Working site on citizenship and multiculturalism issues.
2015/11/27 Leave a comment
For those interested in the print version of Multiculturalism in Canada: Evidence and Anecdote or Policy Arrogance or Innocent Bias: Resetting Citizenship and Multiculturalism, one of Lulu.com’s better sales, 30 percent off.
The direct link to my book page is: My Author Spotlight.
2015/11/26 Leave a comment
An extensive series of papers on the issue of citizenship revocation and banishment. For the cognoscenti given the amount of the material.
Audrey Macklin’s rebuttal of those advocating revocation (Kay Hailbronner, Christian Joppke and Peter Schuck) is, no surprise to those who follow my blog, convincing:
Ultimately, arguments about citizenship revocation turn on underlying conceptions of what citizenship is for, and expectations about what citizenship as legal status can achieve. Citizenship signifies membership, but beyond that general descriptor, citizenship inhabits multiple registers across many disciplines which are not reducible to or fully commensurate with one another. Citizenship as legal status is powerful because it carries the force of law, but also limited in what it can achieve for precisely the same reason. It is enabled and constrained because it is citizenship law and because it is citizenship law.
States can and do use law to promote and endorse commitment, patriotism and active citizenship. They do it through public education, programmes for social inclusion, support and assistance, support for the arts and recreation, and other policies that build solidarity and encourage ‘good citizenship’. These various spheres of public activity are enabled through legal frameworks, and so law plays an important role here. Citizenship law’s chief constructive contribution lies in imposing (reasonable) requirements for naturalisation (such as residence and language acquisition) that genuinely facilitate integration and commitment to the national community.
The state must also be concerned about ‘bad citizenship’ and it falls to the criminal justice and national security regimes to address the most egregious conduct that endangers or harms the national community. To conclude that contemporary citizenship law is ill-suited to advancing punitive goals does not deny that some people are very bad citizens, or that law plays a crucial role in addressing that fact. It simply opposes the recruitment of citizenship law to punish bad citizens by demoting them to non-citizens[9]. A man who attacks his mother may be a terrible son who deserves to be prosecuted for his crime, but it is not the job of family law to disclaim him as the son of his mother. Citizenship law is not criminal law. Nor is it national security law. Nor should it be rigged to open up a trap door that shunts citizens to immigration law.
Accounting for citizenship status’ specific legal character also guides us toward what law can (and cannot) achieve. A number of plausible accounts of citizenship’s normative foundation circulate in political theory. They typically involve some idea of commitment or allegiance, whether to the state, the constitution, or democratic self-government. I do not here express a preference among them, but rather observe that they tend to focus on the internal relationship between state and citizen, and the grounds upon which the relationship may be properly said to have ruptured. They do not attend to the external dimension of legal citizenship, namely the role of nationality in stabilising the international filing system for humanity, and they do not furnish a satisfactory normative explanation for why the ‘bad citizen’ should be assigned to another state.
Citizenship law cannot subject to legal regulation the myriad values, practices and aspirations ascribed to citizenship-as-belonging. This is unsurprising: Citizenship status enfranchises citizens above the age of majority, but there is no legal compulsion to vote (except in Australia. Belgium, Brazil and a few other states) and citizenship law does not purport to penalise those who never exercise their right or duty of active citizenship. Citizenship law does not purport to regulate access to most types of civil and social citizenship (in Marshallian terms).
Nevertheless, defenders of revocation insist that citizenship law can and should regulate ‘loyalty and allegiance’ of citizens. The criminal law can punish people for intentionally committing wrongful acts, including treason, murder, and all other forms of horrific violence that concern us here. Some assailants may openly express contempt for their country of citizenship, while others (like the Ottawa shooter Joppke cites) display a messy history of mental illness and petty criminality preceding recent conversion to Islam. The putative value added by citizenship revocation is precisely that it makes lack of allegiance and loyalty the central element in defining crimes against citizenship. But to paraphrase Aldous Huxley, loyalty and allegiance are like happiness. They are byproducts of other activities. Fostering love of country is a valid aspiration of states and worth cultivating. But it cannot be manufactured by the carrot of a citizenship oath (as Joppke has elsewhere acknowledged), nor will it be conjured by the stick of revocation. Law is not adept at producing sentiment on command.
Space constraints have led me to focus on those submissions that directly challenge my own position, and I have not responded to the cogent, provocative and creative insights offered by so many contributors. My own thinking has been deepened and provoked by them, for which I express gratitude and appreciation. I admit that I took as my remit citizenship revocation only in the literal, legal sense. I also acknowledge the criticism that confining my focus to citizenship revocation does not pay due regard to the claim that deportation of non-citizens may also constitute banishment in some circumstances, with attendant human rights implications. I hope that nothing I have said here gives the appearance of foreclosing or prejudging broader or different conceptions of banishment. There is always more to be said, and much to be done.
Source: EUDO CITIZENSHIP
2015/11/24 Leave a comment
More on how the Gulf states use citizenship policy:
El-Baghdadi’s experience isn’t new or uncommon for Middle East’s large and rapidly growing community of exiles and refugees. Palestinians have been expelled in large numbers from both Jordan and Kuwait in the past when they’ve rubbed those countries’ rulers the wrong way.
What is new, however, is the way the Gulf States, intolerant even of critical tweets, are now punishing their own citizens by rendering them stateless. This, el-Baghdadi says, is part of a new, harsher interpretation of the social contract among the region’s oil and gas rich monarchies. “Being a citizen or a ‘local’ can potentially make you a lifelong recipient of government largess,” he says. In return for a cradle-to-grave welfare system “you just need to be completely apolitical and quiet.” Rocking the boat has become an increasingly risky business.
Since the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011, three of the Gulf states have revoked the citizenships of hundreds of people, the majority of them advocates for political reform or democratization. Bahrain has revoked the citizenship of 159 people since 2012; Kuwait made about 100 of its citizens non-Kuwaitis with the stroke of a pen in 2014 and 2015. The UAE stripped seven of its citizens of their nationality in 2011; in July 2014, the regional Al Sharq newspaper claimed that hundreds more had been secretly rendered stateless. Amnesty International has independently made a similar claim — that Emerati authorities planned to revoke the citizenship of “scores” of nationals.
Abu Dhabi. (Photo via Wikimedia Commons)
In 2014, Oman passed a law allowing the government to arbitrarily revoke the citizenship of anyone working “against the interests” of the state, and Bahrain passed similar legislation allowing the state to strip the citizenship of anyone who failed “the duty of loyalty.” Saudi officials have publicly mulled following suit.
This January, Kuwaiti authorities arrested Saad al-Ajmi, the onetime director of the Kuwait office of the Saudi Arabian television channel Al-Arabiya, as he was about to board a flight to Saudi Arabia with his family. His arrest — for skipping out on a short jail sentence that he says he was not aware of — surprised many in Kuwait who knew al-Ajmi as the well-regarded spokesman for the Popular Action Bloc, a parliamentary coalition that is vocally critical of the government appointed directly by the Emir of Kuwait. Surprise turned to shock when, three months later, al-Ajmi was stripped of Kuwaiti citizenship and deported from the country.
When the head of a household loses citizenship in Bahrain, Kuwait, and the UAE, their families are often also stripped of their citizenship, creating a multiplier effect: Hundreds of people may have ultimately lost their status as Kuwaiti citizens due to the purge of 2014, according to human rights researchers tracking their cases, while more than 1,000 Bahrainis may have been plunged into the administrative void. These are people who learn that they and their loved ones have gone from being citizens of some of the world’s wealthiest countries — and most comprehensive welfare states — to being outcasts and exiles without a home.
Source: Inside the $100 Million Scheme to Send the Middle East’s Most Unwanted People to Africa | VICE News
2015/11/21 Leave a comment
Interesting and relevant interview with the author of The Cosmopolites: The Coming of the Global Citizen (Columbia Global Reports, Nov. 2015), Atossa Araxia Abrahamian. Worth reading in its entirety in its discussion of citizens of convenience as well as those without citizenship rights. Two of her responses:
QZ: But in between this global jet-set demographic, either the very rich or the very politically connected, and people at the other end of the spectrum—Syrian refugees, the bidoon, which you’ve written about in The Cosmopolites, people who are just trying to get documented so they can participate in a society and survive—is there a middle ground? Would an ordinary person want multiple passports?
AAA: Totally. I’m sure you have friends, and I have tons of friends who are now trying really hard to find an Italian grandparent or a German grandparent to get that extra passport. And it’s a great thing to have, it gives you so many opportunities and makes life so much less of a bureaucratic pain in the ass.
Some people are deeply offended by nationality of convenience, but it’s not insidious. You’re just trying to live and work in another country. What’s wrong with that?QZ: There are also security reasons for obtaining multiple passports, right?
AAA: Yes, if you’re from a place that’s kind of politically unstable. Take for example, if you’re Egyptian or Libyan, a place in the world that’s a little volatile, politically, and you’re rich, and you can afford to have an escape route, it seems pretty wise. You don’t necessarily need another passport to do it, but if it’s an issue of “we need to leave now,” it’s a pretty great thing to have.
QZ: So, you can be a global citizen and still have love for one country in particular. You can be a nationalist and an internationalist?
AAA: The Stoics and the ancient Greeks imagined cosmopolitanism as concentric circles of belonging. You have yourself and your family, your town, your kingdom. You can extrapolate to a circle that’s a nation, and maybe the EU, or if you’re Pan-Africanist, you have an Africa circle, and then the whole world.
I think that, for me, the biggest political question is, okay, if we’re global citizens, how do we manage redistribution. Where do we pay taxes? For what, to whom, to what end? I think nobody’s really figured that out yet. Piketty talks about a global wealth tax, but it’s unclear how that’s actually going to happen.One way to do it might be taxing financial transactions—but I don’t even know! That’s way above my paygrade. But I think that’s the central issue as markets become more global and people become more global, you still need some mechanism of redistribution. Libertarians love global citizenship because you’re off the hook for it, right? If you’re not rooted, you’re like, “Well, I don’t have to pay taxes.” That was the whole reason for Gerard Depardieu not wanting to pay taxes in France was, “I’m a global citizen.”
So, I think that’s the essential question for me. Right now, we do need countries and democracies to implement this. Because no one else is doing it. No one’s come up with anything better.
2015/11/20 1 Comment
A useful report by IRPP researchers Antoine Bilodeau, Luc Turgeon, Stephen E. White and Ailsa Henderson on the views regarding the federation of visible minorities, divided into both immigrants and second or more generations.
These regional differences, while not terribly surprising, nevertheless are revealing in that they reflect the overall regional perspectives (similarity between visible minority and majority population in Ontario, weaker regional grievances in the West among visible minorities, and greater support for national institutions in Quebec among visible minorities).
While the authors note that the federal model of multiculturalism is attractive to visible minorities is not new, it highlights the failure of Quebec’s efforts to create an alternative interculturalism narrative, along with the all too often exaggeration of the nuanced differences between the Quebec and federal approaches).
As to their recommendation that the Quebec government should adopt a formal interculturalism policy, while sensible in some respects, this would likely reopen some of the less productive debates of the past (e.g., the PQs Quebec Values Charter). Ironically, it also might undermine the rhetoric of the Quebec model of interculturalism, given its subtle differences with multiculturalism.
One of the weaknesses of CIC/IRC citizenship program was precisely its lack of stronger citizenship promotion in Quebec, which reflected more processing and efficiency concerns rather than reinforcing Canadian identity. This will likely continue, even if it is one of the few IRC programs in Quebec, one that can play an important role in reinforcing the federal presence in Quebec.
The transfer of multiculturalism back to Canadian Heritage will provide scope for more multiculturalism programming in Quebec and thus reinforcement of Canadian identity. (Within CIC, there was a feeling that under the Cullen-Couture agreement, which transferred immigrant selection and settlement services to Quebec, that multiculturalism program funding for Quebec was not needed – missing an opportunity to assert federal presence.):
The authors show that, compared with the majority population, members of visible minority groups as a whole have a stronger sense of loyalty to the federal government than to provincial governments, express greater support for Canada’s national policies, and are less inclined to endorse historical grievances about the Canadian federation. As for competing national and provincial visions of Canada, members of visible minority groups embrace a national vision more strongly than the majority population.
However, the extent to which members of visible minority groups hold distinctive views about the Canadian federation depends on the province they live in and whether or not they were born in Canada. In Ontario, visible minorities’ views are almost indistinguishable from those of the majority population. In Alberta and in British Columbia, visible minorities born abroad hold somewhat weaker regional grievances than the majority population. However, those born in Canada see the federation in similar terms as the majority population.
The greatest difference between visible minorities and the majority population is in Quebec, where visible minorities born abroad and those born in Canada express considerably stronger support for a national vision. The differences in outlook on the federation between non-French speaking members of visible minority groups and the rest of the Quebec population are particularly striking.
The findings suggest that the federal government’s multiculturalism policy offers a model that appeals to members of visible minority groups. Its highest level of support is among visible minorities in Quebec, whose government has never supported multiculturalism policy and has yet to offer a formal and official alternative.
[conclusion] … If the attractiveness of the federal model appears to exert an influence over visible minorities in Alberta and British Columbia, it might be enhanced in Quebec because of the alternative narrative proposed by the Quebec government. The Quebec government has never officially supported the federal multicultural model and has instead proposed a model of interculturalism that has yet to be stated formally in an official policy and remains unfamiliar to most Quebecers (Gagnon and Iacovino 2007). Our findings thus lend support for those arguing for the Quebec government to adopt an official policy of interculturalism (Rocher and White 2014). A formal policy positioning of the Quebec government on matters of ethnocultural diversity would stand as a symbolic gesture recognizing the contribution of diversity within Quebec society and would promote increased interaction between minorities and the broader population. By so doing, the government could favour a rapprochement between the narrative adopted by visible minorities in Quebec and the dominant one found in Quebec and hence appease some of the tensions that have marked Quebec society over the last few years.
Our final observation concerns an exception to the patterns for all four provinces just discussed. Visible minorities in all four provinces are substantially more prone to see a positive impact of the policy of multiculturalism on Canadian identity than the majority population. This finding is not necessarily surprising considering that, more than any other issue examined in this study, the policy of multiculturalism speaks to the contribution of ethnocultural minorities to the construction of Canadian identity. Moreover, as we argued, the federal government’s multiculturalism policy might be the pivot around which the more federally oriented narrative of visible minorities is structured. Should the growing presence of visible minorities have one significant and consistent impact, it may well be to further strengthen acceptance of the country’s multicultural heritage — in the process further strengthening this pillar of Canadian identity.
http://irpp.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/study-no56.pdf?mc_cid=7023dd89ad&mc_eid=86cabdc518
2015/11/20 Leave a comment
For those interested in the print version of Multiculturalism in Canada: Evidence and Anecdote or Policy Arrogance or Innocent Bias: Resetting Citizenship and Multiculturalism, one of Lulu.com’s regular sales.
The direct link to my book page is: My Author Spotlight.
2015/11/18 Leave a comment
No surprise and consistent with campaign pledge and mandate letters:
The federal government is walking away from a legal battle over attempts to strip Canadian citizenship from dual-nationals convicted of terrorism offences.
Lawyers for the government recently asked the Federal Court to suspend proceedings in two cases brought by Canadians convicted of terrorism-related offences who had been told by the previous Conservative government they would lose their citizenship.
As a respondent in the cases, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship cannot abandon the litigation but, instead, asked for and was granted adjournments while it re-examines a policy that featured prominently in last month’s federal election.
“The Department will work with Minister (John) McCallum on the urgent review of the policy and legislation related to the new citizenship revocation provisions,” media relations adviser Nancy Caron said in an email.
She repeated the line used by then-Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau during a campaign leadership debate, when he argued that Stephen Harper, prime minister at the time, had breached a fundamental principle of citizenship with Bill C-24, which allows the government to rescind the Canadian citizenship of dual nationals convicted of certain serious offences.
“The prime minister has been clear that ‘a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian,’ and he doesn’t support the revocation provisions that have a different impact on dual citizens than other Canadians,” said Caron.
In September, former Ottawa radiology technician Misbahuddin Ahmed took the government to court over a July 2015 decision to strip him citizenship.
Ahmed, 31, is currently serving a 12-year sentence in a medium-security federal prison for his role in the planned terrorist attacks foiled by the Project Samosa investigation. If he lost his citizenship, he would have been deported to Pakistan upon his release.
In a Charter challenge, he claimed the attempt to rescind his Canadian citizenship violated his right to safety of the person because he would be deported to a place where he would likely be at risk of mistreatment. He also argued the law offended the principles of justice because the sanction was introduced only after he was convicted.
Now, these issues will not likely be tested in court, as the government is expected to rescind the provisions in C-24 — even as France moves to expand its powers to revoke citizenship from dual nationals.
The Canadian government has also asked for a suspension in a similar case brought by Saad Gaya, a 27-year-old convicted in the “Toronto 18” bomb plot. He is serving an 18-year prison sentence.
Gaya was born in Montreal and had never visited Pakistan, but could be deported there after serving his sentence because, the government had argued, his parents had passed their dual nationality on to him.
Before C-24, Canadian citizenship could be revoked only in cases of fraudulent applications — when a subject had obtained citizenship based on false pretences. The Tories expanded the conditions to include those convicted of terrorism, treason or participation in military action against Canada.
Source: Court told to freeze citizenship revocations in terror cases | Ottawa Citizen
2015/11/18 1 Comment
RIP:
The niqab’s emergence as an election issue was unexpected and odd, but perhaps fated–a consequence of the Conservative government’s own policy, its determination to defend the policy in court and the whim of the Federal Court of Appeal’s calendar.
Though seemingly popular, the ban on the niqab is now linked with the Conservative government’s defeat. “Voters—including many who supported him—were personally offended by Harper’s blatant effort to exploit the niqab issue as a divisive wedge in the campaign,” Ensight reported after the election. As a result of that defeat, history will record Bill C-75, an attempt to put the ban into law, as the last piece of legislation tabled in the House of Commons by the Conservative government—its tabling coming just hours before the House adjourned for the last time before the election, an entirely symbolic gesture of pre-campaign posturing. Both the sponsor of the bill, Chris Alexander, and the minister who tabled the bill on his behalf, Tim Uppal, were subsequently defeated on October 19.
The Liberal government’s decision to abandon its predecessor’s legal appeal does not seem to have roused much, if any, condemnation from Conservatives.
Source: The niqab ban: 2011-2015 – Macleans.ca
The formal press release:
“On November 16, 2015, the Attorney General of Canada notified the Supreme Court of Canada that it has discontinued its application for leave to appeal in the case of Minister of Citizenship and Immigration v. Ishaq. The Federal Court of Canada found that the policy requiring women who wear the niqab to unveil themselves to take the Oath of Citizenship is unlawful on administrative law grounds, and the Federal Court of Appeal upheld this ruling. The government respects the decision of both courts and will not seek further appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.
“Canada’s diversity is among its greatest strengths, and today we have ensured that successful citizenship candidates continue to be included in the Canadian family. We are a strong and united country because of, not in spite of, our differences.”
Earlier language by then Minister of Defence (and Multiculturalism) Jason Kenney:
“At that one very public moment of a public declaration of one’s loyalty to one’s fellow citizens and country, one should do so openly, proudly, publicly without one’s face hidden,” Conservative Jason Kenney told reporters in Calgary Wednesday.
“The vast majority of Canadians agree with us and that is why we will be appealing this ruling.” (September 15, 2015)
2015/11/16 1 Comment
With the Mandate letters now public, two good pieces by Susan Delacourt (You’ll be judged by how you treat others, Trudeau cabinet warned) and Paul Wells (Justin Trudeau repeats himself) on the template used to guide Ministers on the government-wide priorities and the expected and broad code of conduct.
Delacourt notes:
Working well with others — including people in the media — is now officially part of the job description for Canadian cabinet ministers.
The “mandate letters” given to every minister are setting a new bar for co-operation in Justin Trudeau’s government, according to one letter obtained in advance of the expected public release.
In fact, if the sheer word volume in these letters is any indication, co-operation seems to be the top item on the to-do list of Trudeau’s team.
Ministers are being warned that they will be judged by how well they treat a whole raft of people — everyone from business to labour, stakeholders and citizens, and yes, the opposition and the media too.
“Members of the Parliamentary Press Gallery, indeed all journalists in Canada and abroad, are professionals who, by asking necessary questions, contribute in an important way to the democratic process. Your professionalism and engagement with them is essential,” the letter states.
….One group of people is singled out as well in the mandate letters for special treatment from government. “No relationship is more important to me and to Canada than the one with Indigenous Peoples,” the letter states.
The notable feature of these mandate letters, as mentioned, is the amount of words devoted to culture change of the kinder, gentler sort. “Open by default” is an operating principle.
Possible explanations for this outbreak of boilerplate include (a) a particularly wonky form of Tourette’s; (b) a desire to put most of the country to sleep before we get to the good stuff; (c) the PM and his advisers actually think the repetitive stuff is worth repeating. I’m going to go with (c). So while many colleagues will focus on what changes from letter to letter, let’s pause here to look at what doesn’t.
- “Real change—in both what we do and how we do it.” … Now, these letters come from Trudeau and his staff and appear over his signature, but it’s nearly a deadlock certainty that public servants were involved in the process, and one of them will have said: Prime Minister, if you evoke “a personal commitment” to this stuff and then tell ministers they “will be held accountable for our commitment,” you’re elevating it way beyond the realm of pious nostrum. You’re making it sound like you mean it. Repeating it 30 times in letters to 30 ministers is like tracing a line in the sand, then scraping it a yard deep.
- “Track and report on the progress of our commitments.” …., idealism and political self-interest become nearly synonymous: Trudeau wants to be able to meet voters in, probably, 2019, with a bunch of check marks next to his 2015 promises. And again, by publicly repeating that goal, he is offering up a jumbo hostage to fortune if any promise proves impossible to keep.
- “No relationship is more important to me and to Canada than the one with”— Actually, it’s interesting here to try to guess how this sentence ends. Important relationships. Hmm. The one with . . . the United States? The United Nations? Hard-working families? Nope. Again in every letter, Trudeau elevates the relationship with “Indigenous Peoples” above every other in his personal hierarchy of priorities…..
- “Observe the highest ethical standards in everything you do.” …“As noted in the Guidelines, you must uphold the highest standards of honesty and impartiality, and both the performance of your official duties and the arrangement of your private affairs should bear the closest public scrutiny. This is an obligation that is not fully discharged by simply acting within the law.”Expect opposition members to quote that last sentence back to Trudeau and his ministers any time one of them lands in hot water. “It’s legal” is not, in Justin Trudeau’s own judgment, a sufficient defence for poor conduct.
Canadians expect us, in our work, to reflect the values we all embrace: inclusion, honesty, hard work, fiscal prudence, and generosity of spirit. We will be a government that governs for all Canadians, and I expect you, in your work, to bring Canadians together.
You are expected to do your part to fulfill our government’s commitment to transparent, merit-based appointments, to help ensure gender parity and that Indigenous Canadians and minority groups are better reflected in positions of leadership.
The specific commitments for each Minister will, of course, be reflected in the performance management agreements of Deputy Ministers, which in turn will cascade down to all levels of management. Hence, these are the ones that will be met given their priority.
The specific commitments track the party platform commitments in immigration and refugees. On citizenship, the mandate letter expands on the platform by including repealing the revocation provisions of the C-24 Citizenship Act and the ‘intent to reside’ provision.
In other words, very surgical changes rather than more sweeping changes. For example, no mention of reversing the expansion of knowledge and language requirements from 18-54 to 14-64 year olds, nor reversing the sharp increase in citizenship fees (from $100 to $530), nor improvements in due process (oral hearings in cases of misrepresentation).
While not in the list of commitments, presumably the Minister will revise and rebrand the citizenship study guide, Discover Canada, with more inclusive substance and language, given the overall priority mentioned above.
The specific commitments are below:
As Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, your overarching goal will be to reopen Canada’s doors to welcome those who want to contribute to our country’s success. Canadians are open, accepting, and generous – qualities that should be reflected in Canada’s immigration policies and in our approach to welcoming those seeking refuge from conflict and war. Our communities are strengthened when we come together to welcome newcomers who want to build a better Canada and to help those in need.
In particular, I will expect you to work with your colleagues and through established legislative, regulatory, and Cabinet processes to deliver on your top priorities:
Lead government-wide efforts to resettle 25,000 refugees from Syria in the coming months.
As part of the Annual Immigration Levels Plan for 2016, bring forward a proposal to double the number of entry applications for parents and grandparents of immigrants to 10,000 a year.
Give additional points under the Entry Express system to provide more opportunities for applicants who have Canadian siblings.
Increase the maximum age for dependents to 22, from 19, to allow more Canadians to bring their children to Canada.
Bring forward a proposal regarding permanent residency for new spouses entering Canada.
Develop a plan to reduce application processing times for sponsorship, citizenship and other visas.
Fully restore the Interim Federal Health Program that provides limited and temporary health benefits to refugees and refugee claimants.
Establish an expert human rights panel to help you determine designated countries of origin, and provide a right to appeal refugee decisions for citizens from these countries.
Modify the temporary foreign workers program to eliminate the $1,000 Labour Market Impact Assessment fee to hire caregivers and work with provinces and territories to develop a system of regulated companies to hire caregivers on behalf of families.
Lead efforts to facilitate the temporary entry of low risk travelers, including business visitors, and lift the visa requirement for Mexico.
Work with the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness to repeal provisions in the Citizenship Act that give the government the right to strip citizenship from dual nationals.
Eliminate regulations that remove the credit given to international students for half of the time that they spend in Canada and regulations that require new citizens to sign a declaration that they intend to reside in Canada.
Noteworthy for what is not in the letter: any mention of multiculturalism following its transfer back to Canadian Heritage after some eight years at the former CIC.
This will give the bureaucracy time to implement the machinery changes (time-consuming at the best of times) and re-integrate and rebuild policy and related capacity that was dispersed and weakened at CIC.
For better and worse, it will give officials a freer hand in this reintegration process and the more important policy reflections on how multiculturalism can better reflect the diversity and inclusion agenda, lost somewhat at CIC under then Minister Kenney.
This would start with a review of the priorities enunciated in 2010, where language (e.g., inclusion) and substance (e.g., employment equity, racism and discrimination):
The first opportunity to reflect this change will be the February tabling of the Annual Report on the Operation of the Canadian Multiculturalism Act, with the Ministerial message and overview (the report will cover the 2014-15 fiscal year period and thus report on the previous government’s initiatives).
However, there is a risk that the lack of political direction (and ‘supporting minister’) will undermine the ability for the multiculturalism program to play an effective policy role in the government’s overall diversity and inclusion agenda.
The overarching commitment in the mandate letter:
As Minister of Canadian Heritage, your overarching goal will be to implement our government’s plan to strengthen our cultural and creative industries. Our cultural sector is an enormous source of strength to the Canadian economy. Canada’s stories, shaped by our immense diversity, deserve to be celebrated and shared with the world. Our plan will protect our important national institutions, safeguard our official languages, promote the industries that reflect our unique identity as Canadians, and provide jobs and economic opportunities in our cultural and creative sectors.
The one commitment related to, but much broader than multiculturalism, is with respect to reinstating the court challenges program (it provided funds to groups that need funding to contest specific policies):
Work with the Minister of Justice to update and reinstate a Court Challenges Program.
The Minister of Justice is expected to:
Review our litigation strategy. This should include early decisions to end appeals or positions that are not consistent with our commitments, the Charter or our values. [e.g., the citizenship niqab case, cuts to refugee healthcare]
Support the Minister of Canadian Heritage to restore a modern Court Challenges Program.
Work with the President of the Treasury Board to enhance the openness of government, including supporting his review of the Access to Information Act to ensure that Canadians have easier access to their own personal information, that the Information Commissioner is empowered to order government information to be released and that the Act applies appropriately to the Prime Minister’s and Ministers’ Offices, as well as administrative institutions that support Parliament and the courts.
The Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness has no commitment with respect to softer approaches to countering violent extremism (e.g., research, working with communities, deradicalization) although this can be implied from the overall inclusion messaging.
Link to all mandate letters:
2015/11/13 Leave a comment
Canada did away with gender distinctions in 1977:
In Iran, lawmakers have acted to vote against a bill that would grant citizenship to the children of Iranian mothers and non-Iranian fathers. This dampens the hopes of hundreds of thousands of people who have been deprived of their social rights because their fathers are not Iranian.
The citizenship bill, put forward by 49 signatories, was first presented to parliament’s presiding board. At an open session Sept. 20, its double urgency was approved, with 140 votes in favor and 36 against. The double urgency designation meant that it had to be put to a final vote in less than a week. The most important part of the 12-article bill was its first article, which states: “The children of marriages between Iranian women and foreign men, or men who have no nationality but have been/will be born in Iran, may be granted citizenship after reaching the age of 18 if they have resided in Iran for five consecutive years prior to making their citizenship request.”
Between 400,000 and 1 million people in Iran are estimated to lack Iranian nationality despite having an Iranian mother. The majority of these individuals were born out of so-called “temporary marriages,” known as mut’ah in Arabic and sigheh in Persian, between Iranian women and Afghan men. These men took refuge in Iran either after the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, or following the Afghan civil war in the 1990s or the US-led invasion in 2001.
Mehrangiz Kar, a prominent Iranian lawyer and women’s and children’s rights activist who has faced arrest and imprisonment for her activities, told Al-Monitor: “These children and youths are deprived of educational and health facilities as well as other services that Iranian citizens benefit from, such as subsidies and the like. In a word, they have no civil rights and lack identity documents or a birth certificate.”
…Kar, the recipient of numerous international awards, told Al-Monitor that those opposed to the plan give two reasons for their stance: “It would encourage immigration and pose dangers to the country’s national, political and social security.”
President Hassan Rouhani won the 2013 presidential election thanks to the backing of women, civil society activists and supporters of equal rights. Yet, one of the main opponents of the bill was the Rouhani administration’s deputy interior minister. Voicing his ministry’s opposition to the citizenship bill, Deputy Interior Minister Hossein Ali Amiri even delivered a speech on the day the measure was put to a vote. Amiri emphasized the many difficulties such a law would create for the government if approved, while pointing out the high number of potential migrants from Iran’s neighbors due to the regional situation. “This plan will lead to an increase in immigration and illegal marriages in the country,” he said.
Before Amiri’s speech, Principlist MPs Mohammad Ali Pourmokhtar and Nader Ghazipour also spoke in opposition to the plan. Pourmokhtar’s reasoning was that it is not clear whether those who would be granted citizenship under this plan would have any emotional attachment to Iran. Meanwhile, Ghazipour challenged the “political and security” consequences of such a measure, arguing that “Iran should remain Iranian and we should not let a non-Iranian take part in elections. We must preserve Iran’s holiness.”
Kar criticized this kind of mentality and said Iran’s political system and legislative bodies should pay attention to one basic fact: “The human rights of a mother and a child are an independent issue that can only be analyzed through the foundations of human rights, and we cannot punish abandoned mothers and children in order to make up for the long-term mistakes of a political system.”
…The rejection of the proposed citizenship plan has not only resulted in the nationality status of hundreds of thousands of Iranian-Afghan children being left in limbo. It has also sparked criticism at a deeper level, in relation to how women are seen and their role in Iranian society. Kar said, “Gender discrimination in citizenship laws becomes evident in places where, as a result of Article 976 in the civil law, blood linkage is only realized through the father, and maternal linkage has no effect.”
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Multicultural Meanderings 