National Day for Truth and Reconciliation
2023/09/30 Leave a comment
Douglas Todd: Hindu Canadians are distressed and politicians need to take heed
2023/09/30 Leave a comment
Of note. Also need to acknowledge the likely impact of PM Modi and his hindutva ideology as a likely contributing factor. But absolutely, a challenge for all parties to navigate these communities and the related diaspora politics.
And its Omer Aziz who recently raised the alarrm;
A man has been arrested for vandalizing two large Hindu temples in Surrey, say RCMP.
The suspect and his accomplices are accused of plastering the Hindu places of worship with yellow-red posters. The posters call for a separate Sikh homeland in India and declare that Indian diplomats in Canada are “wanted” for the June 18 “assassination” of Khalistani activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
These acts of intimidation at the Laxmi Narayan and Bhameshwari temples are only the latest strikes at more than a dozen Hindu sanctuaries across Canada. Indian consulates in Toronto and Vancouver have also been targeted.
And in a recent video, the head of the powerful secessionist group Sikhs for Justice, angrily tells all Hindus to leave Canada.
It is tragic that tensions are intensifying between two of Canada’s largest diaspora groups, the 772,000 Sikh population and the faster-growing Hindu population, which now numbers 828,000.
The escalations are occurring despite neither religious group being at all monolithic. Indeed, over the decades there have been countless examples of harmonious Sikh-Hindu relations across Canada.
And it must be noted that many Sikhs do not support activists’ aggressive, sometimes violent, push for an independent homeland in the Punjab called Khalistan.
However, the summer murder of Nijjar, a gurdwara leader in Surrey, reverberates with the sectarian divisions that also surfaced in this country in 2021. That’s when Sikhs in Canada were instrumental in leading the mass protests against attempts by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a Hindu nationalist, to reform farming markets.
Canadian politicians, ever-focused on how to woo large ethnic voting groups, are being forced to try to figure out how to navigate increasingly volatile and complex divisions between the country’s Sikh and Hindu populations, who are concentrated in key ridings in the suburbs of Toronto and Vancouver.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took a high-stakes political gamble, internationally and domestically, on Sept. 18 when he announced there are “credible allegations” that agents of the government of India had a hand in the slaying of Nijjar, whom India has accused of being a terrorist, including conspiring to murder a Hindu priest.
India has vociferously denounced Trudeau’s statement.
Nijjar’s lawyer, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, who is frequently quoted in Canada’s mainstream media as the head of Khalistan referendums in Toronto and Vancouver, is among the most vociferous in spreading anti-India, anti-Hindu accusations.
It is Pannun who declared: “Indo Canadian Hindus, you have repudiated your allegiance to Canada. Your destination is India. Leave Canada. Go to India.”
Omer Haziz, who served as a foreign policy director in the government of Justin Trudeau, wrote on the weekend that most Canadian politicians, and Liberals in particular, will not take a position on any international issue, especially regarding Sikhs, until they have pored over every local electoral implication.
“What I saw in government was how Canada’s ethnic domestic battles were distorting our long-term foreign policy priorities, and politicians … were pandering in lowest-common-denominator ways in B.C. and Ontario suburbs, and playing up ethnic grievances to win votes,” Haziz wrote.
“Canadian Sikhs have kept the issue of Sikh justice on the agenda by continually advocating and pressuring politicians,” Haziz said. “The Sikh issue has an enlarged influence on our bilateral relations with India … Mr. Trudeau did not want to lose the Sikh vote to Jagmeet Singh.” Singh, a Sikh, leads the NDP.
As Haziz confirms, Sikhs are famous for their political activism. Their clout is especially manifested through their ability to employ gurdwaras to sway voters to their chosen candidates in a party’s local nomination battles. Despite representing 2.1 per cent of the population, Sikhs have a much greater proportion of MPs and provincial MLAs in elected office.
But members of India’s majority religion, Hindus, who now make up 2.3 per cent of Canadians, are increasingly becoming more bold in Canadian business, education, media and politics.
That’s one of the reasons Ontario Liberal MP Chandra Arya recently stressed the “real fear” that Hindus in Canada feel after the video emerged of the Sikhs for Justice leader warning them to leave the country.
“The risk of ethnic and sectarian bloodshed is real,” said Arya, who has been vilified by Khalistanis for speaking out. He has been joined, nevertheless, by Conservative MP Melissa Lantsman in denouncing rising “Hinduphobia.”
While the Liberal and Conservative parties also angle for Sikh votes, social media commenters point to Jagmeet Singh’s ability six years ago to draw up to 90 per cent of his political donations from the Punjabi-Sikh community, mostly in Brampton, Surrey and Mississauga.
The political tide appears to be shifting.
More Canadians of Hindu background are getting into politics. And given the high concentration of Hindus in urban Ontario (575,000 people), former immigration department director Andrew Griffith has data showing that, while many ridings in Brampton, Mississauga and elsewhere are made up of 20 to 50 per cent of voters who are Sikh, another 15 to 25 per cent are now Hindus.
Meanwhile, there are 81,000 Hindus in B.C. (and 78,000 in Alberta). Sikhs in B.C. number 290,000. While Sikhs comprise anywhere from 20 to 50 per cent of voters in several ridings in Surrey, North Delta and Abbotsford, the Hindu share of voters has steadily expanded into the eight per cent range in the same ridings.
With the number of Hindus in Canada now growing faster through immigration than the number of Sikhs, politicians will feel the need to become far more sophisticated about the complex realities of both religious groups, and others, if they want to appeal to their interests, fears and dreams.
Source: Douglas Todd: Hindu Canadians are distressed and politicians need to take heed
C’est Québec qui cautionne la venue d’immigrants temporaires, dit Ottawa
2023/09/30 Leave a comment
More back and forth:
Le niveau record d’immigrants temporaires cette année est surtout causé, au Québec, par la permission accordée par le gouvernement Legault aux entreprises de recourir aux travailleurs étrangers, réplique le ministre fédéral Pablo Rodriguez.
« Les gens qui sont là, c’est parce qu’il y a des entreprises québécoises qui nous [les] ont demandés », a indiqué au Devoir le lieutenant québécois de Justin Trudeau, jeudi.
Il tenait à répondre à la ministre de l’Immigration du Québec, Christine Fréchette, qui a demandé la veille au gouvernement fédéral de revoir ses cibles d’immigration, peu après la publication par Statistique Canada de données témoignant de l’explosion du nombre de résidents non permanents au Canada et au Québec.
Le Parti québécois a récupéré le dossier, jeudi, en anticipant une « minorisation » de la langue française. Le député Pascal Bérubé a fait valoir que le Québec n’a pas une capacité d’accueil suffisante pour toute cette immigration temporaire. Le Parti libéral du Québec est d’accord, parlant de « drapeau rouge » pour la capacité d’accueil, alors que Québec solidaire demande au contraire qu’on régularise leur statut pour en faire des immigrants permanents.Validée par Québec
Pablo Rodriguez, qui est devenu ministre fédéral des Transports cet été, rappelle que la venue de travailleurs étrangers temporaires est validée par le gouvernement provincial. Les statistiques montrent que ces travailleurs formaient 43 % des 470 976 résidents non permanents qui se trouvaient au Québec le 1er juillet 2023.
« Il n’y a pas un seul dossier qui est ouvert par Ottawa tant que le demandeur n’a pas reçu un certificat d’acceptation du Québec, dit-il. Ces gens-là qui sont là, il faut vraiment faire attention à ne pas pointer du doigt, [et] comprendre que s’ils sont là, c’est parce que ce sont des entreprises de chez nous qui les veulent. »
Interpellée jeudi, la ministre Fréchette a invité le gouvernement fédéral à « être plus sensible à l’impact de ses cibles d’immigration ». « La majorité des immigrants temporaires sont [au Québec] grâce à des programmes contrôlés entièrement par le fédéral », a-t-elle affirmé dans une déclaration écrite transmise au Devoir. « Le Québec contrôle seulement les travailleurs admis via le Programme des travailleurs étrangers temporaires et les étudiants étrangers », soit le tiers des immigrants non permanents accueillis en territoire québécois.
L’élue caquiste invite le fédéral à se concentrer sur les demandeurs d’asile, qui représentent 31 % des résidents non permanents québécois malgré la fermeture du chemin Roxham. « Le gouvernement canadien doit s’assurer d’une répartition équitable des demandeurs d’asile à travers le Canada, a-t-elle dit. Il y a un examen de conscience à faire à Ottawa. »
Le Québec ne dispose pas de cible pour l’accueil de travailleurs étrangers temporaires. Ces nouveaux arrivants font pourtant explicitement partie de la stratégie du gouvernement Legault publiée l’an dernier, qui prévoit d’« appuyer les employeurs » pour augmenter la main-d’oeuvre temporaire.
Près de 7000 entreprises au Québec ont demandé d’embaucher des travailleurs étrangers temporaires l’an dernier.Les temporaires deviennent permanents
Les autres catégories d’immigrants temporaires comprennent les étudiants étrangers, qui sont convoités par Québec, les membres de la famille qui accompagnent ces immigrants ainsi que les demandeurs d’asile. Ces derniers forment 31 % de tous les résidents non permanents du Québec, et la province ne peut pas en gérer le nombre.
Selon le décompte de Statistique Canada, 146 723 demandeurs d’asile étaient présents sur le territoire québécois en juillet dernier.
Le gouvernement fédéral a pour objectif d’accueillir 500 000 immigrants par année au Canada. Or, un grand nombre d’entre eux sont déjà arrivés physiquement sur le territoire, comme par un programme d’immigration temporaire.
Les cibles d’immigration fixées par Québec sont moindres que son poids démographique dans le Canada, ce qui crée un goulot d’étranglement des demandes. Le Devoir a rapporté que des immigrants temporaires entrant dans certaines catégories pourraient devoir attendre plus de 25 ans avant d’obtenir leur résidence permanente.
Source: C’est Québec qui cautionne la venue d’immigrants temporaires, dit Ottawa
McGill, Concordia unlikely to be hampered by new [language] immigration rules: minister
2023/09/30 Leave a comment
More likely than unlikely:
The immigration minister does not believe universities like McGill and Concordia will be hampered in their recruitment efforts owing to new rules imposing more French on international students.
Christine Fréchette said university recruitment was not hampered in the previous incarnation of the Quebec Experience Program (PEQ),which international students use to enter Quebec combining school with career aims. In 2019, the government slapped limits on the range of disciplines eligible, sparking an uproar from students that forced it to back down.
And on Thursday, Fréchette said she does not believe another new set of rules, this time imposing more French on PEQ candidates, will do what the universities predict.
“For me this argument is not backed up by the numbers,” Fréchette said answering a question from the Montreal Gazette. “I think that McGill has an attraction, an appeal that is worldwide.
“They will be able to attract international students even though we have changed the rules of the PEQ diplomé.”
Last week, both McGill University and Concordia University slammed Fréchette’s new rules, which are part of a massive reform of Quebec’s immigration system.
In two separate briefs presented to the legislature committee studying the reforms, they said the new French language requirements included in the new PEQ will mean international students will be deterred from applying, thus depriving Quebec of their skills and talent.
The PEQ welcomes a wide range of academic options and is hugely popular, but in May Fréchette announced changes to the way the program works. In an effort to increase the French skill level of applicants — in the same way as her overall immigration reforms in the economic category, which Quebec controls — Fréchette introduced a distinction between francophone and anglophone applicants.
Foreign students who studied in French or are francophone will benefit from a fast-tracked system designed to retain them. Instead of the 12 to 18 months of work experience currently required to apply for a certificate leading to permanent residency, a request can be made as soon as they complete their studies.
But students who come to Quebec to study in English and do not have a sufficient knowledge of French will no longer qualify for the PEQ and the advantages it offers.
McGill argues the rules will create a two-tier system because most of its 12,000 foreign students will not meet the new qualifications.
“Our students risk emerging as the losers in this exercise,” Fabrice Labeau, McGill’s deputy provost of student life and learning, told the committee.
Concordia has a similar view and says the reforms will “de facto” exclude graduates from anglophone universities even if they master French.
The PEQ, or Programme de l’expérience québécoise, is a fast track for international students — some of whom may already be living and working in the province — to obtain a Quebec selection certificate, which is a step toward permanent residency.
International students can apply to the program, as can new arrivals who have obtained a degree at a Quebec institution in the last two years.
Source: McGill, Concordia unlikely to be hampered by new immigration rules: minister – Montreal Gazette
Lederman: In Poland, an outrage over a movie shows the government’s fear of both fact and fiction
2023/09/30 Leave a comment
Of note:
“Only pigs sit in the cinema.” That phrase was coined during the Second World War by the Polish Home Army to discourage people from seeing Nazi propaganda films screening in German-occupied Poland.
But the resistance slogan is getting new life in today’s politically charged Poland, as controversy swirls over the feature film The Green Border, which has caused the far-right Law and Justice (PiS) government to lash out and compare the movie to, yes, “Nazi propaganda.” The outrage prompted 74-year-old director Agnieszka Holland to hire security as she travelled to Poland for the movie’s release.
The Green Border, which won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival, is a harrowing look at Poland’s real-life migrant crisis. It is set largely along the natural, forested border, where refugees from the Middle East and Africa have been trying to enter the European Union through Poland. They are lured there by Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko, whose government has offered the false promise of safe passage – a political strategy meant to antagonize the EU.
In the film, a group of desperate people, including a woman from Afghanistan and a family of Syrian refugees – three children, their parents and grandfather – fly to Minsk, and are shuttled from the airport to the barbed-wire border in the thick forest. There, they try to cross into Poland. Rather than being welcomed, they are forced into a terrible cross-border cat-and-mouse game while navigating the cold, swampy forest. Sadistic guards on both sides – and in the no man’s land in the middle – behave cruelly to these desperate people, including pregnant women, who are trying to escape homeland threats such as war and severe oppression. The human rights abuses they encounter as they try to claim asylum in Poland are in violation of international law.
The “only pigs” line was recently resurrected by Polish border guards who saw the film, and repeated by President Andrzej Duda, who has not. He made the ugly comment during a TV appearance, and called for an audience boycott, in objection to the film’s depiction of the country’s actions at the border.
With a runtime of more than two hours, the devastating black-and-white film – which is at the Vancouver International Film Festival this weekend, following screenings at TIFF – is excruciating to watch. But it is essential.
While heavily researched, this is not a documentary; it is a dramatization, with fictional characters. That doesn’t make it untrue.
A Polish journalist I recently met in Poland, Joanna Lopat-Reno, has documented the crisis – one where people “are repeatedly pushed around, intimidated, beaten, starved, whole families waiting in the forest,” she wrote in her European Press Prize-nominated article, “Ammar in the Polish wardrobe: A story about hiding refugees on the Polish-Belarusian border.” She is anxious to call attention to the issue. “That … fictional story is not very different from what happens in reality. Now. Because it is still happening.”
But on the day The Green Border opened in Poland, Deputy Prime Minister and PiS party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski held a news conference where he called the film “simply shameful, repulsive and disgusting.” Polish Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro compared Ms. Holland to a Nazi propagandist. Ms. Holland’s father was Jewish, and his parents died in the Holocaust.
The government even produced its own short film warning viewers about the “untruths and distortions” of the feature, and ordered cinemas to play it ahead of screenings.
This is all happening in the run-up to Poland’s Oct. 15 election, in which the refugee crisis has been an issue. The PiS campaign is pushing its anti-immigration policies as it tries to win a third term. It is also asking this referendum question: “Do you support the admission of thousands of illegal immigrants from the Middle East and Africa?”
Ms. Holland has said the film’s release was not timed to coincide with the election, but with film festival season. She calls the government’s attacks on the film “an organized hate campaign.”
In spite of the controversy – or perhaps because of it – The Green Borderhad the biggest opening weekend for a Polish film this year. Yet despite the film’s critical reception, Poland’s Oscar committee announced on Monday that it submitted a different entry to the Academy Awards for consideration in the international-feature category: the much prettier period film, The Peasants, which is easier on the eyes, and heart – and easier for the current government to stomach.
Art can bring attention to issues that are being largely ignored, and call attention to governments that are acting egregiously.
Will this film bring change? Impossible to know. But it will make you care. We need to pay attention to these people – and the lawmakers who hope to silence them.
Source: In Poland, an outrage over a movie shows the government’s fear of both fact and fiction
Colby Cosh: Multiculturalism takes some well-deserved criticism
2023/09/30 Leave a comment
As noted earlier, largely a repeat of 2011 criticisms in UK, France and Germany. Not a particularly insightful column and noteworthy that UK PM Sunak has already walked away from Braverman’s speech:
The concept of multiculturalism, whether you like it or not, is of acknowledged Canadian origin. So perhaps we should all flinch a little when it is grumblingly condemned by European leaders — an increasingly common phenomenon that may have reached a new pinnacle on Tuesday.
Suella Braverman, the United Kingdom’s Conservative home secretary, appeared at the Washington, D.C., headquarters of the American Enterprise Institute to deliver a resounding critique of the postwar framework for refugee protection and of the “misguided” and “toxic” multiculturalism doctrine that has bent it out of shape.
Braverman’s speech is meeting with an orgy of denunciation among British liberals and celebrities. On the other hand, the inevitable fate of the speech is to be laughed off by anti-immigration critics who have heard British and European politicians warn for decades that humanitarianism cannot be a suicide pact for Old World nation-states — without ever doing anything much themselves to change migration policy.
In Braverman’s account, European countries devised the United Nations Refugee Convention largely to sort out the continent’s own affairs in the aftermath of the Second World War. Refugees are defined in the text as those with a “well-founded fear of being persecuted,” but the treaty is now interpreted so as to permit ill-disguised economic migration, to encourage unlawful and risky crossings of seas and borders, and to facilitate prolonged shopping by migrants among desirable destination countries.
The result, for better or worse, is that refugee protections are now potentially available to nigh on a billion people, creating a “promissory note that the West cannot fulfill.” (Or, as French President Emmanuel Macron put it a few days ago, “We (Europeans) cannot accommodate all the misery in the world.”) Braverman enumerates four critiques of a period in which “there has been more migration to the U.K. and Europe … than in all the time that went before.”
The first is the conservative “civic” argument: integration of newcomers to a nation-state is desirable, but it takes time, and is bound to take even more time in places where a ruling philosophy of multiculturalism discourages complete assimilation and homogenizing patriotism. (This is a critique likely to land on deaf ears in Canada, where multiculturalism is popularly regarded as successful — but, then, Canada isn’t really a classic nation-state, and it doesn’t exist within walking or sailing distance of hundreds of millions of much poorer people.)
Braverman adds the “practical” argument that state services and housing markets can’t adapt quickly to mass uncontrolled immigration by asylum-seekers; the “national security” argument that some asylum-seekers are threats to public order, the public treasury and public safety; and the “democratic” argument that domestic voters almost everywhere in the West strongly favour, but rarely receive, tight control of national borders.
I’m not sure whether this enumerated list is the best way for Europeans to think about their immigration problems, but Braverman’s four points all deserve to be considered, even here in the original fastness of multiculturalism.
It’s certainly not a coincidence that the list format seems designed for future political campaigning: the U.K. Conservatives are still headed for an epic electoral disaster, and Braverman is obviously lining herself up to be a potential successor to British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
In any event, the critics seem determined to ignore the actual content of Braverman’s argument in favour of unsubtle ad hominem, asking how a half-Tamil, half-Goan child of (thoroughly legal 1960s) immigrants can possibly harbour such terrible views. The awkward implication is that only pur laine Brits are entitled to critique British immigration policy — or, in practice, that nobody at all is.
Source: Colby Cosh: Multiculturalism takes some well-deserved criticism
Downe: All foreign students need security checks
2023/09/29 Leave a comment
New to me as an issue but given the large numbers, not unexpected even if a very small percentage of international students:
The continuing lack of security checks for all international students is putting Canadians at risk.
The recent disclosure by the federal immigration minister that 700 foreign students are facing deportation following the discovery that forged acceptance letters from educational institutions were used to enter the country raises questions about how carefully—if at all—these students are vetted before coming to Canada. This concerning situation is made worse given the fake enrolment scam came to light after a public tip rather than a government investigation.
A number of these suspicious students have been identified by the Canada Border Services Agency as not attending university or college, but involved in criminal gangs. Since at least 2018, the Canadian government has been aware that student visas were being used to move gang members into Canada.
In 2022, more than 800,000 international students came to Canada: an increase of almost a third in one year. In addition to recognized universities and colleges, there has been a surge of new colleges and schools that seem to exist to take advantage of our weak admission rules for foreign students. This rapid and free-wheeling admittance can have real life impacts on Canadians.
As reported in my hometown newspaper, The Guardian, at 9 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2021, a young woman walked into a Staples store in Charlottetown, P.E.I., and spoke to an employee about buying a desk. After a discussion, she walked away and continued shopping in another aisle. She was followed by the employee and sexually assaulted. The employee was in Canada under a study permit issued by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.
In this case, the foreign student pleaded guilty and received a conditional discharge rather than a criminal conviction. Thus, he would not have to leave Canada before completing his studies at the University of Prince Edward Island.
Since this was not the first case involving someone on a study permit who committed a sexual assault but who didn’t receive a criminal conviction, citizens are wondering if the threat of deportation and having to leave their studies is being used as a “get-out-of-jail-free card” for students from abroad.
According to media reports, the woman has paid a high price for the sexual assault. She has quit her job, suffers panic attacks, and is fearful of being in stores and near strangers, while the international student gets to finish his degree.
The question is: why is it not mandatory that all applicants for study permits be required to pass a criminal background check prior to the student visa being issued? Are we really only relying on the honour system to ensure criminals aren’t slipping through the cracks, or the gut instincts of immigration officers to follow up with individual applicants?
Obviously, the vast majority of international students coming to Canada are not committing offences. Indeed, they are contributing to the diversity and success of our country, but we must ensure that both Canadians and newcomers are protected by implementing and maintaining proper checks before these students come to Canada.
Foreign nationals who committed crimes should be deported, and our court system—particularly our judges—need to be aware that security checks are not done on most of the students before they come to Canada.
The deportation issue is obviously a problem for some of our judges, as it is an additional penalty in that a criminal conviction may result in removal, but the safety of Canadians and those who abide by Canadian law during their temporary stay here should be the priority.
As the federal minister responsible for immigration recently stated: “In general, applicants for a study permit are not required to provide a police certificate as part of their application. Applicants should check country-specific requirements for more information. Nonetheless, if the immigration officer processing the application deems it necessary when reviewing a prospective student’s application, they will ask the applicant for a police certificate.”
Evidently, the process outlined by the minister highlights massive security gaps in the present system that is neither working to protect Canadian citizens, nor for the legitimate international students who come here to study.
Percy Downe is a Senator from Charlottetown, P.E.I.
Disputed immigration provision requires link to national security, Supreme Court says
2023/09/29 Leave a comment
Of note:
A provision of federal immigration law can be used to bar people on security grounds for engaging in violence only when there is a clear connection to national security, the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled.
The decision came Wednesday in a judgment on two cases that began with administrative rulings under a section of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
The section of the law says permanent residents or foreign nationals are inadmissible on security grounds for engaging in acts of violence that could endanger the lives or safety of people in Canada.
The first case involved Earl Mason, a citizen of Saint Lucia, who came to Canada in 2010 and later applied for permanent residence with his wife’s sponsorship. In May 2014, Mason was charged with two counts of attempted murder and two counts of discharging a firearm after an argument at a bar in Surrey, B.C. The charges were stayed due to delay.
In the second case, Libyan citizen Seifeslam Dleiow arrived in Canada in 2012 on a study permit and later unsuccessfully applied for refugee status. A Canada Border Services Agency report alleged he had engaged in acts of violence against intimate partners and others.
Some charges were stayed, and he received a conditional discharge after pleading guilty to being unlawfully in a dwelling house with intent to commit an indictable offence, mischief under $5,000 and uttering threats.
In Mason’s case, the Immigration Appeal Division agreed with the immigration minister that the section of the immigration law in question applies even when there is no nexus with national security. In Dleiow’s case, the Immigration Division followed the appeal division’s interpretation.
As a result of these administrative rulings, both men were deemed inadmissible to Canada.
The Federal Court quashed the rulings, but the Federal Court of Appeal concluded the administrative interpretation of the immigration provision was reasonable. The men then took their cases to the Supreme Court.
In its decision, the top court rejected the Immigration Appeal Division’s reading of the provision and overturned the administrative rulings.
In writing for the majority, Justice Mahmud Jamal said the relevant legal constraints “point overwhelmingly to a single reasonable interpretation” of the immigration provision — a person can be found inadmissible to Canada only if they engage in acts of violence with a nexus to national security.
Jamal said the Immigration Appeal Division failed to address critical points of statutory context that Mason had raised as well as “the potentially broad consequences of its interpretation,” namely deportation from Canada.
In addition, he wrote, the appeal division failed to apply the section in keeping with international human rights obligations concerning refugees to which Canada is a signatory.
Justice Suzanne Cote would have applied a different legal standard of review to the case, but agreed that there must be a link between the relevant act of violence and national security.
She found the Immigration Appeal Division’s interpretation would have significantly expanded the grounds for deportation of foreign nationals or permanent residents.
“It would allow foreign nationals to be returned to countries where they may face persecution, in a manner contrary to Canada’s obligations under the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.”
Source: Immigration law provision can bar people with link to national … – CTV News
Nicolas: Faux dilemmes [intersectionality, LGBTQ+, visible and religious minorities]
2023/09/29 Leave a comment
Nuanced discussion of the issues:
Depuis les manifestations anti-LGBTQ+ de la semaine dernière, on entend à plusieurs micros et sous maintes plumes que « la gauche s’entre-déchire », que les « intersectionnelles » ne savent plus où donner de la tête, et autres clichés semblables.
Pourquoi ? Parce que le mouvement pancanadien qui s’est mobilisé contre l’inclusion des réalités — et donc des enfants — trans et non binaires dans les écoles au Canada s’est coalisé autour de complotistes auxquels la pandémie nous avait habitués, de militants d’extrême droite, de chrétiens fondamentalistes et d’ultraconservateurs musulmans. Les caméras, sans surprise, ont capté avec plus d’insistance les visages des manifestants musulmans. Depuis, on se dit en se frottant les mains : entre les personnes trans et les femmes voilées, la « gauche inclusive » fait enfin face à ses contradictions !
Sauf que non, désolée pour vous. Je ne peux que parler pour moi-même, qui suis engagée contre l’islamophobie comme contre la transphobie : je ne sens pas mon univers de sens s’écrouler.
Par contre, le commentaire me fait dire que bien des gens qui lancent des pointes aux mouvements sociaux peinent encore à comprendre leur logique la plus élémentaire.
On saisit d’abord encore mal ce que ça veut dire, défendre les droits de la personne. C’est là un engagement qui dépasse largement la logique de « ma gang contre ta gang ». Ça veut dire que je crois que toutes les femmes devraient être libres de porter ou de ne pas porter ce qu’elles veulent — même les femmes qui méprisent une partie de ce que je suis, moi.
Ça veut dire défendre le droit de toutes les personnes LGBTQ+ de vivre leur orientation sexuelle et leur identité de genre — y compris celles qui reproduisent le racisme dans la culture queer. Ça veut dire que même si un homme noir a déjà fait des commentaires ou posé des gestes profondément misogynes par le passé, je ne veux pas qu’il se fasse tabasser par la police. Ça veut dire que j’utilise ma visibilité sur la scène pancanadienne pour sensibiliser mon audience au bilinguisme et au droit de tous les francophones du pays de vivre leur vie pleinement dans leur langue maternelle — y compris ceux qui contribuent au racisme. Ça veut dire, en gros, que je souhaite que tout le monde, même les gens qui me manquent de respect, ait accès au respect et à la dignité.
En théorie, tout cela est bien noble. Dans la pratique, les choses peuvent rapidement devenir complexes. Le travail d’organisation dans les mouvements sociaux, c’est faire face au quotidien à cette complexité. Dans les relations interpersonnelles et la construction des liens de confiance, comme dans la négociation des messages clés qui permettent de faire coalition. Cette complexité ne surprend donc personne ayant quelque expérience de terrain en mobilisation.
Cette même complexité donne aussi parfois du fil à retordre aux juristes qui doivent tracer la ligne lorsque les libertés des uns entrent en conflit avec les droits des autres. Quand la liberté d’expression ou d’association d’un groupe menace la sécurité — ou simplement la dignité — d’un autre, il faut qu’une ligne soit tracée. On ne s’entend pas toujours sur l’endroit où elle devrait l’être, mais la ligne témoigne au moins toujours d’une recherche plus ou moins adroite d’équilibre.
Plus on a l’habitude sociale et politique de la complexité, plus on se sentira outillés pour agir justement dans ce type de situation. On comprend que, souvent, on est face à de faux dilemmes. Plutôt qu’hésiter entre deux options qui ne conviennent pas à tous, on est tout à fait capables, avec un peu de volonté, d’en imaginer une troisième.
Il y a des personnes queers, traumatisées par la violence qu’elles ont subie au sein de leur propre communauté religieuse, qui se mettent à mépriser toutes les formes de foi et à étaler leurs préjugés contre tous les croyants du monde. Il y en a d’autres qui ont trouvé dans la spiritualité un vocabulaire pour nommer leur identité et leur rapport au monde, et une communauté pour les épauler dans leur recherche de sens. Il y a aussi des personnes très croyantes qui justifient par la foi des valeurs patriarcales, sexistes, homophobes et transphobes, qu’on peut tout aussi bien entretenir en étant athée. Il y en a d’autres qui puisent dans leur foi une compassion, une recherche de justice et un souci des plus vulnérables qui les mèneront vers une tout autre vision du monde.
C’est pourquoi ni la chrétienté, ni l’islam, ni aucune communauté de croyants ne sont des monolithes que l’on peut caricaturer aisément.
Si l’on veut bien comprendre les liens entre religion et diversité sexuelle, on a tout avantage à écouter les personnes queers qui sont elles-mêmes croyantes. Pour ce faire, il faudrait au moins arrêter de prétendre qu’elles n’existent pas. On ne peut les honorer dans tout ce qu’elles sont à moins d’imaginer une société où la liberté de conscience, l’orientation sexuelle et l’identité de genre sont toutes également respectées. Du moment qu’on est à l’aise avec la complexité, les conversations difficiles mais nécessaires, la recherche de solutions et l’écoute aussi, surtout, je ne vois pas pourquoi ce serait impossible.
Si cet optimisme me vient aussi aisément, c’est grâce aux années que j’ai passées dans les mouvements sociaux. On peut y voir comment des alliés de circonstance, à force de vivre des moments forts ensemble, finissent par bâtir des liens de confiance nécessaires aux discussions qui permettent de faire reculer les angles morts qu’on a tous — mais absolument tous — lorsqu’on décide de s’engager socialement. À force de défendre les droits des uns et des autres sans attente de réciprocité, les militants finissent par voir une compréhension mutuelle s’installer, doucement.
Si on ne reprend pas le rythme des mobilisations progressistes bientôt, d’ailleurs, c’est à la droite de la droite que cette magie des liens de solidarité et de confiance construits dans l’action politique s’opérera.
Anthropologue, Emilie Nicolas est chroniqueuse au Devoir et à Libération. Elle anime le balado Détours pour Canadaland.
Source: Faux dilemmes
Rota debacle renews calls to examine history, including war crime records
2023/09/29 Leave a comment
Needed:
Canada could revisit calls to declassify documents about the presence of Nazi war criminals in the country, Immigration Minister Marc Miller said Wednesday, as the fallout continued over Parliament’s recognition last week of a man who fought for the Nazis.
“Canada has a really dark history with Nazis in Canada,” Miller said, heading into the weekly Liberal caucus meeting.
“There was a point in our history where it was easier to get (into Canada) as a Nazi than it was as a Jewish person. I think that’s a history we have to reconcile.”
Many Jewish organizations in Canada say doing that requires a public airing of information, and that means all the records Canada has about the presence of war criminals must be opened up.
“I think part of the problem here is that the records are closed,” said B’nai Brith senior lawyer David Matas in an interview.
“You can’t remember the past unless you know the past, and you can’t know the past unless you get the records.”
B’nai Brith Canada and the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center both reiterated their long-standing calls this week for the government to make public all records about the admittance of former Nazi soldiers.
That includes the entirety of a 1986 report from a public commission on war criminals, which is often referred to as the Deschênes Commission for the judge who led it.
The report has never been fully released, including an appendix with the names of 240 alleged Nazi war criminals who might be living in Canada that the report recommended Canada investigate.
“It’s now time for Ottawa to not only release the unredacted files related to the Deschênes Commission, but to also address the stark reality that there are still former Nazis with blood on their hands living in Canada,” said Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center President Michael Levitt.
Matas noted that in June, a House of Commons committee studying Canada’s access-to-information system recommended all historical documents be released in full after 25 years.
He said implementing that recommendation would fulfil the desire to see Canada’s war criminal records.
Currently, records can be released 20 years after someone’s death. But Matas said that rule doesn’t apply in this case, because information about people who died can’t be accessed unless their names are available.
He said it’s not that every person named in the records is guilty, but that a justice system relies on openness, and you can’t have justice without transparency, whether you’re guilty or innocent.
There is also little to no information publicly available about what follow-up was done to investigate alleged war criminals named in the Deschênes report, or bring any of them to justice.
All of this comes after what some have called the most embarrassing international debacle in Canadian history.
On Friday, during an official visit by Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the House of Commons Speaker pointed to a guest in the gallery he identified as a war hero.
Parliamentarians and dignitaries who were present gave two standing ovations to a 98-year-old Ukrainian Canadian war veteran without knowing or understanding that the unit he fought with was formed by Nazi Germany to fight against the Soviet Union.
Speaker Anthony Rota, who said he did not know about Yaroslav Hunka’s background, apologized for making an egregious mistake inviting him to Parliament. He announced Tuesday that he would resign from the role.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued an apology on behalf of Canada and all parliamentarians for the debacle.
University of Alberta professor John-Paul Himka pointed out that nobody seemed to immediately understand how Hunka’s military history implied he would have fought with the Germans.
That’s because of a great lack of understanding of history, even among elected MPs, he said.
“I mean, this man was introduced as somebody who fought the Russians during World War II. Who was fighting the Russians during World War II? It was the Germans,” he said.
Matas concurred.
“I mean if Rota didn’t know about this whole issue and he was the Speaker of the House of Commons, you can imagine how widespread the ignorance is,” he said.
Still, said Matas, the uproar has rejuvenated the discussion about exposing that history, including all the records.
“This is on the radar, now, I think,” he said. “They’re paying attention to it.”
Miller said he has read the Deschênes report twice since this all happened, and encouraged all Canadians to do so.
He also said he knows there are many people demanding the release of the records, and it is something the government “could possibly examine again.”
But he said because he doesn’t know exactly what is contained in the documents, he doesn’t yet want to say if he backs their full release.
“But again, in a country like Canada that has not only a difficult history with Nazis in Canada, but also one of the most important diaspora of Jewish people, including some of the largest proportions of Holocaust survivors, impunity is absolutely not an option,” he said.
Mental Health Minister Ya’ara Saks, whose York Centre riding in Toronto has about one-fifth of its population identifying as Jewish, said Canada should look at what it can do to help provide answers and closure to Jewish Canadians.
She said opening the records is something to be looked at.
Source: Rota debacle renews calls to examine history, including war crime records
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