Ibbitson: Sir John A. Macdonald & The Apocalyptic Year 1885 places the former PM’s many imperfections within the context of the times

2024/12/02 Leave a comment

Of note. The importance of historical context:

…First Nations in the West were starving in the 1870s and 80s. The bison on which they depended had been hunted almost to extinction. Many native people fled into Canada to escape a hostile American government that provided no aid.

Macdonald, Dutil demonstrates, did everything in his power to prevent starvation, making himself minister of Indian affairs to co-ordinate relief efforts. He provided supplies and instructors to encourage Indigenous farming and offered rations to thousands in need.

“The whole theory of supplying the Indians is that we must prevent them from starving,” Macdonald declared. Spending on relief efforts became one of the largest items in the federal budget – twice what was spent on agriculture, immigration, penitentiaries or the post office.

“There is no evidence that food was withheld to kill Indigenous people, as some would charge 150 years later,” Dutil concludes. The very opposite is true: “Even with the financial crash in the fall of 1883 and the economy in deep depression, Macdonald spent aggressively on food.” His government was harshly criticized by the Liberal opposition for what that party considered lavish overspending on First Nations relief.

The Macdonald government initiated the infamous residential-school system. There is no question that the prime minister sought to assimilate First Nations within the settler culture. There is also no question that this attitude enjoyed near-unanimous support among non-Indigenous Canadians. Macdonald and his peers believed assimilation offered the most hopeful future for the first peoples.

“Canada joined the rest of the American hemisphere as it opened a shameful chapter in its history, despite its good intentions,” Dutil writes….

Source: Sir John A. Macdonald & The Apocalyptic Year 1885 places the former PM’s many imperfections within the context of the times

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Although Canada’s U.S. border has one unlawful crossing for every 10 at the Mexico-U.S. border, our crossings have nearly doubled in the last two years 

2024/12/02 Leave a comment

Some useful data that helps understand USA concerns and provides shared incentives for better managing the border.

…While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has not yet committed to a plan for increasing Canadian border security, Quebec’s Premier François Legault has called for one.“I think now’s not the time to play at whether it’s true or not that our borders are not secure. I think it’s important that a plan be tabled,” Premier Legault told reporters.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said Trump’s concerns with the U.S.-Canada borders are well founded. Her government may be sending law enforcement to the province’s shared border with Montana to develop a “specialized border patrol.”“Saying we’re not as bad as [Mexico] is not going to fly in this case,” Premier Smith told CTV News.

“Saying we’re not as bad as [Mexico] is not going to fly in this case,” Premier Smith told CTV News.

Border crossings 

In fiscal year 2024 (October 2023 to September 2024), the number of U.S. Border Patrol (USBP) encounters at America’s northern border with Canada was nearly 200,000. Those at the U.S. border with Mexico, meanwhile, were 2.1 million.

There were just over 10 U.S. Border Patrol encounters along the Mexico-U.S. border for every one encounter along the Canada-U.S. border.

Encounters occur when the USBP locates individuals attempting to enter the country, either illegally between border posts or at official crossings without necessary paperwork like visas. It also includes those turned away because of public health rules, such as those put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Between 2022 and 2024, USBP encounters at the U.S.-Canada border nearly doubled, increasing 81 percent. Meanwhile, those at the Mexican border declined by 10 percent.

At both borders, single adults are the vast majority of those attempting to enter the U.S. At the U.S.-Canada border in 2022, single people numbered 92,737 or 84 percent of all USBP encounters. In 2024 they numbered 155,214 or 78 percent.

Families attempting to enter the U.S. unlawfully have increased remarkably.

At the Mexico-U.S. border, between 2022 and 2024, families rose from 23 to 41 percent of USBP encounters. At the Canadian border in 2022, they were just 13 percent of all encounters. This year they rose to 21 percent.

Who’s coming?

What’s also increased is both individuals and families travelling first to Canada, with the ultimate plan of making it across our southern border to the United States.

“When you see that, increasingly, the open border policies of Justin Trudeau [are] leading to people coming to Canada as a staging area to enter into the United States, to such a point that it has caught [the United States’] attention, we need to address those issues,” said Premier Smith this week.

The increase of USBP encounters at the northern U.S. border, compared to those in the U.S. south, gives some weight to this idea that migrants are increasingly using Canada’s less defended border as a first step to illegally enter the U.S.

As U.S.-Mexico border security has become tighter, human smugglers have increasingly advised clients to travel to the U.S. through the U.S.-Canada border, according to CBC reporting. Taxis services to drive migrants to New York City have reportedly boomed in New York State border towns.

In 2023, Indians were the single largest national group for attempts to cross the Canada-U.S. border, numbering 30,000.

From 2022 to 2023, USBC encounters with Venezuelans along our border increased the most relatively, from 201 to 1,375; followed by Peruvians from 148 to 662; and Mexicans from 3,221 to 11,121. Each relative increase was remarkably higher compared to those at the Mexico-U.S. border.

Other Central and South American nationals like Nicaraguans, Colombians, and Brazilians–whose countries are said to be facing a migration crisis–top the list for 2022 to 2023’s increased USBP encounters at the Canada-U.S. border. In 2023, encounters with Mexican, Nicaraguan, and Brazilian nationals at the Mexico-U.S. border actually declined, as those at Canada’s border rose remarkably.

Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, said Canada’s U.S. border presently represents an “extreme national security” vulnerability for his country….

Source: Although Canada’s U.S. border has one unlawful crossing for every 10 at the Mexico-U.S. border, our crossings have nearly doubled in the last two years

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The undefended Canada-U.S. border gets renewed scrutiny as Trump’s win revives historic anxieties

2024/12/02 Leave a comment

Good long read and overview. Excerpt some of the most interesting comments:

…In the rush to find ways of taming Mr. Trump’s sudden fury about the Canadian border, experts are now calling for the revival of obscure and long-dormant bilateral bodies. Former public safety minister Marco Mendicino said one way to “send a very strong signal to the president-elect” is to immediately reconvene a meeting of the Canada-U.S. Cross-Border Crime Forum, which was revived after several years in abeyance last year.

The forum, composed of Canada’s public safety and justice ministers, and the U.S. secretary of homeland security and attorney-general, is a ready-made platform for sharing intelligence and addressing concerns about human and drug smuggling across the border.

“Being pro-active is crucial, because we want to transmit that we are in total alignment when it comes to shoring up the integrity of the border,” Mr. Mendicino said.

If Canadians often thought of their border with the U.S. as a kind of decorative ticker tape, the Trump administration appears to believe the border is more like a fishing net that is full of holes. And some of the numbers do suggest that our shared border is becoming more porous to migrants and drugs, as Mr. Trump alleged in his social media post.

Statistics from U.S. Customs and Border Protection show that roughly twice as many suspected terrorists have tried to cross from Canada into the U.S. as have from Mexico in recent years.

The data are deeply concerning for Americans in the post-9/11 era and should be taken seriously and investigated by Canadian officials, said Michael Barutciski, a York University professor of international affairs.

As recently as September, he pointed out, a Pakistani man living in the Toronto area was arrested near the border in Ormstown, Que., in September on allegations he was plotting an Islamic State-inspired mass shooting on a Jewish centre in New York. The man entered Canada on a student visa last year.

“It doesn’t look good,” said Prof. Barutciski. “It’s a very sensitive issue and they often turn to Canada as sort of a weak point and they’re paranoid about that and we can’t deny that once in a while we do give them reasons to be afraid.”

Former Conservative public safety minister Peter Van Loan thinks the fear of Canadian terror strikes in the U.S. is overblown and that the perception is worth combatting while the issue is front and centre. After all, the data on terrorists reflect those who tried to enter the country and were prevented from doing so.

“It has been a long running misunderstanding among Americans that Canada has been a source of terrorists,” he said. “None of the 9/11 terrorists came from Canada. I continually ran into American politicians who believe they did come in through Canada, and the fact is, they did not. So Canada has a bit of a public relations issue there.”

The border is certainly under growing strain from irregular migrants – although the perception that they are more likely to be criminals has been harshly scrutinized. A recent U.S. study found that undocumented immigrants in Texas, at least, had lower rates of violent crime than U.S.-born citizens….

Source: The undefended Canada-U.S. border gets renewed scrutiny as Trump’s win revives historic anxieties

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Bill C-71 – The need for a timeframe limit: My submission to the Senate’s SOCI

2024/12/02 Leave a comment

The Senate will be starting its review of Bill C-71, the government bill replacing the first generation cut-off for citizenship transmission, by a residency test for the second generation born abroad. The Senate will conduct its review this week prior to the House of Commons given that the House is effectively shut down.

I will be testifying on December 4th.

Please find attached my written submission, arguing for a same time limit of five years to meet the 1,095 day residency requirement as is the case for permanent residents applying for citizenship, and for IRCC to prepare and share its analysis of the likely number of persons affected and the operational impacts along with associated costs. (My own analysis is included in the submission).

I hope you find it interesting.

Citizenship C-71 SOCI Submission – 29 November 2024Download

Meeting notice: The subject matter of Bill C-71, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act (2024)

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