‘Guest worker’ abuses blasted
Lack of oversight by the federal government has allowed foreign workers to be abused by their employers, Auditor General Sheila Fraser says in a scathing report on Canada’s immigration program.
Fraser said federal authorities do not follow up on job offers for foreign workers to see if the jobs offered are real, if the employer can afford promised wages and if there is a real need for the worker.
The recent arrival by boat in Vancouver of 76 Sri Lankan Tamil men has triggered heated debate about Canada’s refugee system. On October 28, the Liu Institute for Global Issues at the University of British Columbia held a forum on the topic, entitled “The “Ocean Lady”: A New Challenge of Illegal Migration on Canada’s West Coast?” One of the panellists, Daniel McLeod, who is duty counsel for the migrants, called these men “classic refugees,” because of the persecution they face in Sri Lanka. “It’s young Tamil men in Sri Lanka who are most at risk,” he said. He also observed that though “the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam at their peak had probably 1500 to 2500 soldiers,” there are currently a quarter of a million Tamils awaiting security clearance by the Sri Lankan government in internment camps in the northern parts of the island.
McLeod, who is also an instructor in Refugee Law at UBC, noted that Canada is a signatory to the 1951 UN Convention on Refugees, which states that refugees cannot be penalised for entering the country through illegal means. Canada’s acceptance of the Convention was triggered by its refusal in 1939 to admit the St Louis, a boat containing 907 Jewish refugees, who were forced to return to Germany, where a third of them were killed in concentration camps. However, host and fellow-panellist, Benjamin Perrin, Assistant Professor at UBC Law and Faculty Associate at the Liu Institute, said that because the 1951 Convention only addresses the criminalisation of the entry, “it does not preclude countries from exercising detention where the identities of the individuals are uncertain or there are undetermined security risks.”
McLeod cautioned against assuming the men were Tamil Tigers. “It is common for people who have been forced to work as labourers for the Tigers, to be rounded up, arrested by the army, police, or the special task force – which is a police commando force – and simply disappear,” he said. When describing the men, nearly all of whom are currently confined in a Lower Mainland jail, McLeod said, “Some of them are students, some are farmers, some of them are clerks, office workers. They are all very scared.”
In Canada the acceptance rate for refugees is approximately 47%. In comparison, according to Andreas Schloenhardt, Associate Professor from University of Queensland, in Australia, that number is 80%. (However, Australia has a very different immigration system, which involves using whole islands far from the mainland as detention centres, so these numbers may not be analogous.) Yet the 2007 acceptance rate specifically for Sri Lankans in Canada was 97%.
In 1986, local fishermen came to the rescue of 154 Sri Lankans found floating off in lifeboats off the coast of Newfoundland. Those people were not subjected to what McLeod called “the political frenzy that’s occurring today,” suggesting that in the intervening two decades Canada’s policing of its borders has become progressively more exclusionary and reactionary. This fear was solidified on November 2, when Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, after accepting the fewest refugees in 10 years, dramatically cut the 2010 target number of refugees to be accepted by more than half. Opposition MPs assert that “by steeply dropping the targets, refusing to appoint Refugee Board members for 2 years, cutting $4 million in the department and allowing for board appointments not based on merit, Harper’s Conservative government is deliberately creating a crisis in the refugee system. The crisis is then used as an excuse to bring in draconian measures to close the door to the most needy and vulnerable.”
At the lecture, Perrin claimed that the focus on the “human interest story” of the 76 men, while legitimate, shifts attention away from an analysis of the means by which refugees move illegally between countries. He argued that “Canada must take action to discourage illegal migration and disrupt migrant smuggling operations where they do exist.” Further, Canada is a party to the 2004 UN Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air, which, he said, “calls for [migrants] not to be criminalised, but to be treated humanely. But at the same time, it does not give them the right to temporary or permanent residence in Canada simply because they are smuggled.”
When one student then questioned him about the language used to describe the men, specifically the term “illegal migrant” (which was featured in the panel title), because of the way it implicitly criminalises the men, Perrin responded that “the title of the presentation has a question mark at the end of it, which was very deliberate.” Another audience member had a query about how that kind of vocabulary negatively affects media coverage. Perrin responded, “I think it’s important that before there’s been an impartial determination of the legal status of these individuals, that our language reflect that. So I’m not calling them refugees right now because I don’t know if they are.”
Perrin maintained that “there are advantages to cooperating with other countries, not just the source countries, but also other countries along the migrant smuggling chain,” because this would assist Canada in “creating proactive responses to protracted refugee situations.” One reporter asked, “How are we to trust the Sri Lankan government if they say these people are members of a terrorist organisation? [...] How do you trust a government which is treating a minority as harshly as them?” McLeod answered, “I hope we’re not going to trust the Si Lankan government to make that determination for us. There are a number of ways that Canada Border Services Agency can obtain information in normal ways.” These include taking fingerprints to run through international police records and analysing accents to determine where in Sri Lanka the men are from. However, the RCMP has already begun collaborating with the Sri Lankan government to identify the men.
“There are 16 million refugees worldwide as of June 2009. There’s another 26 million internally displaced persons, who don’t count as refugees,” said McLeod. “Hundreds, if not thousands, of irregular migrants are reported dead or missing every year,” said Perrin.
—–
A previous version of this article first appeared in Canadian Lawyer. This article was last modified on Nov 5.
Post tags:
Benjamin Perrin,
canada,
Daniel McLeod,
Immigration,
Jason Kenney,
ocean lady,
refugees,
Sri Lanka,
St Louis,
Tamil,
UBC,
UN Convention on Refugees,
vancouver Canada to take hard line with would-be migrants
Jane Armstrong and John Ibbitson write for the Globe:
Canada’s Immigration Minister has signalled that he intends to play hardball with 76 men believed to be from Sri Lanka who arrived on a rusty boat off Canada’s West Coast, as the government battles the perception of Canada as a soft touch for asylum seekers.
Isn’t it too early to presume these people to be bogus, if they supposedly crossed an ocean to come from a recent war zone?
Government appeals asylum ruling for South African
The federal government is appealing a controversial decision by an independent tribunal to grant asylum to a white South African because he feared black persecution in his homeland.
See also: Canada SA refugee ruling ‘racist’
Family can’t keep ailing mother in Canada
“She’s old, she can’t see … Who will look after her in Poland? All the family is here,” Pindiur said in halting English. “Can you help her stay with me? Please help.”
By Krystalline Kraus
Published on rabble.ca (http://www.rabble.ca), reproduced here on author’s request
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney have the political power to decide who they want to let into Canada and who they want to keep out.
Read more
Post tags:
abousfian abdelrazik,
Adil Charkaoui,
Ayub Kheyl,
Bill Clinton,
bogus refugee claimants,
Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA),
Canada's Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act,
Canadian Security Certificates,
Code Pink,
Condoleezza Rice,
Donald Rumsfeld,
Fox News,
George Galloway,
George W. Bush,
Hassan Almrei,
Immigration and Refugee Board,
Immigration and Refugee Protection Act,
Jason Kenney,
John Howard,
Joshua Blakeney,
Justin Podur,
krystalline kraus,
Lawyers Against the War,
Mahmoud Jaballah,
Medea Benjamin,
Michael Chertoff,
Minister of Censorship and Deportation,
Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness,
Mohamed Harkat,
Mohammad Majoub,
Nuremburg,
omar khadr,
Peter Van Loan,
Reza Alijani,
Royal Canadian Mounted Police,
Shadi Sadr,
Stephen Harper,
war resisters,
War Resisters Support Campaign Canadians renew pressure on Harper government to implement votes of Parliament
TORONTO—On Tuesday afternoon the Federal Court of Canada granted Kimberly Rivera leave to appeal the decision in her Pre-Removal Risk Assessment (PRRA). The Federal Court will hear the appeal on July 8.
The War Resisters Support Campaign is renewing its call on the federal government to implement the motion that was passed by Parliament on June 3, 2008 and again on March 30, 2009.
“Regardless of Jason Kenney’s personal animosity toward those who’ve refused to fight George W. Bush’s war in Iraq, the majority of Canadians want these war resisters to stay in Canada,” said Michelle Robidoux. “Parliament has voted twice to let them stay and if Stephen Harper were committed to fairness and justice like most Canadians, he’d implement the vote of Parliament today.”
Kimberly Rivera is the first female Iraq War resister to seek refuge in Canada. Kimberly, along with her partner Mario, son Christian (7 years old) and daughter Rebecca (4 years old), fled to Canada in January 2007 when Kimberly refused redeployment. In late November 2008 Kimberly gave birth to her Canadian daughter Katie (5 months old). She served in Iraq in 2006 and experienced, firsthand, the reality of this illegal war.
“I want to stay in Canada, with my family, because the Iraq War is immoral, illegal and I couldn’t in good conscience go back,” said Kimberly Rivera. “The amount of support I’m getting from Canadians is amazing. The parents of my kids’ friends, MPs and even strangers on the street keep telling me that they can’t believe the votes in Parliament aren’t being respected.”
Last June, a public opinion poll conducted by Angus Reid Strategies found widespread approval for the House of Commons’ vote in support of war resisters. Sixty-four per cent of Canadians, and a majority of voters in every region of the country, agree that the federal government should immediately stop the deportation of Iraq War resisters and establish a program to facilitate their requests for permanent resident status.
-30-
For further information, please contact:
Michelle Robidoux, Spokesperson, War Resisters Support Campaign, 416-856-5008; or
Ken Marciniec, Communications Volunteer, War Resister Support Campaign, 416-803-6066, kmarciniec@sympatico.ca.
Omar Ha-Redeye gave a talk on the use of social media in politics, focusing on the Canadian scene, at the Miles S. Nadal Management Centre in the Ernst & Young Tower of the Toronto Dominion Centre.
Issues of copyright, including the use of YouTube, are discussed, as well as social media alternatives to defamation actions.
Social Media and Politics April 2009:
Play Now |
Play in Popup |
Download
Post tags:
adam giambrone,
anne mclellan,
Barack Obama,
Blogging Tories,
coalition,
copyright,
defamation,
domain name,
facebook,
fundraising,
Hudak,
Infoscape Research Lab,
Jason Kenney,
Liblogs,
marketing,
mayor miller,
McCain,
meg whitman,
New Democrats Online,
progressive bloggers,
relationships,
reputation defender,
reputation management,
SEO,
Twitter,
urls,
YouTube The Harper government attempts to justify deporting U.S. Iraq War resisters with a familiar, but untrue, narrative.
They say that unlike during the Vietnam War, U.S. soldiers are volunteers and are not considered refugees by the United Nations. They say refugee applications are evaluated fairly on their own merits, and there is no need to create a separate program for U.S. Iraq War resisters.
All these statements are false.
First, not all Vietnam War resisters were conscripts, and many Iraq War resisters are redeployed against their will. Vietnam War resisters included draft dodgers who fled before induction, those who accepted their draft notice and were inducted, and those who voluntarily joined the military services. After a brief political struggle in 1969 concerning those who came to Canada after induction, Canada welcomed both groups without distinction.
Although current war resisters volunteered and some completed their service, many found themselves involuntarily redeployed to Iraq. Programs of stop-loss and individual ready-reserve recall soldiers after they have been discharged. Many soldiers, such as Jeremy Hinzman, have had their applications for conscientious objector status denied.
Section 167 of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees’ Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status states that “a deserter or draft-evader may also be considered a refugee if it can be shown that he would suffer disproportionately severe punishment for the military offence on account of . . . political opinion.”
After being deported, war resister Robin Long was sentenced to 15 months in prison, the harshest punishment so far for resisting the Iraq war, partly because of his political statements about the war. Multiple Federal Court of Canada decisions have granted stays of removal on the grounds that U.S. war resisters who have spoken out against the war would suffer differential punishment.
Section 171 of the UNHCR Handbook states that “where the type of military action, with whom an individual does not wish to be associated, is condemned by the international community as contrary to basic rules of human conduct, punishment for desertion or draft-evasion could . . . in itself be regarded as persecution.”
This is precisely the position in which Iraq War resisters find themselves, refusing – as did Canada under Prime Minister Jean Chretien – to participate in a war condemned by the international community.
Second, while war resisters who have applied for refugee status may be treated the same as every other applicant, the government’s blanket opposition to war resisters as revealed in public comments by Immigration Minister Jason Kenney – who labeled them “bogus refugee claimants” – led the Canadian Council for Refugees to rebuke the minister because such a statement gives “the strong appearance of political interference” and “threatens claimants’ right to an unbiased decision.”
And to date, where U.S. war resisters have attempted to access the humanitarian and compassionate grounds application process, instead of their claims being decided fairly, the majority of these individuals have received negative decisions that are almost identical, word for word.
The final argument of the government is that they do not believe in creating a program to allow war resisters to apply for permanent residence. But the majority of Canadians do, and Parliament passed a motion to that effect last June, and again on Monday. Rather than listen to Parliament, the government has been deporting war resisters to punishment in the U.S., justifying government actions with a series of false arguments.
It is time for the Conservatives to stop making false claims and to start respecting the will of Parliament. Iraq War resisters should be allowed to apply for permanent resident status and remain in Canada.
POSTED BY: Paul Copeland is a co-founder of the Law Union of Ontario, a previous co-president of the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted and Life Bencher (director) of the Law Society of Upper Canada., London
POSTED ON: April 1, 2009
EDITORS NOTE: As published in The London Free Press on April 1, 2009, reproduced here with the author’s permission
Post tags:
Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted and Life Bencher,
iraq,
Jason Kenney,
Jean Chretien,
jeremy hinzman,
Law Union of Ontario,
Paul Copeland,
UNHCR,
United Nations High Commission for Refugees' Handbook,
Vietnam,
war resisters George Galloway, the controversial British MP scheduled to speak in Canada this week, and parties supporting him, sought an injunction at the Federal Court today.
Although I don’t agree with everything Mr. Galloway says, his views as it relates to non-military solutions to problems largely grounded in social and economic conditions, are ones that in my opinion should be heard.
I attended the hearing at the Federal Court today, where a session was conducted via videoconference to Ottawa.
Barbara Jackman, counsel for the Applicant, noted that in her 30 years of immigration practice she had never seen a case like this, or one which so closely resembled the Supreme Court decision in Roncarelli v. Duplessis, [1959] S.C.R. 121, cited by the Applicants in their submissions.
The presiding judge, Justice Luc Martineau, also noted that unless either counsel could indicate otherwise, there was no case law on anything resembling this fact scenario.
Read more
Post tags:
Alykhan Velshi,
Baker v. Canada,
Barbara Jackman,
Federal Courts Act,
Immigration and Refugee Protection Act,
Irwin Toy Ltd. v. Quebec,
Jason Kenney,
Jewish Defence League,
Justice Luc Martineau,
R. v. Gould,
Robert J. Orr,
Roncarelli v. Duplessis
On Mar. 18, 2009, Hon. Jason Kenney, Min. of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, spoke at Huron College at UWO.
He spoke on a variety of subjects, but largely focused on what he perceived to be the role of his Ministry.
It was his opinion that immigrants to Canada are pretty well off – they have their own institutions and organizations, and don’t really need much governmental support. Never mind that he talked at great length to dismiss the legitimacy of organizations that have criticized his policies, and failed to identify which organizations spoke for the most discriminated elements in society.
What immigrants do need is language skills. Min. Kenney rebuffed studies that have shown that recent immigrants to Canada are faring far worse than previous generations by saying it’s because they don’t have proficiency in English or French.
The fact that Canada’s immigration patterns in recent decades have shifted to substantially more racial minorities obviously does not play into the equation. Somehow the immigrants from eastern Europe and the Ukraine, which populated significant parts of central Canada where Kenney was raised, did not have the same problems, even though they did not learn English in their first generation either.
But to make it worse, these immigrants don’t even do what they need to be doing. Only 20% of them take language classes offered by the government.
So you see, if you’re an immigrant to Canada and you’re having a tough time, it’s really your fault, not the government’s. Min. Kenney seemed oblivious to the acute xenophobia towards these immigrants, and denied that there have been calls to bar certain groups from entry to Canada. He thought the British and Australian immigration models (and responses) was something we should emulate.
Min. Kenney, are you not monitoring levels of intolerance in Canada? Or are you only concerned about helping your political constituency alone?
Kenney was unable to explain how he learned so much about immigrants and visible minorities who face discrimination while growing up in Saskatchewan. He conceded his social group consisted of all white-males as a youth, but attributed that to his involvement with the Liberal Party at the time. All of the minorities were obviously hiding out in the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada.
Updates
Min. Kenney repeated the call for immigrants to speak English or French before immigrating to Canada at a conference in Calgary, clearing up any ambiguity that may have previously existed.
These policies are nothing more than a covert for of racism, seeking to perpetuate historic racist legislation in Canada that sought to bar ethnic minorities from entering Canada, and overturn progress made in recent years to remedy these policies.
More recent statements seem to indicate he is backpedalling in face of sharp criticism by the public. Despite blaming the media, Min. Kenney’s statements are recorded by the media and attendees at his talks this week.
Post tags:
Canadian Arab Federation,
Canadian Islamic Congress,
citizenship,
Huron College,
immigrants,
Immigration,
integration,
Jason Kenney,
language skills,
Liberal Party,
Multiculturalism,
Progressive Conservative Party of Canada,
Saskatchewan,
University of Western Ontario,
visible minorities 
What do Sikh immigrants to B.C. almost a century ago have to do with gay issues?
Everything. Or, maybe nothing.
On Oct. 24, 2008 I saw a film, Rex vs Singh, a 20-min. short film on a legal case from B.C. in 1915.
The event was hosted by Standing Against Queer Discrimination (SAQD) as part of a film festival at the University of Western Ontario.
One of the film-makers, John Greyson, introduced the film and answered questions.
A New City with Big Problems
Vancouver was a new city at this time, but was still Canada’s most multicultural city with a few pockets of Chinese, Japanese and Sikh communities. In 1907 riots ensued, destroying Chinese and Japanese neighborhoods, while the rioters sang ‘White Canada Forever.’
In 1914, a year before the case of Rex v. Singh, the Komagata Maru tried to dock in Vancouver. It resulted in a split within the Sikh community, and increased xenophobia by the rest of the population.
Discrimination Under a Different Name
The men in this case were entrapped by the police and accused of sodomy, which was of course illegal. Apparently this was part of a routine process of discrimination in a series of legal cases stretching back to the 1800’s. The film mentions over a dozen cases between 1905-1930.
But not necessary because these people were gay. In an interview earlier in the year Greyson said,
Were the men having sex? Or were they just entrapped? We don’t even know what the verdict was in this case —that part of the story has never been uncovered. There is so much about it that is unknowable, that is mysterious. This is a video about fragments of a story —the more we try to answer them, the more they fall apart.
Homophobia was used to persecute these minorities because they had full rights as British citizens, and could not be targeted using techniques more routinely used for harassing minorities. Immigration laws were deliberately designed to limit the number of Sikh women arriving in Canada, to discourage permanent settlement as much as possible.
Vancouver historian, Gordon Brent Ingram, who researched the case and also appeared in the film, said,
Certain white people in Vancouver were not happy about this. The early ‘city fathers’ of Vancouver were all white and often quite racist. They didn’t want Indo-Canadians becoming a significant demographic group in Vancouver, and by sexually harassing them they hoped to make these men feel unwelcome.
The film brings to life a transcript from the actual case, as the officer describes his tactics of tricking the accused as being “necessary.” But the accused responded they knew he was a detective, and did not attempt any sexual impropriety.
A witness also claims one of the Sikh men asked him to participate in sexual activities, but could not explain how this could have happened when informed that the man did not speak English.
The outcome of these cases are unknown, but similar cases in California resulted in sentances of 5-7 years.
What’s the Relevance Today?
The point is not whether or not these individuals really were gay. When intolerant elements of Canadian society were unable to persecute ethnic minorities using institutionalized discrimination, they resorted to other legal techniques to accomplish the same purpose.
Some reporters are attributing the recent Tory win to their ethnic strategy, which has given them 10 ridings in the GTA and Vancouver that have significant populations of ethnic minorities. Ruby Dhalla of Brampton-Springdale, a riding with one of the highest Sikh concentrations in Canada, won by a mere 1,000 votes, down from 8,000 in 2006.
Interestingly enough, the new Conservative Minister of Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, Jason Kenney, has himself made disparaging remarks dismissing them in 2000 saying they were,
…overheated Sikhs using the race card, which they so often do when their credentials are being questioned.
Family values, crime and taxes are issues supposedly resonating in these communities. “Family values” is often used as code for anti-homosexual policy.
What all these ethnic communities should realize, and often do, is that issues of discrimination cross boundaries of ethnicity, religion, race and sexuality. Advocacy therefore requires support for others who don’t necessary share your beliefs, culture, lifestyle or identity.
The case of Rex vs Singh is yet another reminder of this lesson.
Post tags:
dalip singh,
entrapment,
Gordon Brent Ingram,
homophobia,
homosexuality,
Jason Kenney,
John Greyson,
Komagatu Maru,
naina singh,
rex v singh,
rex vs singh,
saqd,
standing against queer discrimination,
vancouver,
white canada forever
RSS Feed
