Multiculturalism in Canada: Evidence and Anecdote eBook – 5 Percent off
2015/12/30 Leave a comment
A small saving, one of the rare ones Lulu offers for eBooks. Direct link for eBook: Multiculturalism In Canada: Evidence and Anecdote
True test of Canadian citizenship is in how we welcome Syria’s refugees: Charles Foran
2015/12/21 Leave a comment
Charlie Foran of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship on the test for all Canadians:
In most regards, Syrians are like every other refugee group. We’ve been reminding ourselves lately of how well we managed with the Vietnamese in the late 1970s, and the Hungarians in the late 1950s. There is a certain degree of false comfort in this. Surrounding these good-news stories, of course, have been numerous other arrivals, many of whose rights we violated. Japanese internment camps shouldn’t be forgotten. Nor the turning away of Jewish refugees from the Holocaust, or Sikhs aboard the Komagata Maru in Vancouver harbour.
To explain Canada’s often begrudging acceptance of immigrants, some of us insist on arcing all the way back to a foundational narrative to make the point. In the spring and summer of 1847, the sleepy colonial outpost of Toronto had its population involuntarily tripled by boatloads of Irish escaping the great famine. “A calamity upon the Province,” is how one emigration agent described the hasty influx of 40,000 impoverished Celts.
Locals, then largely of British extraction, felt much put upon, and didn’t like the Irish showing up in such large numbers, and in such a woeful state. They treated the newcomers badly. But things turned out okay for sleepy Toronto, now the astounding GTA, and the province, and, for that matter, Irish-Canadians. They’ve turned out okay for most everyone else, as well.
With the Syrians, however, there are, unfortunately, uneasy circumstances. None emanates from the refugees themselves, it must be stressed – all are projections upon them. Some people try to draw dark links between a global religion and a virulent extremist movement. Suspicions of guilt are being raised, based on ethnicity and geography alone. Most of the accusers are scared and ignorant, but some are craven and cynical, intent on havoc.
Little in reality confirms these anxieties – terrorists don’t huddle in camps for years and then apply to immigrate; terrorists are usually homegrown – but they exist. In Europe, especially, the sane political centre may be at temporary risk. In the United States, there is Donald Trump, among other worries.
“Alienness,” the author Pico Iyer writes, “inheres not in a place or object, but in our relation to it. Our fears – of course – are as irrational as our dreams.” In the 21st-century Canada I’ve been outlining, it isn’t easy to hold on to those irrational fears of the proverbial alien or “other.” There is just too rapid and ongoing a dissolve of us-and-them divisions for such narrow, dismal thinking to survive scrutiny.
Even so, we’ve already had the election niqab controversy and the Peterborough mosque attack, and it is naïve to assume 2016 will pass without further attacks and signs of strain. Whatever they are, we’ll need to remain calm and assured, and stand our values’ ground. Those values can be, must be, expressed through gestures of welcome, large and small.
For example, I work at the Institute for Canadian Citizenship (ICC), a not-for-profit based in downtown Toronto. One of our programs is the Cultural Access Pass (CAP). It provides new citizens a year of free admission to more than 1,200 cultural attractions, parks and historic sites across the country, and is a modest way of issuing a welcome, and encouraging a sense of belonging. For 2016 we’re going to extend a version of the pass to the Syrians, to say the same, and in case others might be sending them different messages.
Passing our collective citizenship test in 2016 will involve making many such gestures, along with a real thoughtfulness and self-awareness about the “defining moment” the Governor-General has described.
It isn’t just about the year ahead, either. It is about the years, decades, to come.
It is also about 2017, and the 150th anniversary of Confederation. Celebrate the sesquicentennial, we all surely will. But the anniversary should also serve as the next platform to engage in honest exchanges about the kind of country we once were and the kind of country we’re in the process – always the process – of becoming.
Accepting, embracing, the present and future Canada may compel a still greater appetite for the necessary self-examination around issues concerning our complex history with immigrants and First Nations, Métis and Inuit. We sure do need to make a few things right.
If we can keep working on this while celebrating, in 2017, then the next Syrians – whoever they prove to be – will be likewise welcomed, and the next group again after that. The statistical destination of 2030 may soon cease to have any real meaning: By then, we’ll probably already be that bold post-nation-state Canada, with its plurality of minorities and advanced citizenship.
Source: True test of Canadian citizenship is in how we welcome Syria’s refugees – The Globe and Mail
Congress Just Put Iranian-Americans and Others At Risk for Becoming Second-Class Citizens
2015/12/21 1 Comment
Under-reported, given the potential impact on the large number of Canadians (according to the 2011 NHS, about 170,000 Iranian Canadians, 50,000 Iraqi Canadians, 41,000 Syrian Canadians and 17,000 Sudanese Canadians):
TODAY BOTH HOUSES OF CONGRESS approved a $1.1 trillion spending bill intended to keep government services funded through September 2016. Tucked into this omnibus legislation are provisions that could undermine, on the basis of personal heritage, the ability of many American citizens to travel visa-free to countries in Europe and east Asia.
For more than 25 years, the Visa Waiver Program has allowed people from a select list of countries, currently 38 nations long, to travel to the U.S. without a visa. Those countries, in turn, must reciprocate, allowing Americans the same privilege on their own soil. Today, Congress voted to change the deal: People coming from countries covered under the Visa Waiver Program, including people who are citizens of those countries, will now need to get a visa if they are determined to be nationals of Iran, Iraq, Sudan, and Syria, or if they have visited those countries since 2011.
This is worse than it sounds, because at least two of those countries, Iran and Syria, deem people to be nationals, regardless of where they were born or live, if their fathers are citizens. So it’s possible that someone who is a citizen of one of the countries on the visa-free travel list — the United Kingdom, say — and who lives there and grew up there and has never visited another country, could end up denied entry to the U.S. because of a parent born in Iran or Syria.
It gets even worse still, because there is a strong likelihood that countries party to the newly altered Visa Waiver Program, including European Union member states, will institute reciprocal restrictions on Americans, meaning that many Iranian-Americans, Syrian-Americans, and others in the U.S. would see their ability to travel the world seriously degraded based on ancestry or dual citizenship. Potentially facing similar reciprocal restrictions are any aid workers, journalists, or other Americans who simply visited at some point since 2011 the countries targeted in the new legislation.
An open letter published by the European Union’s ambassador to the United States has already said that passage of the bill “could trigger legally mandated reciprocal measures” against American citizens, in this case, specifically those whose national origin is from Iran, Sudan, Syria, or Iraq, effectively placing them into a lower category of citizenship when attempting to travel abroad.
The new restrictions have alarmed civil rights groups in the United States, including the American Civil Liberties Union, which in a letter to the House of Representatives earlier this month called the changes arbitrary, discriminatory, and “un-American,” since they would punish individuals solely based on their nationality or ethnic origin. Despite this harsh criticism, at least some of the provisions were approved by the House of Representatives in a 407-19 vote on December 8, paving the way for today’s vote.
Jamal Abdi, a spokesperson for the National Iranian American Council, believes the legislation will eventually prompt other countries to deny Iranian-Americans the same rights of free travel enjoyed by other Americans.
“Targeting people who are dual nationals is particularly discriminatory and unjust, since dual nationality is not something you choose,” Abdi said. “Under this legislation, if you’re a European of Iranian origin or your father is an Iranian citizen, you wouldn’t be able to travel without a visa to the United States. As we’ve already heard from the EU, this would trigger reciprocal measures that would result in the passports of Iranian-Americans being treated as inferior, essentially putting them in a category of second-class citizenship.”
The bill approved by the House earlier this month, HR-158, which is related to the legislation approved today, was initially written for the narrow and reasonable purpose of blocking or restricting from U.S. entry individuals who traveled to Islamic State-controlled territory in Syria or Iraq. But provisions later added by Republican lawmakers made the legislation more draconian, including by imposing restrictions involving entire countries — official “state sponsors of terrorism” like Iran and Sudan. (In those two countries, at least, the Islamic State is nonexistent.)
Some parts of the newly passed legislation could even violate the recently negotiated deal between the U.S. and Iran to curb Iranian nuclear activity.
For example, under the new rules, a European or Japanese business owner who traveled to Iran to take advantage of recently lifted economic sanctions would thereafter find themselves denied visa-free entry to the United States — a restriction that would inevitably act as a deterrent to doing business in Iran. But the provisions of the U.S.-Iran nuclear deal prohibit policies that undermine “the normalization of trade and economic relations with Iran.”
Thirty-three Democratic members of Congress signed an open letter published last week criticizing some of the new Visa Waiver Program restrictions. The letter said the restrictions “would result in discrimination against people simply because they are dual citizens based on ancestry” and asserted that national origin should not be a factor when determining visa requirements. People entering the United States, the letter said, should be evaluated on an individual level, not based on “where their parents are from.”
In the end, those objections were not enough to stop the new rules. Abdi said that politicians have stoked fears of immigration and helped increase public support for harsh laws that target en masse individuals from Muslim-majority countries.
“This bill is a direct response to the rhetoric of GOP leaders like Donald Trump and others who have called for restricting people coming to the United States based on national origin,” Abdi said. “There has been a lot of outcry about his outrageous comments and proposals from the public and in the media, but now as a consequence of the environment he’s helped create, we’re actually seeing Congress take steps to turn such xenophobic ideas into law.”
Source: Congress Just Put Iranian-Americans and Others At Risk for Becoming Second-Class Citizens
Canadians turned off by Donald Trump’s inflammatory policies: poll
2015/12/19 1 Comment
Interesting but not terribly surprising result that largely correlates with the Conservative Party base, providing a possible explanation for the wedge politics of the previous Conservative government and its election strategy:
Respondents were also questioned about Trump’s call for a ban on all Muslims entering the United State: 67 per cent said they personally disagree, while about 50 per cent “strongly” disagree.
However, the poll notes that still leaves a sizeable minority — a full one in three — who agrees with Trump, 13 per cent “strongly” so.
Women aged 35-54 and men 55 or older were mostly likely to agree with Trump — by 39 per cent and 41 per cent respectively.
Responses varied across the country.
In every case, support for Trump was more apparent in rural settings, and at its lowest in urban centres like Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.
Residents of central Canada and the west coast were most likely to dislike Trump, compared with 46 per cent of Saskatchewan residents who said they agreed with him.
Responses were also dictated by politics: people who voted Conservative in the last federal election were far more likely to support Trump, 55 per cent,
Respondents were also divided on whether or not Trump’s remarks are good or bad for society.
Unsurprisingly, the same minority that agrees with Trump’s police is also likely to say his rhetoric is good for society because it brings to light “timely issues without fear of political correctness, ” while 63 per cent disagreed, saying it “encourages fear and hatred towards Muslims.”Kurl said that while the poll was clear a majority of Canadians do not support Trump, it is important to note the minority results, too.
“There is a significant number of Canadians who agree with Trump’s statements calling for a complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” she said.
“Two in three disagree. The majority disagree. But one in three agree and that is a significant segment of Canadians.”
The poll has a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
Source: Canadians turned off by Donald Trump’s inflammatory policies: poll | National Post
Top 10 of 2015 – Issue #5: Governments Increasingly Restrict Citizenship
2015/12/19 1 Comment
One of the top international trends in immigration and citizenship policy by the Migration Policy Institute:
The question of who belongs in a nation strikes at the heart of a country’s identity. It is no surprise therefore that governments typically set high requirements governing who can acquire citizenship—and reserve the right to strip it from those who would do the nation harm. In 2015, both citizenship acquisition and revocation came under fire in new ways. Politicians in a number of countries—including the United States—have attempted to restrict who is eligible to become a citizen, while others have expanded the definition of who can be deprived of citizenship.
Those restricting eligibility have largely been driven by the aim of excluding descendants of unauthorized immigrants or contested minority groups from citizenship—drawing a bright line around “desired” citizens. The second trend has mainly been driven by fears of international terrorism. Canada, Australia, and a handful of European countries have passed or proposed legislation making it easier to strip suspected terrorists—almost all of whom are Muslim and male—of what should be a nation’s most secure and permanent right. Both trends come with a high penalty: potentially marginalizing immigrant or minority communities, and in some cases rendering individuals stateless (for more on the political rhetoric driving these trends, see Issue #6: Refugee Crisis Deepens Political Polarization in the West).
Source: Top 10 of 2015 – Issue #5: Governments Increasingly Restrict Citizenship | migrationpolicy.org
China’s ‘hidden generation’: plea to give citizenship to stateless children of trafficked North Koreans | South China Morning Post
2015/12/16 Leave a comment
Under-reported:
Campaigners have urged Beijing to give citizenship to a “hidden generation” of stateless children born to trafficked North Korean women forced into marriage or prostitution in China.
They said an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 children born to North Korean women in China have no nationality and therefore cannot access education, health care and basic rights that most people take for granted.
If their mothers are deported, they are often abandoned by their Chinese fathers, leaving them effectively orphaned, according to the European Alliance for Human Rights in North Korea.
Thousands of North Koreans have fled hunger and oppression in the secretive state since a famine in the mid-1990s. Many are in hiding in neighbouring China, which considers them illegal migrants.
The plight of their children is outlined in a report by the rights group co-authored by Yong Joon Park, a teenager now living in Britain who grew up stateless in China.
They treated him badly. His life was worse than the starving children in North Korea. His mother, Jihyun Park, said traffickers sold her as a wife to a poor Chinese farmer after she fled North Korea in 1998.When their son was five in 2004 she was reported to the authorities and deported back to North Korea.
There she was sent to a labour camp where she endured “horrific conditions” and prisoners were “worked harder than animals”.
“All I could think of was seeing my son again,” said Park, who eventually managed to escape and return to China.
She found her son, but barely recognised him. His skin was filthy and flaking, and when he was hungry he was sent outside to pick up grains of rice from the ground.
“They treated him badly. His life was worse than the starving children in North Korea,” she said. “The Chinese government does not give children like my son a nationality so they cannot go to school.”
She and her son managed to cross the Chinese border into Mongolia and later moved to Britain and were accepted as refugees.
“When my son arrived in the UK he was nine. It was the first time he had a nationality and the first time he went to school.”
Now 16, he scored straight As in his exams this year and is hoping to go to university to become a lawyer.
Voile intégral: Couillard confiant de pouvoir légiférer malgré l’approche d’Ottawa
2015/12/14 1 Comment
Federal citizenship case reflected fact that Minister did not have the authority under the Citizenship Act to prohibit the niqab, not the fundamental question of whether banning the niqab would be in conformity with the Charter.
Quebec law may result in that more fundamental challenge:
Le premier ministre Philippe Couillard a maintenu que les assises juridiques du Québec sont solides pour interdire le port du voile intégral au moment de voter et dans les services publics, malgré la décision d’Ottawa de l’autoriser pendant les cérémonies de citoyenneté et lors de scrutins.
Lors d’une conférence de presse en compagnie du premier ministre Justin Trudeau, vendredi, M. Couillard a reconnu que son gouvernement approche la question du port du voile sous un angle différent de son homologue.
M. Couillard a déclaré que cette différence ne remet pas en question les fondements juridiques sur lesquels Québec s’appuie.
« On est persuadés que l’approche qu’on choisit est tout à fait conforme avec les lois du pays, en incluant les chartes, on est très attentifs à cette question-là », a-t-il dit.
Selon le premier ministre québécois, il n’est pas nécessaire de faire l’unanimité à ce sujet, qui a occupé une place importante dans la dernière campagne fédérale.
« On aborde la question d’angles différents mais avec la même préoccupation, a-t-il dit. Moi-même j’ai fait une campagne complète sur les droits et libertés des gens et c’est un enjeu important pour moi. »
Après avoir été élu il y a près de deux mois, M. Trudeau a retiré l’appel déposé par le gouvernement conservateur devant la Cour suprême du Canada, dans la cause entourant le port du niqab aux cérémonies de citoyenneté.
Par ailleurs, en 2007, les conservateurs s’étaient engagés à interdire le vote à visage couvert, mais ils avaient fait marche arrière en février 2014, au moment de réformer la loi électorale.
Plusieurs citoyens ont choisi de protester contre l’absence de balises en se présentant le visage masqué de diverses façons au moment du scrutin fédéral d’octobre dernier.
Alors que le vote à visage couvert est interdit au Québec depuis huit ans, le gouvernement de M. Couillard a déposé un projet de loi qui fixerait la même obligation lors de la prestation de services publics.
« Le cas du visage voilé va au-delà de cette question, au-delà de la question religieuse, a-t-il dit vendredi. C’est une question d’image de la femme dans une société, du message qu’on envoie aux gens. (…) Pour le Québec et dans l’histoire du Québec dans l’état actuel de nos valeurs communes, je pense que c’est un geste qu’il faut faire et qu’on va poursuivre. »
M. Couillard a affirmé que M. Trudeau et lui sont malgré tout d’accord « sur les grands enjeux, sur les grands principes ».
« Il n’est pas interdit qu’il y ait des éléments où on a des approches différentes, a-t-il dit. Il ne faut pas rechercher l’unanimité et la constance à tout prix. »
M. Trudeau a insisté sur la place du débat sur les symboles religieux dans les dernières campagnes électorales québécoise et fédérale.
« Nous nous situons dans cette lignée de refuser la politique qui divise ou qui vise à faire peur aux gens, a-t-il dit. On a tous deux gagné des élections dans les dernières années en étant raisonnables et ouverts dans le respect des droits. »
Americans Can’t Pass the U.S. Citizenship Test
2015/12/12 Leave a comment
Not surprising and there would be similar results in Canada, particularly given the Canadian test is more onerous and that immigrants study for the test:
One of the biggest parts of the application process for becoming a U.S. citizen is passing the naturalization test, a prueba covering pivotal history and government facts that only 1-in-3 Americans can pass.
To highlight just how ridiculous this crucial test is, the funny journos at the Flama put together a video of U.S. citizens being asked some of the questions that American hopefuls have to answer correctly.
Questions like “when was the Constitution written,” “how many voting members does the House of Representatives have” and “who said, ‘give me liberty or give me death'” had these americanos scratching their heads. And these are just a handful of the 100 preguntas immigrants can be asked.
One exam-taker came up with a brilliant plan after failing the test miserably: “There should be a good person test to become an American. Like are you human? Do you care about other people? That’s what we need. People shouldn’t have to answer this shit,” he said.
Despite many Americans’ inability to pass the naturalization test, 91 percent of immigrants are successful.
The point of the video, though, couldn’t be any more clearer: Naturalization test answers give little indications as to whether someone would be a so-called “good” citizen, and we probably shouldn’t be forcing immigrants to memorize random U.S. facts that their neighbors won’t even know.
Don’t forget to watch the hilarious video above.
New citizenship deprivation [revocation] rules in the wake of Paris attacks
2015/12/11 Leave a comment
Good update of citizenship revocation measures:
The terrorist attacks that happened in Paris on 13 November 2015 have been followed by a toughening of citizenship rules in a number of countries. This is reflected in both a more cautious approach to naturalisation and in proposals to withdraw or deny citizenship to suspects of terrorism (and occasionally to their families).
Increased security concerns adversely affected the Italian attempts to introduce ius soli temperato (moderated ius soli) for second generation migrants. Moderated ius soli would allow children born to foreign nationals in possession of a European Union Long Term Residence Permit to acquire Italian nationality by registration before the eighteenth birthday.
Yet considerably more countries have proposed, and some have already adopted, provisions on grounds of which suspects of terrorism would be deprived of their citizenship.
Three days after the attacks in Paris, speaking at a joint session of both houses of the French parliament, the country’s President François Hollande proposed citizenship deprivation for dual nationals who are convicted of terrorism.
On 22 November 2015, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put forward a motion to allow the country’s government to withdraw citizenship of those who join the Islamic State.
In early December, the authorities of Dagestan, a Russian federal unit located in the North Caucasus, proposed to the Russian Duma to amend the country’s citizenship law to deprive of citizenship those who ‘left Russia to take part in terrorist activities’.
Similar initiative has also resonated in the Belgian public discourse, where he Flemish nationalist party NVA, argues for amendments to citizenship law to allow the deprivation of nationality to descendants of Belgian citizens (second and third generations) convicted of terrorism. The current citizenship legislation allows withdrawal of citizenship, but only for those who are not born Belgians, or who have acquired citizenship by naturalisation.
Two countries, Australia and Azerbaijan have already amended their legislation in this regard.
Australia has moved to strip dual nationals who ‘have fought in government-designated militant groups or engaged in activities that would support terrorism, such as training, recruitment, or making donations’ already in June 2015 when it adopted the Allegiance to Australia bill. In December 2015, the bill was amended and leads to automatic loss of Australian citizenship for individuals suspected of terrorism who are 14 years or older, even in the absence of conviction. Under the new provisions, citizenship lost on grounds of sections 33AA and 35 cannot be regained. Civil society organisations consider this a controversial and possibly unconstitutional move that creates two classes of citizenship.
The parliament of Azerbaijan amended the country’s s citizenship law on 4 December to withdraw citizenship of those ‘involved in terrorist activity and actions aimed at the violent change of the constitutional system of Azerbaijan’. Under the new rules, such individuals will be automatically deprived of Azerbaijani citizenship.
For more details on the current and past citizenship laws of Italy, France, Belgium and Russia consult our country profile pages.
Source: EUDO CITIZENSHIP
Liberals Urge 33 Of Harper’s Political Appointees To Resign Voluntarily
2015/12/09 Leave a comment
Interesting that of the 39 letters, 1 is to a citizenship judge (Roy Wong) and four to appointees to the IRB:
Liberal MPs urged dozens of Conservative political appointees Monday to follow the federal government’s request and voluntarily resign from positions to which they were appointed in the dying days of Stephen Harper‘s government.
Last summer, Harper’s cabinet approved the appointment or term extensions for 49 people, whose positions took effect only after the Oct. 19 election.
The Prime Minister’s Office is particularly incensed over the unusual, and extraordinarily high, $1-million-plus severance packages that some appointees negotiated with the Conservative government. In total, taxpayers could be on the hook for $18.5 million to break the contracts.
Thirty-eight people were appointed to terms that took effect between Oct. 20, 2015, and Dec. 30, 2015. Ten people were appointed to terms starting in 2016 and one extreme case was to start in 2019. But John Badowski, the chairperson of the Transportation Appeal Tribunal of Canada, resigned his future appointment last week before being formally asked.
Given that the Government has expressed its lack of confidence in these appointees, it would be wise for them to voluntarily resign.
Source: Liberals Urge 33 Of Harper’s Political Appointees To Resign Voluntarily
Multiculturalism in Canada: Evidence and Anecdote
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