Articles of interest over the holidays – China

2020/01/06 Leave a comment

The order from Chinese officials was blunt and urgent. Villagers from Muslim minorities should be pushed into jobs, willing or not. Quotas would be set and families penalized if they refused to go along.

“Make people who are hard to employ renounce their selfish ideas,” the labor bureau of Qapqal, a county in the western region of Xinjiang, said in the directive last year.

Such orders are part of an aggressive campaign to remold Xinjiang’s Muslim minorities — mostly Uighurs and Kazakhs — into an army of workers for factories and other big employers. Under pressure from the authorities, poor farmers, small traders and idle villagers of working age attend training and indoctrination courses for weeks or months, and are then assigned to stitch clothes, make shoes, sweep streets or fill other jobs.

These labor programs represent an expanding front in a major effort by China’s leader, Xi Jinping, to entrench control over this region, where these minorities make up about half the population. They are crucial to the government’s strategy of social re-engineering alongside the indoctrination camps, which have held one million or more Uighurs and Kazakhs.

Source: Inside China’s Push to Turn Muslim Minorities Into an Army of WorkersInside China’s Push to Turn Muslim Minorities Into an Army of WorkersThe Communist Party wants to remold Xinjiang’s minorities into loyal blue-collar workers to supply Chinese factories with cheap labor.

The first grader was a good student and beloved by her classmates, but she was inconsolable, and it was no mystery to her teacher why.

“The most heartbreaking thing is that the girl is often slumped over on the table alone and crying,” he wrote on his blog. “When I asked around, I learned that it was because she missed her mother.”

The mother, he noted, had been sent to a detention camp for Muslim ethnic minorities. The girl’s father had passed away, he added. But instead of letting other relatives raise her, the authorities put her in a state-run boarding school — one of hundreds of such facilities that have opened in China’s far western Xinjiang region.

As many as a million ethnic Uighurs, Kazakhs and others have been sent to internment camps and prisons in Xinjiang over the past three years, an indiscriminate clampdown aimed at weakening the population’s devotion to Islam. Even as these mass detentions have provoked global outrage, though, the Chinese government is pressing ahead with a parallel effort targeting the region’s children.

Source: In China’s Crackdown on Muslims, Children Have Not Been Spared

 

Filed under Citizenship, Government, Immigration, Multiculturalism Tagged with

Articles of interest over the holidays – Citizenship

2020/01/06 1 Comment

Fees

[Only took the Globe a month to notice this in the IRCC mandate letter.]

The federal government has committed to waiving citizenship application fees that immigration advocates say are a major barrier that stops newcomers from becoming Canadian citizens.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has asked Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino in his mandate letter to bring forward a plan to eliminate the fees.

Adult applicants currently pay a $530 for processing, and a $100 right-of-citizenship fee. Families have to pay an extra $100 for every applicant under the age of 18. A citizenship application for a family of four would cost $1,460.

….According to Statistics Canada data, the rate of immigrants who became citizens after living for six years in Canada dropped to 55.4 per cent in 2016 from 70.2 per cent in 2006.

Source: eliminating fees
Vavilov ruling (children of non-diplomats working for a foreign intelligence service)

Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v. Vavilov is a landmark ruling on administrative law as a majority of the Supreme Court revises the approach articulated in Dunsmuir. The ruling represents a departure from the deferential approach to administrative decision-making that the Court has espoused since at least Dunsmuir. While the Court affirms a presumption that judicial review will be done on a standard of reasonableness, the Court invokes the notions of the rule of law to signal that decision-makers will be held to a higher standard of justification when their decisions are reviewed. Absent proper reasons, administrative delegates are at an increased risk of having their decisions quashed.

While the decision is ripe for academic analysis, this post provides a practical guide to how the standard of review analysis operates for litigants and decision makers alike going forward. In doing so, we focus on the Court’s analysis of what the revised standard of review framework entails and leave the discussion about the facts of Vavilov and its companion decision — Bell Canada v. Canada (Attorney General) (2019 SCC 66) — for another time. We also do not explore the concurring reasons of Justices Abella and Karakatsanis, where they raised concerns about the majority’s decision. These, and other academic issues, will be taken up in a supplemental post on Vavilov.

In brief, the majority of the Supreme Court confirms that the standard of reasonableness presumptively applies to administrative decisions. However, the Court articulated two paths through which the presumption of reasonableness can be rebutted.

  • First, where the enabling legislation provides statutory appeal rights to a court, Vavilov establishes that the appellate standards of review will apply.
  • Second, the presumption of reasonableness can be ousted where the rule of law dictates that the standard of correctness be applied. This will be engaged in cases that raise (a) constitutional questions, (b) general questions of law of central importance to the legal system as a whole and (c) questions related to the jurisdictional boundaries between two or more administrative bodies.

Overall, the Court’s decision is a signal to decision makers that their decisions will be subjected to greater scrutiny and that the standard for justification and reasons will be higher.

Source: Canada (Minister Of Citizenship And Immigration) v. Vavilov: A Practical Guide To The Revised Standard Of Review Analysis – Litigation, Mediation & Arbitration – Canada

[Overly sympathetic interview]

A Toronto-born son of Russian spies says Canadian citizenship was “something I really felt I had to fight for,” after a Supreme Court decision last week finally brought his nine-year legal battle to an end.

Alexander Vavilov was 16 years old when the FBI arrested his parents in 2010 for their involvement in a North America-based Russian espionage ring.

They were elite spies for the KGB, the former Soviet secret police. Their real names are Elena Vavilova and Andrey Bezrukov, but they came to Toronto in the 1980s under the names Tracey Ann Foley and Donald Heathfield. Their story inspired the TV show The Americans, but Vavilov says he had no idea they were spies.Vavilov was stripped of his American citizenship after his parents were arrested by the FBI in 2010. In 2014, he discovered his Canadian citizenship had also been revoked, and he has been fighting to get it back ever since.

The Canadian government argued that the Russian spies were equivalent to foreign diplomats, whose children would legally not be granted Canadian citizenship.

Last week the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously rejected that finding, meaning that Vavilov can permanently reside in Canada, where he was born.

Source: Canadian citizenship something ‘I really felt I had to fight for,’ says Toronto-born son of Russian spies

Consular services

So, what should Canadians like Ms. Clamen expect when the worst happens abroad? The Globe and Mail conducted a year-long investigation into Canadian consular services to find out. We spoke to former employees of the service and Canadians who have had difficulties overseas, filed a dozen access-to-information requests and read through thousands of pages of reports and internal documents. The investigation, made possible through the Michener-Deacon Fellowship for Investigative Reporting, reveals some fundamental problems, including unclear standards, failures to meet what few measurable standards there are and unequal treatment of consular cases.

Canadians have no legislated right to consular assistance, so the government has discretion in the services it provides. As a result, critics argue assistance favours those with easy problems or access to power. When the families of travellers who have died or suffered other hardship abroad try to obtain details about individual cases, they are stymied by privacy laws, which ultimately make it nearly impossible to judge how effectively Global Affairs is aiding Canadians.

The Globe spent 10 months requesting an on-the-record interview with a senior representative of Global Affairs. The department declined, instead providing what it called a background briefing for 30 minutes with three senior government officials who could not be quoted. The department followed up with written responses to questions.

Source: investigation Canada’s patchwork of consular services leaves some citizens fighting for life and justice abroad If Canadians are jailed, endangered or go missing abroad, Global Affairs is supposed to be in their corner. But there are unclear and inconsistent standards that favour some travellers over others

Municipal voting rights for Permanent Residents 

[Given relative ease in obtaining citizenship, and planned waiving of fees, hard to understand rationale]

Canadians seem intent on devaluing citizenship and eroding the rights and responsibilities of those who hold it at a time when fewer immigrants are choosing to become citizens.

In the guise of strengthening democracy, municipal politicians backed by the B.C. Civil Liberties Association are lobbying for non-citizens to be granted voting rights in local elections. It’s being trumpeted as “an extraordinary opportunity.”

The question is: An extraordinary opportunity for whom?

In the federal arena, the major parties (including the Bloc Quebecois) have all abandoned the requirement that members be citizens. That’s despite the fact that party members have a greater voice in the democratic process, better access to elected representatives and a hand in both choosing candidates and the party’s leader.

Both the New Democratic Party and the Conservative Party allowed all of their members to vote in their leadership contests, while the governing Liberals’ leaders have always been chosen by delegates — members elected in their riding to vote at the convention.

At its September convention, the Union of B.C. Municipalities delegates passed a resolution urging the extension of voting rights to permanent residents. Coincidentally, that convention also included a reception sponsored by the Chinese consul general.

Source: Daphne Bramham: Voting is a right of citizenship, not residency

Filed under Citizenship

Articles of interest over the holidays – Multiculturalism

2020/01/06 Leave a comment

CRRF/Environics Racism Survey

When racist incidents in Canada grab public attention, they usually provoke two reactions: general condemnation, then a resolution to finally start a serious conversation about race relations in this country. Then the moment passes and our interest drifts – until the next incident repeats the cycle.

A new survey provides fresh insights on race relations in Canada that have the potential to jump-start this much-needed conversation. The findings echo what racialized Canadians have been saying for years: For many, racism is a common experience. According to the Race Relations in Canada 2019 Survey, most racialized Canadians say people in their group are either sometimes or often treated unfairly because of their race. Fewer than one in 10 say this never happens.

Racism takes many forms. Canadians are most likely to have seen overt discrimination take place on the street, but significant numbers have also seen it occur on public transit, in stores and restaurants and in the workplace. Interactions with law enforcement are a problem for some: Almost one in three Indigenous people and one in five black people in Canada say they have been unfairly stopped by police in the past year. News and cultural products can perpetuate racism: Only one in five racialized people think their own group is portrayed fairly in the media. And racism sometimes takes a subtler form in day-to-day interactions, with between a third and a half of racialized Canadians saying that in the past 12 months they’ve been treated as less intelligent, viewed with suspicion or ignored or overlooked because of their race.

Source: Are Canadians ready to confront racism? Michael Adams and Lilian Ma

Quebec Values Selection Test

The Government of Quebec has provided new details of the so-called values test that immigration candidates will have to pass in order to qualify for selection by the province.

Beginning January 1, 2020, immigration candidates looking to settle in Quebec will have to obtain what the government is calling an Attestation of learning about democratic values and the Quebec values expressed by the Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms.

In a new, French-only Practical Guide to the test, the Government of Quebec says knowledge of the values it reflects is essential to an immigrant’s integration into the province.

“They are key to a better understanding of Quebec,” the guide says.

Reading the guide is not required in order to take the test but serves instead as an introduction to the values in question, which it divides into five key principles:

  • Quebec is a French-speaking society
  • Quebec is a democratic society
  • Equality between women and men
  • The rights and responsibilities of Quebecers
  • Quebec is a secular society

Source: Quebec releases guide to prepare immigrants for new ‘values test’

Lack of Federal Challenge to Quebec Law

There are many reasons – some good ones, even – why Canadian leaders can continue to pretend that an egregious, oppressive, discriminatory law is not being enforced in our country today. That people are not being denied jobs as teachers, police officers, judges or Crown prosecutors because of who they are and what they wear out of faith.

When asked, and only when asked, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will say he does not agree with Quebec’s secularism law, which prohibits those in certain public sector jobs from wearing religious symbols. The law has already forced some young Quebeckers to leave their home province so that they may pursue their chosen careers without abandoning practices of their faith.

In a decision earlier this month, three Quebec Court of Appeal judges noted that the law is currently causing harm to Quebeckers who wear religious symbols. But with the exception of Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister, who has spoken out repeatedly and unabashedly against the law known as Bill 21, most Canadian leaders, particularly at the federal level, are content to pretend that harm doesn’t exist.

Their silence is cushioned by a handful of well-worn excuses: foremost of them, the idea that it’s no one else’s business. Bill 21 is characterized as a provincial matter only, and as such, the rest of Canada should not be getting involved.

Source: Will Ottawa ever do the right thing, and call out discrimination in Quebec? Robyn Urback

Canadian Election and Multiculturalism

It looked as if it was going to be a lot worse.

In the early stages of the 2019 federal election, purveyors of racial and social division were in a giddy mood. Anti-immigration billboards popped up in cities across Canada, the fringe Canadian Nationalist Party (who advocate that Canada maintain a “European-descended majority”) got national media coverage, and swastikas were reportedly scrawled on campaign signs. A group of New Brunswick NDP operatives jumped ship to the Green party, in part because of concerns the NDP couldn’t counter a persistent belief among some voters that leader Jagmeet Singh is a Muslim, misinformation they calculated would cost the NDP votes. Meanwhile, Singh famously had to contend with being asked to take off his turbanto look more “Canadian.”

Recall the 2015 election, perhaps best remembered as a referendum on whether a few Muslim women would be allowed to wear niqabs during citizenship ceremonies, with a subplot involving a proposed “Barbaric Cultural Practices” snitch line. On the heels of that ugly campaign, the 2019 election had the potential to become a massive culture war, with an unholy alliance of racists, nationalists and Islamophobes on one side, and everyone they hate on the other.

Fortunately, that war didn’t really materialize. If the 2019 election was about anything, it was probably about climate change, or about whether Canadians had confidence in Justin Trudeau’s leadership. The closet white supremacists who paraded around as free-speech warriors representing some make-believe majority of “real” Canadians should see the results of the 2019 election as a stinging rebuke. Canadians were asked who they are, and they answered.

Source: Racists and Islamophobes wanted a Canadian culture war. It didn’t happen, but we got an ugly glimpse

Diversity Among Political Staff

The most senior and powerful political staff in Justin Trudeau’s government don’t reflect the diversity of Canada, or meet the same representation requirements that the Prime Minister set for his cabinet.

Since the Liberals formed government in 2015, Mr. Trudeau has made diversity a cornerstone of his political brand. When he unveiled his first cabinet, he declared it one that “looks like Canada.” More than four years into government, the senior staff working for those ministers are still predominantly white and male.

A Globe and Mail analysis shows that of the 37 chiefs of staff, 14 of them are women compared with 23 men, and only four of them are racial minorities.

That compares with 18 out of 37 cabinet ministers who are women and seven who are racial minorities.

Most of the research around diversity in politics focuses on elected representatives rather than their staff, but University of Calgary PhD student Meagan Cloutier collected data on the people working in MPs’ offices, which show that while there are overall more women, they tend to hold the less prestigious positions.

Source: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-trudeaus-gender-parity-diversity-requirements-stop-at-cabinet-door/ 

Accents and Integration

“Can you repeat that, please?”

It’s a question Joan Jiang gets regularly.

Jiang is from China and learned English as a second language. Though she tries not to take it to heart, she admits that after 20 years in Canada, it sometimes gets to her.

“It really shakes my confidence,” she said.Jiang sees her lingering accent as an obstacle, particularly in the workplace. She remembers one job interview in particular. Her resumé had impressed, but she could tell the interviewer was concerned by her pronunciation. She didn’t get the job.”After that, I thought I needed to improve,” she said. “I don’t want my skill to be wasted because my language [is] blocking me.”Last year, Jiang decided to enrol in accent training classes.

Also called accent reduction or modification, the programs are available across Canada, and promise to “lessen the negative effects of an accent” and help students “achieve a more neutral or ‘Canadian’ accent.”

Source: cbc.ca/news/canada/ot…

Reviving the Islamic Spirit Speakers

A recent Islamic conference in Toronto has drawn criticism from B’nai Brith over some of its guest speakers.

In a Dec. 19 press release, B’nai Brith Canada highlighted three speakers who have made anti-Semitic or anti-Zionist comments in the past: Yasir Qadhi, Siraj Wahhaj and Omar Suleiman.

“It is troubling that a major Canadian Muslim conference continues to invite extremist preachers to Canada,” Michael Mostyn, the CEO of B’nai Brith Canada, said in the statement. “Surely there are enough qualified moderate Muslim leaders, without a history of extremist messaging, who can be chosen to speak at events such as these.”

The annual Islamic conference, called Reviving the Islamic Spirit, ran from Dec. 20-22, 2019. Started in 2001, it has grown to become one of the largest in North America, with more than 20,000 attendees each year. The conference organizers did not return The CJN’s request for comment.

Omar Suleiman, a Palestinian imam who works extensively in the humanitarian sector and with interfaith groups, has a history of making anti-Zionist social media posts, including writing on Facebook that “Zionists are the enemies of God,” and comparing Israel to Nazi Germany.

Source: Controversial Islamic conference in Toronto draws concerns

HBO Multicultural Programming

Lucinda Martinez has promoted multicultural programming at HBO for years and is now at the heart of what HBO Max can do successfully.

In 2018, women and black people controlled 58% of HBO’s episodic programs, compared to 35% in 2015. Now the network wants to accelerate its diversification by focusing on artisans with HBO POV – also known as Power of Visibility.

More than eight years ago, HBO launched its award-winning department for multicultural marketing under the direction of Lucinda Martinez. In the beginning it was a subset of their work as VP Domestic Network Distribution; Today it is the Multicultural & International Marketing department that she heads as the executive vice president.

“When we started, we found that we had an impact not only on the shows themselves, but also on the talent that was there,” said Martinez. Initially, she and her team focused on promoting shows such as “Insecure”, “Ballers”, “A Black Lady Sketch Show” and “2 Dope Queens”.

Source: For HBO Max, diversity is more than a PC. It is a secret weapon

Tony Abbot’s Change of Mind

Spectator writers, past and present, were asked: ‘When have you changed your mind?’ Here is Tony Abbott’s response:

A rather important issue — this question of multiculturalism. Thirty years ago, I was anxious about the impact on Australia of people from very diverse cultures. But then when I was running the group Australians for Constitutional Monarchy, I found to my surprise, and ultimately great satisfaction, that there were many, many people, of very diverse cultural backgrounds, who supported the monarchy in Australia very strongly. It was one of the reasons why they’d come to Australia: the stability, the continuity, the settled government that the monarchy in our country symbolises. And that led me to an even stronger conclusion: that the vast majority of migrants are coming here to join us, not to change us.

Source: Tony Abbott: Why I changed my mind about multiculturalism

Japanese Canadian Redress British Columbia

The way Lorene Oikawa describes it, the goals of the spiral-bound publication she hand-delivered last month are somewhat more forward-looking and broad than the official title — “Recommendations for Redressing Historical Wrongs Against Japanese Canadians in B.C.” — might suggest.

“It’s about history, but it’s also about now. And it’s about our future,” Oikawa, president of the National Association of Japanese Canadians, said in a recent interview. “And it’s about all of us.”

Oikawa presented the report last month to B.C.’s Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture Lisa Beare during a ceremony in Vancouver. Beare called the event “a very symbolic milestone for both the B.C. government and the Japanese Canadian community,” and it followed several years of efforts toward redress for the state-sponsored dispossession and displacement of 22,000 Japanese Canadians during the Second World War.

Now, Oikawa and other community leaders say 2020 will be a pivotal year in the long push for redress, which could involve measures including education, recognition and commemoration, as well as reclaiming seized properties.

“It’s been a long time coming,” Oikawa said. “2020 is the time. … Everybody sees this opportunity, and we just need to grab hold of it, and we are.”

Source: Dan Fumano: ‘2020 is the time’ for Japanese Canadians to ‘grab’ redress

Antisemitism: Lipstadt and others

In a month of terrible anti-Semitic attacks, including a stabbing yesterday of multiple people at a Hanukkah celebration at a rabbi’s home in Monsey, New York, the news that most depressed me did not involve violence. It was not something done to Jews but something Jews did. A synagogue in the Netherlands is no longer publicly posting the times of prayer services. If you want to join a service, you have to know someone who is a member of the community.

Do not misunderstand me. I was and am in a fury over the multiple assaults, culminating in the Monsey attack, which was the worst since the murders in Jersey City, which, some readers might not realize, was less than three weeks ago.
In Europe and the United States, Jews have been repeatedly assaulted on the street. Tombstones were desecrated in Slovakia. In London, anti-Semitic graffiti was painted on synagogues and Jewish-owned stores. A Belgian daily newspaper accused a lawmaker who is Jewish of being a spy for Israel. A Polish town refused to install small brass plates that commemorate Holocaust victims. In Italy, the town of Schio did the same because, the mayor said, they would be “divisive.” (Divisive to whom?)
This intolerance is coming from right-wing extremists, progressive leftists, and other minorities who, themselves, are often the object of persecution. Anti-Semites seem to think it is open season on Jews. And maybe, given the many incidents, they are right.

Source: Jews Are Going Underground: Lipstadt

… I recently spoke by phone with David Nirenberg, the dean of the Divinity School at the University of Chicago, who has written extensively on the history of anti-Semitism. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed why prejudice against Jews seems to arise in so many different eras and contexts, and the unhelpfulness of always thinking about anti-Semitism as a manifestation of politics.

…Do you think it is worth thinking of anti-Semitism today as akin to the prejudices that afflict many different religious and ethnic minorities, such as Muslims or Hispanics in the United States? Or is it distinct in important ways?

That’s a really tough question, and, in some ways, I hate to distinguish between different forms of prejudice or hate. When you think about some of the most enduring prejudices—for example, the asymmetries of power between men and women—these are structural aspects of our global society. But I do think anti-Semitism is distinctive in certain ways. One of those ways is that it really does transcend particular political contexts. There aren’t a great number of Jews in Hungary or Poland, but thinking about Jews is a crucial part of nationalism—or anti-globalization or whatever you want to call it—in Hungary and Poland today. And I think that’s different from the way most of the other groups you mentioned are used in the world’s imagination.

This is a really difficult topic to think about, and I would like to think we are each entitled to study our own hate without having to study all the others. But we can see symptoms of a distinction in our own age. I don’t think, for example, that people in many parts of the world where there aren’t Muslim immigrants are thinking really centrally about their own society in terms of Islam, and I would say the same thing might be true of some racial prejudices that are central to the United States but don’t play a very large role in other societies. But what’s curious about anti-Semitism or anti-Judaism is how it can be put to work by many societies that really have nothing to do with living Jews or Judaism.

When many of the people in these societies think about immigration, even though the problem they see isn’t Jews immigrating to these societies, they do think about Judaism in order to explain the immigration they see as threatening their society. So, in the United States, France, Hungary, and many other places, replacement-theory ideologies explain replacement in terms of the machinations of the Jews, or the Jewish global order. Anti-Judaism is actually a system of thought that people can use to explain many of the challenges they face, even when there are no Jews around. And that has a flexibility that, in the worst moments, allows many parts of society to agree that Jews are the problem in a way you don’t always see coalescing around other distinctions.

Source: How Anti-Semitism Rises on the Left and Right

…As a Canadian Muslim, I know how hurtful and unfair it can feel to be seen as “the Other.” It happens to far too many communities considered different for a variety of reasons, ranging from their faith, race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. It’s up to all of us to confront any and all efforts to otherize communities because it indeed threatens the well-being of our entire society.

It has become far too easy for those who promote hate to find a platform. As comedian Sacha Baron Cohen said in a speech to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) last November, Facebook may be the greatest propaganda machine of all time. Groups boasting of tens of thousands of members share all forms of hateful, false content on a daily basis, whipping up anger towards minority communities around the globe.

These social media tools have been used against the Rohyingya minority in Burma, as a “megaphone of hate” against Bengali Muslims in India, against LGBTQ people and have facilitated the unleashing of a “hurricane of hate” against Jewish communities. All of this eventually compelled the United Nations to launch a strategy and plan of action on hate speech earlier this year….

“The ultimate aim of society should be to make sure that people are not targeted, not harassed and not murdered because of who they are, where they come from, who they love or how they pray,” Baron Cohen said in his now oft-quoted speech at the ADL’s 2019 summit.

This sounds rudimentary and yet remains painfully elusive.

Source: Opinion: As People of the Book, Muslims should stand in solidarity with Jews

Korean Adoptee Identities

In September, Seattle resident Barbara Kim celebrated Chuseok, the Korean midautumn festival, with her family members in Seoul. Chuseok is a time to give thanks for plentiful harvests, and for Kim, who was adopted by an American family in the 1960s, this was a particularly special occasion: She was able to spend the holiday with several of her birth relatives.

At the celebration, they and a group of South Korean orphans, now in their teens and 20s, dug into platters of bulgogi, kimbap, japche and other traditional Korean dishes.

Kim was among the first wave of a 200,000-strong exodus of adoptees, as South Korea became the world’s first source of international adoptions. She was born in 1955, two years after the Korean War cease-fire.

In recent decades, adoptees like Kim have been returning to South Korea to find out more about where they come from, build ties with their birth families and connect with others with similar experiences.

After being separated from her three siblings for about half a century, Kim managed to track all of them down and reunite with them. She says they have overcome an initial sense of awkwardness in knowing one another and feel proud to be part of the same family.

Source: ‘Feeling Like We Belong’: U.S. Adoptees Return To South Korea To Trace Their Roots

Chinese Immigrant Gambling

As a new weekend begins, Chinese textile manufacturing workers move from their sewing machines to the slot machines at Newcastle’s local casino, hoping to add a little bonus to their end of year income.

Chengyuan Han and his family emigrated from Qingdao in China’s eastern Shandong province to South Africa in 2015. Chengyuan, whose mother runs a Chinese restaurant inside the casino, recounts stories of his frequent encounters with other Chinese immigrants, many of whom are enthusiastic gamblers.

According to a 2010 study by universities in Hong Kong, New Zealand and the US, Chinese people living in countries with significant Chinese immigrant communities exhibit “elevated levels of problematic gambling.” The study categorized a “problematic gambler” as anyone who meets three of four of the following criteria: high rates of gambling-related fantasy, lying, using gambling to escape, and preoccupation about gambling.

The study concluded that problematic gambling rates in Chinese communities are between 1.5 and 5 times higher than those of non-Chinese people in the newly adopted countries and that Chinese immigrants may develop even higher rates of problematic gambling with increased years of residency. Some academics also argued that the gambling rates for Chinese communities are likely to be under-reported due to the importance of not “losing face” in traditional Chinese culture.

Source: Casinos target low-income Chinese immigrants

Hilal Certification of Appliances

Two of the biggest names in Japanese home appliances were awarded what must rank as one of the oddest of halal certifications: for products.

In guaranteeing that their goods have not come into contact with pork or alcohol, Panasonic Corp. and Sharp Corp. are moving to gain a foothold in the growing, more affluent Muslim market.

But obtaining the prized credential was no easy feat.

To get it, the companies must pass screenings to meet strict halal standards that even covered the materials of the gloves worn by workers.

Panasonic obtained certification for its water purifiers and water ionizers for the Malaysian market.

The company said it was the first Japanese home appliance maker to secure halal certification under the Malaysian government-affiliated system.

Sharp also gained certification for its refrigerators manufactured at plants in Indonesia and Thailand last year.

Source: Panasonic, Sharp fine-tune goods to conform to Islamic teachings：The Asahi Shimbun

 

Filed under Multiculturalism

Articles of interest over the holidays – Immigration

2020/01/06 Leave a comment

2020 Developments

Millions of new Canadians will arrive through Canada’s various immigration programs during the new decade and several expected policy updates will help to pave the way in 2020.

Here’s a look at some of the notable developments that we can expect over the next 12 months both in Canada and beyond that could help shape the future of Canadian immigration policy.

  • Early 2020: Parents and Grandparents Program changes expected

  • 2020-2022 Immigration Levels Plan Announcement by March

  • Ottawa’s commitment to regionalization is undeniable

  • Will citizenship fees be waived in 2020?

  • Watch out for Great Britain and the United States

Source: https://www.cicnews.com/2019/12/canadian-immigration-in-2020-expect-a-big-year-for-provincial-and-regional-immigration-programs-1213412.html

Family Reunification

The Liberal government is postponing the next round of its widely criticized family reunification program while it looks into developing a new intake process, according to a statement from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

The program allows Canadian citizens and permanent residents to apply to bring grandparents and parents to Canada. Critics have called the selection process unfair since all of the online application spots were snapped up in just minutes earlier this year.

In its Monday statement, Immigration Canada said it’s delaying the 2020 round as it works on a new intake system.

“This means that the opportunity to express interest in sponsoring a parent or grandparent will not take place on Jan. 1, 2020,” reads the statement.”Further information about the expected launch date and 2020 intake process will be available in the new year. This will give all interested sponsors the same opportunity to submit an interest-to-sponsor form and a fair chance to be invited to apply.”

Source: Parent and grandparent reunification program reopening postponed as Liberals look at new system, Federal government suspends popular immigration sponsorship program

Rural and Northern Immigration

“Justin Trudeau has decided to destroy eleven Canadian communities with extreme immigration — tripling their size in a decade. They are all Conservative voting communities. And none are in Quebec (of course).”

— Rebel Media personality Ezra Levant

Feigning any semblance of respect for Rebel Media personality Ezra Levant is disingenuous, so we’re not going to bother. In fact, we’re not going to use his name any further. From this point forward, he will be referred to as The Regressive.

Perhaps best known as a far-right fear monger and libel plaintiff, The Regressive tweeted the above factually dubious quote in response to the federal government’s Rural and Northern Immigration Program, which Brandon is one of 11 communities selected to participate in.

It will surprise no on who knows of The Regressive’s work that his numbers are a bit off. It’s a three-year pilot program (not 10), with up to 2,750 immigrants total being accepted annually among its 11 participating communities, which falls very short of tripling any community’s size.

As previously reported in The Brandon Sun, The Wheat City was one of only two Manitoba communities selected for the program, the other being the Gretna-Rhineland-Altona-Plum Coulee region.

Todd on what we learned about immigration in 2019

Migration continues to shape the political futures of Britain, the U.S., parts of Europe and beyond.

But in English-speaking Canada, except for concern about irregular migrants from the U.S. crossing the border, discussion of the complex issues surrounding migration remains muted.

Regardless, migration continues to shape the country — especially in light of Justin Trudeau raising migration levels to among the highest per capita in the world. In 2019 Canada brought in a record 350,000 immigrants, plus a larger-than-ever number of international students and guest workers.

Here are five things we learned about migration this year in Canada:

  1. Foreign capital impacted housing

  2. International-student exploitation occurred

  3. Quebec put migration at the top of its agenda

  4. China loomed larger

  5. Labour force had winners and losers

Source: Douglas Todd: 5 things we learned about migration in 2019

Asylum Seekers

A new refugee law heralded as a way to reduce the number of irregular migrants arriving in Canada from the U.S. has had little impact, according to Canadian government data obtained by the Star.

Immigration statistics show some 400 asylum claims have been deemed ineligible since June 21, 2019, when the rule was introduced to prevent refugees from seeking protection in Canada if they have made similar claims in other countries.

Ottawa had hoped the strategy would deter would-be refugee claimants from crossing into Canada from the U.S.

The number of ineligible cases is a drop in the bucket of the 12,000 claims made by irregular border-crossers from January to September 2019. Ottawa previously did not track asylum seekers who had made claims in other countries and so the new policy did not set a target. However, 400 is much lower than what was anticipated by even migrant rights groups who were critical of the policy change.

“We were surprised to see the low number. It is not clear how the (policy) helps by denying refugees access to the Immigration and Refugee Board,” said Janet Dench of the Canadian Council for Refugees. “From our perspective, this is for the government to send the message that you are not welcomed here and we don’t want you here.”

Source: New asylum laws to restrict flow of migrants from U.S. yield few results

Iranian Asylum Seekers

The number of Iranians seeking asylum in Canada has almost tripled in recent years, even before open military conflict exploded this week between the U.S. and the increasingly damaged Middle Eastern country.

About one in 20 Iranians who obtain visas to fly into Canada as tourists, guest workers or international students have been applying for refugee status, according to a redacted immigration department document obtained under an access-to-information request.

More than 125 Iranians applied each month for asylum in Canada in early 2019, according to the internal report. And for the past 18 months Iranians have made up by far the largest cohort wanting protection on the West Coast of Canada, reports the B.C. Refugee Hub Bulletin.

Iranian asylum seekers in B.C. far surpass the next largest source countries for would-be refugees, which are Mexico, Afghanistan, Colombia and Nigeria. An average of 65 Iranians a month last year sought political refuge while in B.C., which has a strong Iranian-Canadian population on the North Shore and in Coquitlam.

Source: Douglas Todd: More than 125 Iranians were applying each month for asylum in Canada in 2019

Immigrant women in tech (British Columbia)

Women who are new immigrants in B.C. have an especially difficult time finding jobs in the tech sector, according to a Vancouver-based diversity and inclusion expert.

Vancouver is the third-largest tech hub in Canada. But only 18 per cent of tech workers there are women, according to a report by Commercial Real Estate Services Canada.

Jobs in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) industries are predicted to grow over the next decade. But only 50 per cent of immigrants found jobs in their field of study in B.C. last year, according to a 2019 Vancity report.

The organization Immigrant and International Women in Science runs workshops to help immigrant women better integrate themselves into the Canadian tech industry.

Source: Why immigrant women are struggling to get work in Vancouver’s tech hub

Japan

Sasaki added that tightening immigration control is needed to cope with misuse of the refugee system.

Japan saw a sharp rise in asylum-seekers after a 2010 revision granted work permits to applicants who had been waiting longer than six months for screenings. But the revision caused a steep increase in applicants ineligible for work permits.

After the Justice Ministry introduced a stricter process in January 2018, the number of asylum-seekers dropped to 10,493 from 19,629 the year before. Only 42 people were granted refugee status in 2018, with another 40 granted humanitarian protection.

The ministry also took measures to speed up the screening process.

“The refugee system has been established to swiftly grant asylum to people who need protection but … in recent years, the number of people misusing the system has risen and the problem is still prevalent,” Sasaki said.

“In the screening process, officers are overloaded with applications submitted by foreigners coming with the intent to stay in Japan for financial reasons, which hinders proceedings for asylum-seekers who meet the requirements of the Refugee Convention.”

In recent years, Japan has been cracking down on illegal immigrants. Many get prolonged detention, and some have resorted to hunger strikes.

Source: Japan’s immigration chief optimistic asylum and visa woes will improve in 2020

Malaysia

A Holistic Plan on Enforcement Against Illegal Immigrants will be launched next year to combat in a comprehensive manner the influx of illegal immigrants in the country.The plan is aimed at ensuring that Malaysia achieves zero illegal immigrant in the set period through the strengthening of governance and existing enforcement work system.Home Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said the holistic plan entailed strategic cooperation between various ministries and related agencies based on firmer law enforcement and more effective action.He said the flood of illegal immigrants should be tackled through firmer enforcement and legal action so that such a scenario would not remain a national issue which has a negative impact on the country’s social and legal aspects.

Source: Home minister: Malaysia to adopt holistic plan to stem influx of illegal immigrants | Malaysia

Korea

The ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) is preparing to introduce more policies to improve immigrants’ rights in the lead-up to the general election next April hoping to attract voters of multicultural backgrounds.

The DPK’s committee on multiculturalism has suggested recently the party unveil various election promises related to the rights of immigrants including the establishment of a presidential body on multiculturalism so that the body can serve as a control tower to tackle relevant social issues, according to sources. The pledges also include expanding support for undocumented immigrant children, easing the work permission system for foreigners, giving teachers and public servants mandatory education on multiculturalism, improving welfare systems for multicultural families and establishing an overall marriage policy for immigrants. Above all, the committee is planning to introduce laws to give diaspora groups living in Korea support in welfare and jobs which includes a plan to establish a help center for those people.

“As there is no control tower on multiculturalism in the government, similar policies exist between governmental organizations, meaning some taxes are being used redundantly,” said Hong Mi-young, chairwoman of the DPK’s committee on multiculturalism.

Source: DPK to create more multicultural policies for general election

 

 

Filed under Immigration

‘All about the money’: How women travelling to Canada to give birth could strain the health-care system

2020/01/04 15 Comments

CBC Fifth Estate story on birth tourism, being broadcast January 5. Not much new from provincial (British Columbia) health authorities, British Columbia government or IRCC. Better data should be available later this spring from the joint study between IRCC, Canadian Institutes of Health Information and Statistics Canada:

Women travelling to Canada to give birth to babies who will automatically become Canadian citizens are prompting concerns about the strain they may be putting on the health-care system, The Fifth Estate has found.

At one British Columbia hospital with a high concentration of such deliveries, complaints have arisen that the influx of these non-resident patients — also known as birth tourists — has led to compromised care for local mothers-to-be and struggles for nursing staff.

Some of these patients fail to pay hospital and doctors bills, leaving taxpayers and individual care providers on the hook.

“Most of them, they get the Canadian passport, and then they leave the country,” said Dr. Mudaffer Al-Mudaffer, a B.C. pediatrician and neonatologist who sees babies of non-residents when they need critical care. “It affects the integrity of the fairness of the health system.”

No statistics are available regarding how many people are travelling to Canada specifically to ensure their child is born here and will have a Canadian passport.

But figures from the Canadian Institute for Health Information and several Quebec hospitals indicate there were about 5,000 non-resident births across the country in 2018, an increase of nearly 15 per cent over the previous year.

In the fall of 2019, Cathy Shi arrived in Richmond, B.C., from Shandong, on China’s east coast, to give birth to her third child. She said through a translator that she wanted her unborn child to have more opportunities.

“My concern is about their education, such as going to university. If the kid wants to live in Canada, it would be convenient for them if they’re born here.”

Handful of hospitals

At this point, the practice of birth tourism appears to be concentrated in a handful of hospitals in Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia.

At the Richmond Hospital, south of Vancouver, non-residents make up nearly a quarter of all births, according to records obtained from Vancouver Coastal Health, the health authority which runs the hospital. In many ways, that hospital can be seen as a test case for how this issue could play out elsewhere as numbers continue to climb.

The health authority declined a request for an interview with The Fifth Estate and issued a warning directing its staff not to speak to the media.

Despite that, four current and two retired nurses shared their concerns, requesting that their identities be protected.

Since 2013/14, the number of non-resident births has tripled at the hospital. The patients — many from China — pay privately for their care, often in cash, may not speak English and are unfamiliar with the Canadian health-care system. The nurses who spoke to The Fifth Estate say the influx has led to increased workloads and has compromised care.

“There are times when … the people living here don’t get the service that they need,” one nurse said.

When the unit was very busy, one nurse said services like prenatal tests to check the baby’s health, labour inductions and other tests to check fetal and maternal risk factors would be delayed or cancelled.

“We would often have to decide whose need was greatest and abandon the rest for the next day where we would face the same situation again,” she said.

“Our normal scheduled or add-on C-sections lie here all day and then they take the IV out, we send them home and say come back tomorrow. A private pay never goes home — she gets her C-section that day,” said another nurse.

“She will be fit in somewhere because nobody wants to lose that $5,000. But our normal people are lying there all day, no food or drink, waiting and nobody’s interested in moving them.”

Some hospitals, like Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, have taken steps to limit the number of non-resident births in order to prioritize residents of their own communities. That hospital says it won’t treat non-residents patients without Ontario Health Insurance Plan coverage.

When asked in an email why the Richmond Hospital doesn’t have a similar policy, Carrie Stefanson, a public affairs representative with Vancouver Coastal Health, said: “VCH cannot speak for other hospitals or health authorities. VCH will never deny urgent and emergent care based on ability to pay or where a patient is from.”

The hospital requests deposits for privately paid births: $10,000 for a vaginal birth and $16,000 for a caesarean. More than $18 million has been invoiced for non-resident births since 2017, according to data released through freedom of information by Vancouver Coastal Health.

Nursing staff say they have not seen this money go into easing their workloads.

“The amount of money that’s coming into Richmond from the private pay, it doesn’t make our staffing better,” said one nurse.

Their union says that is a problem.

“I certainly think adding additional patients into a health-care system that isn’t staffed appropriately, isn’t funded appropriately, is causing strain,” said Christine Sorensen, president of the BC Nurses’ Union.

She said the union has regularly heard complaints from nurses at Richmond Hospital but they have not filed a formal complaint with the hospital.

The health authority declined to answer a question about how it has responded to complaints from nursing staff.

Financial incentives within the medical system

Two doctors at the Richmond Hospital have delivered 1,300 of the 2,206 babies born to non-residents there since 2014, according to documents released through freedom of information.

While the health authority will not disclose their names, insiders and birth tourism company representatives say Dr. Xin-Yong Wang and Dr. Brenda Tan, two Mandarin-speaking family doctors, see the majority of these patients for prenatal care and delivery.

Both appear on multiple websites of companies advertising services such as assistance with immigration, travel and housing to women looking to come to Canada to give birth.

Wang said the companies do not have permission to use his name.

Tan did not respond to interview requests and a list of questions sent to her.

Wang and Tan billed the province $272,198.50 and $428,456.17 respectively in the 2018/2019 fiscal year, according to data publicly available through the province. Those billings do not include earnings from non-resident patients because they pay privately.

There are no limits on what physicians can charge outside the public system in British Columbia, but information from birth tourism company websites suggests that these doctors earn at least $100 per prenatal visit and more than $2,500 for a delivery, several times more than could be billed through the public system for the same services.

In an interview, Wang declined to respond to questions about how much he was earning from birth tourism but said he was not motivated financially to take on these patients.

“It’s like a dessert — occasional patients like this is fine, and it’s pretty financially rewarding … they are a small percentage of our overall income.”

Nurses who spoke to The Fifth Estate said the financial incentives within the health-care system are a problem.

“It is all about the money. If there was no financial income for the hospital or physicians, the private pay would have been out of the door a long time ago,” said one nurse.

Unpaid bills

While these births are bringing in money, bills owed to both health authorities and individual doctors are not always paid.

According to documents released by Vancouver Coastal Health, more than $2 million is outstanding as a result of non-resident births since 2017 at the Richmond Hospital alone. This does not include any debt that has been written off.

Bairths at the Richmond Hospital represent 11 per cent of overall non-resident births outside Quebec, according to 2018 data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information.

No national financial data exists on how much revenue is outstanding as a result of non-resident hospital bills across the country.

But some say the health-care system and Canadian taxpayers are losing out.

Al-Mudaffer said having an uninsured baby in neonatal intensive care can cost $10,000 a day just for the hospital bed, not including doctors’ fees.

Dr. Mudaffer Al-Mudaffer says birth tourism is impacting the Canadian healthcare system. 0:27

He said he’s seen large bills for families with babies requiring multiple nights and even weeks in the NICU.

“You can easily acquire a bill of $100,000 to pay the health authority, and that’s why they can’t pay it, you know? And they leave the country without paying,” said Al-Mudaffer.

He said he has seen hundreds of thousands of dollars in bills go unpaid at the Royal Columbian Hospital where he works, but Fraser Health, which runs that hospital, said it could not confirm this amount.

The Fifth Estate requested provincial numbers on unpaid bills from the British Columbia government but was told these numbers were not tracked provincially.

“Obviously if any bill is unpaid, I’m concerned about that because that’s money that we could and should be spending on something else or saving the health-care system so of course we’re concerned about it,” said B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix.

Even with little formal research to examine the practical implications of a growing number of non-resident births on the Canadian health-care system, Dix said “we are handling that situation.

“It’s two per cent … of total births in British Columbia, so it’s an issue but there are other issues.”

But it’s not only hospital fees going unpaid. Al-Mudaffer said when he sees birth tourists, he only gets paid three out of 10 times.

He is not alone. Dr. Kathleen Ross, president of Doctors of B.C., has personally been affected by unpaid bills and has called for a national conversation on the issue.

“Our federal government needs to find a way to disincentive people coming to the country to have access to citizenship and to our health-care support,” she said.

Federal research planned

Marco Mendicino, the newly appointed minister of immigration, refugees and citizenship, declined an interview with The Fifth Estate.

But the department wrote that while “statistics indicate that birth tourism is not widespread, the Government of Canada recognizes the need to better understand this practice.”

It said it has started work with the Canadian Institute for Health Information and Statistics Canada to integrate health and immigration data that would allow for a better understanding of the practice of birth tourism by looking at visitor visas and births.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada anticipates results from this research will be available in the spring.

Cathy Shi said she hasn’t thought much about criticism of birth tourism and isn’t receiving any government benefits here.

“We may come here often for travelling around, living or even investing. People are not just looking for status by having a baby here. They will have established a connection to Canada and later on some may apply to immigrate.”

Source: ‘All about the money’: How women travelling to Canada to give birth could strain the health-care system

Filed under Birth Tourism, Birthright Citizenship, Citizenship Tagged with , ,

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