rather than conflict with individual privacy. That it should focus more on preventing identity theft and in providing increased anonymity for the user. Easier said than done because for the most part governments are more concerned with the security and welfare of the greater society rather than protecting an individual’s right to privacy. Privacy is a fundamental human right upheld under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and entrenched in almost every national law. But when it runs in conflict with the greater good such as the state’s security, privacy is usually trumped by public policy that aims to protect the state.

 

The right to privacy is usually assured through minimum guarantees that personalized computerized data will not be compromised. But these guarantees can be difficult to uphold in the case of biometrics because one of its weaknesses is lack of credibility, whether from error or their vulnerability to interference. When data, for instance, is transferred across different agencies and countries, there is a greater risk that it will trickle into more controversial areas of immigration control, such as tracking and surveillance. This is known as “function creep,” which means data is used for other purposes not foreseen or not consented to at that time it was collected.

 

Biometric measures are generally criticized for the tendency to discriminate against migrants, partly because of state policy to tackle illegal immigration and as an unavoidable consequence of their contact with borders. Immigrants from Third-World countries, for example those nationals from the 29 countries required by Canada Immigration to provide biometrics, are more likely to need visas for entry, and certain nationals and ethnic groups are deliberately targeted by immigration controls because of fear of terrorism and criminality.

 

For refugees and asylum seekers, or for just being included in the 29 countries required to provide biometrics, the process of having their biometric information collected may be a terrifying and traumatic experience. As earlier said, belonging to these 29 countries has a stigmatizing effect—the stigma of criminal activity attached to fingerprints or “mug shots,” for example.

 

Advocates of biometrics argue that these effects are unavoidable in order to ensure border security. Automation of identity checks and consequently raising the level of confidence in border security and immigration controls could reduce the negative myths and stereotypes about migrants and refugees. Traffickers would also be hindered in their attempts to use false identities.

 

Yet many of these biometric measures target nationals of particular countries who are also entitled to their fundamental human rights. Thus, it becomes more than doubly difficult to balance the policy of the state to secure its borders with the right of the individual to privacy.

 

A study made by the Global Commission on International Migration in Geneva shows scant evidence from the U.S. and the United Kingdom that biometric technology has contributed to reducing either terrorism or irregular migration. According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, more than 200 persons have been arrested since the January 2004 launch of US-VISIT, a program that electronically tracks the entry and exit of foreign visitors using biographical information and biometric identifiers. Those arrested include “convicted rapists, drug traffickers, individuals convicted of credit card fraud, a convicted armed robber, and numerous immigration violators and individuals attempting visa fraud.” After processing over 2.5 million visitors, no terrorist suspects have been caught to date, and these statistics do nothing to change the numbers of migrants who enter legitimately, but who become irregular once inside the country.

 

Security and human rights, however, are not necessarily incompatible principles. The application of biometric technology can certainly operate within a context that reconciles the needs and rights of both the state and the individual. Achieving the right balance may be elusive at this early stage of biometric applications, but this doesn’t mean that we should give up on our rights to privacy.

 

Perhaps, the more sensible way is to approach immigration reform and anti-terrorism as two separate and distinct issues. There should be proportionality between biometric data collection and usage and privacy rights. This would make it easier to assess if the measures undertaken are effective enough to justify interference with privacy rights.

The end of Canada’s multiculturalism

 

 

Very recently, Jason Kenney, Canada’s Minister for Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism announced that Canada will soon have an immigration system that works for Canada’s economy. Instead of a system plagued with backlogs, by the end of 2013, Canada’s new immigration system will become more flexible and responsive to the labour market, Mr. Kenney said.

 

The overriding objective of Mr. Kenney’s initiative in overhauling Canada’s immigration system is to install a fast, flexible just-in-time immigration system. To Mr. Kenney, the bottom line is to make the system work for Canada’s economy, anything short is unacceptable.

 

Mr. Kenney’s package of initiatives will be implemented on January 2013, a totally revamped immigration program that features a new point-grid which harkens back the old era when Canada’s immigrants and settlers were primarily people of European Christian heritage. This was prior to 1967 when Canada’s immigration policy, just like most other countries at that time, used race, ethnicity, religion and language in selecting new immigrants.

Canada Immigration Minister Jason Kenney. Photo courtesy of Andrew Forget,
QMI Agency. Click link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ru5sTwBmWX4 to
view "Minister Jason Kenney on the Irish Late Late Show."

Of course, the new immigration policy will not directly identify race, ethnicity or religion as criteria in choosing newcomers in this country, obviously an indication that Canada is also sensitive to issues of racism and discrimination. However, the emphasis placed on proficiency in either of the official Canadian languages of English or French as the most important decisive factor in the selection process unmistakably tilts it in favour of certain source countries. Already, critics of this potential shift from non-English speaking countries have pointed out the return to Canada's ethnocentric roots, which was the main reason for adopting the points system in the first place.

 

When Canada adopted the points system for selecting new immigrants, it was hailed as a Canadian innovation. The system removed any type of formal discrimination from immigration policy. Individuals would no longer be denied immigration to Canada, as it was in the past, based on their ethnicity, nationality or religion.

 

Mr. Kenney has emphasized many times that proficiency in English or French accelerates the integration of newcomers in the workforce and in the larger Canadian society. “Extensive research has consistently shown that the ability to communicate effectively in either French or English is a key factor in the success of new immigrants,” said Minister Kenney.

 

Language proficiency will not only be imposed as the most requirement for new immigrants but also to applicants for Canadian citizenship as well. With this stringent language requirement for citizenship, immigrants who have been successful as permanent residents and have lived, worked and contributed to Canada for years will find it more difficult to become citizens.

 

Effective November 1, 2012, applicants for citizenship will be required to submit acceptable evidence of their language proficiency, such as the results of a CIC-approved third-party test, or evidence of completion of secondary or post-secondary education in English or French, or evidence of achieving the appropriate language level in certain government-funded language training programs. This requirement will be in addition to passing a harder citizenship exam and a 75 percent minimum passing grade. There will also be no automatic citizenship for foreign-born children and for everyone born in Canada of immigrant parents.

 

Making proficiency in English or French as the most important requirement for social integration and job placement strikes at the heart of Canada’s policy of multiculturalism. In 1971, the federal government has recognized the cultural and racial diversity of Canadian society, and acknowledges the freedom of all members of Canadian society to preserve, enhance and share their cultural heritage. That Canada is not mainly English or French, but a composite of many and diverse ethno-cultural communities.

 

In 1988, Parliament passed the Canadian Multiculturalism Act, and enshrined this policy of multiculturalism in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, guaranteeing among others, equal protection and benefit of the law, and freedom from discrimination on the basis of gender, religion and racial or ethnic origin. The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act also upholds Canada’s multicultural policies in its objectives by respecting the federal, bilingual, and multicultural character of the country.

Vancouver Multicultural Day Committee’s National Multicultural Day event.
Courtesy of BC Gov Photos. Click link to view "The State of Multiculturalism
in Canada," http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZytZWw7ByM

As immigration continues to change the country’s demographics, Canada’s multiculturalism program has focused on making its institutions more responsive to the needs of Canada’s diverse population. Therefore, this new language proficiency requirement for new immigrants and citizens is unquestionably a step backward, a decision that ignores the ethnic and cultural make-up of Canada’s present-day immigrants.

 

Since 1991, China, India and the Philippines have been the top source of immigrants to Canada – countries where neither English nor French is the first language. Other immigrants and refugees come from countries in the Third World where they don’t speak English or French as their mother tongue. In due time, these immigrants have mastered their ability to speak English or French. Although not without the hardship that usually comes with every immigrant’s struggle to survive, they have contributed to the country’s economy and have become established and law-abiding citizens.

 

While mastery of the language might produce better economic outcomes for immigrants in the short term, it could also make it more difficult to find enough people with sufficient levels of fluency to maintain Canada’s immigration levels. And language is not the only focus of the present overhaul of Canada’s immigration system.

 

A study conducted by Prof. Naomi Albiom of Queen’s University has found that the present government’s immigration policies are making Canada less welcoming as it was. The new emphasis on reducing backlogs and short-term labour market needs is reshaping Canada’s future as a country for immigrants. Prof. Albiom has also criticized the pace these changes are being made through undemocratic methods like embedding them in omnibus and budget bills, and giving the immigration minister with almost unlimited authority to set policies with little public or parliamentary oversight.

 

All this makes us wonder if Immigration Minister Kenney’s reform initiatives are simply a reaction to the failure of multiculturalism in Europe where the leaders of Germany, France and Britain, have each declared that multiculturalism has been a failure in their countries, serving to separate and segregate, rather than integrate. Is Mr. Kenney trying to avoid a similar backlash against multiculturalism in Canada by revamping the immigration system now, rather than wait for the kind of European upheaval against accommodation of diversity issues?

 

The 2004 United Nations Mission on contemporary racism, for instance, concluded “that racial discrimination in Canada was tangible as reflected in the high incidence of poverty, overrepresentation in the prison population, racial profiling and under representation of ethnic and racial minorities in the upper and middle layers of political, administrative, economic, cultural and media institutions and mechanisms.” An effective way, it seems for the present government to prevent this situation from blowing up is to control the influx of new immigrants, and to ensure that these immigrants will conform to Canada’s original ethnocentric values and culture.

 

So, the Conservative government’s immigration momentum appears to run counter to the basic idea of multiculturalism that successful integration occurs when newcomers retain a sense of their heritage and culture while also becoming engaged in the larger society. While Europe has struggled with this concept, the defining feature of Canadian culture seems to be under siege not much from the immigrants this country fears may strike like their counterparts in Europe, but more from a government that seems tied to old-fashioned assimilation.

 

Like Europe where mandatory civic integration policies are now being implemented, Canada is similarly paving the way to a more comfortable road to assimilation of its new immigrants by ensuring that they conform to its ethnocentric culture right at the gates. Against a backdrop of increasing social isolation of immigrants and their rising political radicalization, it is only a matter of time when Canada eventually sheds off the reputation of being the first country in the world to adopt a policy of multiculturalism.

 

When Mr. Kenney insists on language proficiency and emphasis on hiring of temporary foreign workers without a path to permanent residence and citizenship, the undercurrent in this policy is clear: Canada can no longer tolerate a live-and-let-live attitude towards immigrants. New immigrants to Canada, to the Conservative government’s approval, must be “Canadian first,” at least in relation to public life. If their ethnic identities are to be preserved, these must be expressed only in private and not be the basis for political claims to multiculturalism.

 

The death knell to multiculturalism has already been sounded. Allan Gregg wrote in The Walrus that the elite consensus on a feel-good multiculturalism is blinding us to the reality of growing ethnic divides and animosities. Canada is not immune to the European conundrum and failure to contain multiculturalism.

To avoid the ethnic and religious divisions that are so visible in Europe, Jason Kenney is learning his lessons fast. He may not admit that he intends to abolish multiculturalism as an objective of immigration reform, but his immigration policies appear to be directed towards post-multiculturalism, a new order that avoids the excesses of multiculturalism without imposing the harsh policies of assimilation that are happening in Europe where he has been borrowing most of his ideas of reform.

Shutting the doors

Canada swears in about 160,000 new citizens every year and during the Canada Day celebrations on July 1st, a total of 1,500 people took their allegiance to their adopted country. This is the biggest day in terms of the number of individual ceremonies held across the country on a single day.

Canada Day, July 1st, is celebrated with fireworks at Ashbridges Bay in Toronto.
Click link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOm-15621bs&feature=related to
view, "Peter Russell - How to Become a Canadian."

But even as Canada offered its welcome mat to its new citizens on July 1st, the doors to aspiring new immigrants under the federal skilled worker and investor program have been slammed shut by Citizenship and Immigration Canada until July of next year. Canada Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, in a speech before a C.D. Howe Immigration conference, announced it’s about time to put a moratorium on the country’s skilled labour program in order to “reset the button.” Kenney’s decision put the brakes on new applications under the two programs popular with skilled workers wanting to come to Canada from abroad, which he stressed is part of the government’s backlog elimination strategy.

Kenney said it will be just “a temporary pause on new applications for the federal skilled worker program,” to “ensure that improvements to the program have time to be put in place which will give new applicants the opportunity to be even more positioned to succeed in Canada.”

But he cautioned that the moratorium will not amount to a drop in immigration levels. According to Minister Kenney, the only way to make the system run faster is to get rid of the backlog in immigration applications and at the same time give the government the opportunity to revise the much-criticized selection criteria for accepting new immigrants.

Under this year’s budget, the Conservative government has already scrapped all applications prior to 2008 as a way of eliminating a backlog of 280,000 applications. Even after removing all those applications, there would still be plenty of others waiting, thus “there’s just no point in any longer stockpiling people in the back of the backlog,” Kenney added.

What additional changes Ottawa will make to the federal skilled worker program are not known, but Kenney said he’d like Canadian employers to have more say in selecting immigrants under a system where they can choose potential job candidates from a ready pool of pre-screened skilled immigrants.

Last year, Kenney capped the number of applications for the investor program to 700 spots and doubled the minimum investment requirements from $400,000 to $800,000. The quota was filled in 30 minutes. There are currently 25,000 investor applications representing 86,000 principals and dependents in the backlog.

Currently, the federal skilled worker program has an inventory of 463,214 people waiting for a decision. Ottawa is hoping the new law would enable Kenney to return and dispose the files of some 280,000 people submitted before Feb. 28, 2008. This has raised the ire of affected applicants who have filed a class action lawsuit against Ottawa, which has agreed not to destroy or return their applications within 90 days of the bill’s passage until the lawsuit is certified by the court. The court is yet to hear or set a hearing date in September.

Judging by his official pronouncements, Minister Kenney is apparently casting a huge precautionary tale.

First, in revising the rules for temporary foreign workers allowing them to enter and work in Canada for four years but leave thereafter, the government shows bias and preference to temporary status rather than giving them a chance to stay as permanent residents.

Second, in declaring a moratorium for sponsorship of parents and grandparents of already landed immigrants, Kenney has effectively set aside the objective of family reunification under the law.

Third, in eliminating all previous skilled worker applications prior to February 2008, Kenney has unfairly and unjustly shut closed the system to these people without the benefit of a review and assessment of their applications, which is probably a violation of their fundamental right to natural justice.

And now, with this recent suspension of all applications under the skilled worker and investor program, the government is further squeezing the door ever so tightly that those who wish to enter Canada are being excluded.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada Minister Jason Kenney. Photo by The  Canadian
Press/Adrian Wyld. Click link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQpkiKsNntI to
view "Jason Kenney announces canges to CDN Experience Class."

A recent poll conducted by Ipsos Reid for Postmedia News and Global TV in time for the celebration of Canada Day, shows that almost three-quarters of Canadians don’t want the federal government to increase the number of people the country allows to enter every year. However, four in 10 people feel those immigrants are having a positive effect on the country.

The message from the survey is clear: that while immigrants are being tolerated to enter Canada, there is a feeling among Canadians that there are an awful lot of them coming in right now.

Darrell Bricker, president of Ipsos Reid, said that Canadians don’t seem to realize the dramatic transition in the government’s immigration policy since the 1960s. He argued that fifty years ago, the government was trying to convince Canadians to welcome the “poor and huddled masses and refugees who made up most of the immigrant population at the time. Now, it’s about attracting people who are going to drive our economy.”

If the poll survey would be taken as a basis for government policy, then Canada should not let more immigrants come into the country as it currently allows. The survey shows that 72 per cent of the respondents said no to more immigration. This is in contrast to population projections based on the 2011 census that showed a rapid decrease in fertility rates in Canada, and if this trend continues, Canada’s population growth could be close to zero within the next 20 years. It behooves that without a sustained level of immigration, Canada’s zero population growth could become a reality.

The policy changes the Canadian government has adopted in the last few months appear to be short-sighted as they are merely aimed in attracting people who are immediately needed by industry or employers. These policies are based on the disposability of people, not on their potential contributions to the economy on the long haul. Thus, employers might be able to hire their workers needed for short-term periods and could be disposed of when they’re no longer necessary.

The treatment of immigrants that these policy changes by the Conservative government seem to augur is bereft of the respect for the fundamental humanity of temporary foreign workers. They harvest our fruits and vegetables, care for our children, clean our houses, perform the most backbreaking and perilous work in our oil and tar sands. They fill all the labour needs in jobs which are unappealing to Canadians or which Canadians refuse to take. They come to us, as the Swiss playwright Max Frisch wrote, “as menial labourers, and somewhere along the way we seem to have forgotten that they are also human beings.”

This way of treating immigrants is very un-Canadian like. It parallels the immigration system of our neighbour in the south where foreign workers are denigrated after they have been exploited of their usefulness to society, where they are stripped of their basic humanity, and branded as aliens who are deemed as “illegals.”

The decision by U.S President Barack Obama to stop deporting young illegal immigrants who came to the United States as children, despite its humanitarian element, has been criticized and lambasted by the Republican Party as pandering to the Hispanic vote. Arizona’s “Show your papers” in cracking down on undocumented immigrants has been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court while part of the law was declared unconstitutional. What the U.S. Supreme Court decision and Obama’s stop-gap measure have achieved is merely to highlight the continuing inability of the United States to wrestle with its immigration mess. Former U.S. President George W. Bush tried immigration reform but was scuttled by his own party in Congress. President Obama has hardly begun to try his hand at immigration reform but already the Republican Party has spoiled his efforts.

Too much of the debate in the United States has been focused on the legality of immigration, deflecting the more fundamental issue of the positive effects of mass immigration on American society.

In both the United States and Canada, study after study has shown immigration has been beneficial to society in general. There is enough social evidence to debunk the notion that immigrants have worsened social ills, or that they have reshaped the social fabric in harmful ways.

Writing for the Harper’s Magazine in March 1871, Louis Bagger compared the Castle Garden on New York’s Battery, where ships from Europe deposited immigrants who flooded America after the Civil War, to an absolute immigration depot. Among those who came in 1869, according to Bagger, were 99,605 from Germany, 66,204 from Ireland, 41,090 from England, and more than 35,000 from the Scandinavian countries. Millions of people afterwards would immigrate to America, making it a nation of immigrants. The same can be said of Canada, especially after the 1960s.

Yet, both countries have become wary of immigrants today. Every time immigration comes to the top of the public agenda, a dark shadow prevails -- the dark shadow of racism. Racist demonization always begins the hysterical rhetoric, and it’s not a new phenomenon. The racism in this debate is more pronounced in the United States, with its epicentre in Arizona. Canada may not be too far behind if the ruling Conservative government is allowed to continue singlehandedly, without a robust public debate, with its sweeping policy changes under the pretext of eliminating the immigration backlog and reforming a broken system.

Caregivers’ champion–but not for long

Before November 1 of each year, Canada’s Minister for Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism is required by law to submit a report in Parliament identifying the appropriate level of immigration for the following year and the most suitable mix between economic, family class and protected persons.

The current mix stands as follows: 60 per cent come in under the economic class, 26 per cent in the family class, and 14 per cent as protected persons (refugees and others who come in for humanitarian and compassionate reasons.)

Canada Immigration Minister Jason Kenney.Photo courtesy of No One is Illegal-Toronto.
Click the following link to view "Jason Kenney - the King of Multiculturalism,"
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CG4XNKlYdk&feature=related

A total of 18 objectives are listed in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) which serves as the guiding framework for Canada’s immigration program. In a briefing, the current department responsible for Canada’s immigration program has highlighted the following three objectives as the most important pillars of its program:

•  to support the development of a strong and prosperous Canadian economy, in which the benefits of immigration are shared across all regions in Canada;  
•  to see that families are reunited; and
•  to fulfill Canada’s international legal obligations with respect to refugees and affirm Canada’s commitment to international efforts to provide assistance to those in need of resettlement.

Every Canadian would therefore feel proud to think that Canada Immigration Minister Jason Kenney is doing his job well when he announced last July 12, 2011 that there would be public consultations on immigration levels and mix. Focusing on the three most important pillars of the immigration program also gives high hopes that the system which has been dysfunctional for some years would finally be overhauled for the better. That much needed reform is on the way, especially now that the Conservative government has the majority in Parliament to have its sway.

Government turnabout

But having political capital can easily make a government act arrogantly. The minute it announces public consultations about Canada’s immigration program, it instantly unmasks itself by revealing its ugly head. Instead of soliciting ideas on immigration reform, the Minister is asking us to help the government round up and deport suspected war criminals and illegal migrants. They even bought a whole newspaper page ad to display the mug shots of 30 suspected war criminals living in Canada.

To cap it all, Minister Kenney announced that the government would strip 1,800 people of their Canadian citizenship, which he said was obtained fraudulently. “There are some around the world who would seek to abuse Canada’s openness and who would seek to devalue Canadian citizenship. I’m here to tell those people that Canadian citizenship is not for sale,” Kenny put it quite bluntly.

Instead of enforcing our laws, Kenny would rather encourage vigilantism. Hunting down these alleged fraudsters, most of whom live abroad, would sidetrack Kenney’s more important objective of reforming a broken system. In addition, his emphasis on rooting out illegals and war criminals would take away public funds which his department can easily use to implement much-needed reforms such as expediting processing of applications that have been backlogged to about seven years of waiting time.

Boat full of Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka. Photo courtesy of controlarms.
Click link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qvy6tMej5Gs&feature=related
to view "Jason Kenny confirmed 1,8000 new Canadians could be stripped of
of their fraudulent citizenship."

After launching his consultations in Calgary, news broke out that a ship carrying Tamils was intercepted in Indonesia and appeared to be headed for Canada. “We are not going to be a doormat for dangerous crime of people smuggling,” Kenney immediately made his quick reaction loud and clear.

What has happened to Canada’s obligation to provide assistance to those in need of resettlement? There could be genuine refugees in that boatload of Tamils, yet Kenney has already prejudged that they’re not wanted in Canada

Sidestepping issues

Kenney’s sudden fear and loathing of fraudsters, calling them “citizens of convenience,” and war criminals sends a wrong message to the world that Canada is a haven for cheaters and con artists. He’s portraying a wrong image of new Canadians, the overwhelming majority of whom respect the law, work hard, pay their taxes and contribute in making our economy strong and sound.

The message this government wants us to hear is clear and unmistakable. They are more interested in cracking down and punishing alleged illegals in this country than building the kind of immigration system founded on the three most important pillars of our immigration program as enumerated in the IRPA.

Kenney appears to be sidestepping the more important issues that have plagued Canada’s immigration system for years. Newly-settled permanent residents, for instance, want to know why it takes seven years to bring their parents in Canada. Employers also want to know when and how soon they can get the skilled labour they need.

Professional immigrants, whom Canada has enticed to come over on the basis of their high education and set of skills are wondering when their credentials will be recognized so they can get out of menial jobs they are forced to take in order to survive. Should pathways to permanent residence be considered for other temporary foreign workers? The list goes on and on, and urgency is of the essence.

During the last federal elections, Minister Kenney was regarded as a champion of immigrant rights. Caregivers in Canada have hailed him as their hero. Now that his Conservative party has won a big majority in Parliament, Kenney appears to be casting a different image—that of an enforcer who is interested more in rounding up and deporting illegals in Canada.

Caregivers Program faces possible setbacks

In a backgrounder it published regarding stakeholder consultations on immigration levels and mix just before the planned cross-country consultations, Canada Immigration has made two significant findings about the Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP) which could have serious implications to those thinking of applying to come to Canada under the program.

First, the backgrounder noted that many live-in caregivers leave the profession once they become permanent residents. This implies that some drastic changes may be needed if there is a sustained need for such employment, which includes the reality that if there are other choices, those who come under the program will not freely engage in “live-in” work arrangements. Either those who come in under the LCP may lose their pathway to permanent residence and be doomed to work as temporary workers for all their lives or the program be cancelled since the program appears to Canada Immigration as a floodgate for permanent residents who may not necessarily qualify if they apply under this category in the first place.

Filipino caregivers in Canada. Photo courtesy of bayan_canada. Click the
following link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoNHKJb4q6g to view
"Canada Immigration Minister Jason Kenney Thanks Filipino Caregivers." 

Second, they have also inferred that the LCP could be a hidden form of family reunification. In analyzing some LCP applications, they found that as many as 40 per cent come to work for relatives in Canada. This raises the question whether such employment would be available for non-family members, an implication that hiring caregivers who are family relatives may be disallowed in the future. There are already reports that many qualified first-time LCP applications in Manila are being turned down in favour of those caregivers already employed overseas such as those in Hongkong, Europe or the Middle East.

If Minister Jason Kenney wants to keep his cape as the caregivers’ champion, particularly to Filipino caregivers, he needs to clarify his department’s findings and their implications to the present LCP. The new procedural rules for hiring of temporary foreign workers that Canada Immigration started implementing last April 2011 have already caused great anxiety among many caregivers in particular. These new findings that alluded some doubts on the effectiveness of the LCP would surely create even more negative repercussions.

The once-hero to Filipino caregivers may have already forgotten those who have supported him during the last federal elections. Whether this is due to political arrogance after securing a Conservative majority in Parliament, Kenney’s new preoccupation with hunting down fraudsters and illegals not only reveals his short memory but perhaps the true character of the present Conservative government.