Canadian Immigration Tracker: February 2024 Update

2024/04/15 Leave a comment

Overall monthly decreases in most programs.

The percentage of temporary residents fell to a more normal 57 percent (average for 2023 was 50 percent).

Asylum claimants increased slightly and since September 2023 are averaging about 16,000 per month. Impact of Mexican visa requirement should be seen in next month’s data although visitor visa data now showing visas issued to Mexicans (only 7 in February).

March web data shows no increase in study permit interests from February while applications increased slightly. Permits decreased however and expect next few months will show full impact of caps.

Citizenship program continues to naturalize an average of 35,000 persons since May 2023, between 80-90 percent in virtual ceremonies.

Slide 3 has the overall numbers and change

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Conservative immigration policy should focus on the goal of citizenship: Tory critic

2024/04/13 Leave a comment

Still fairly general but nevertheless interesting and relatively non-controversial. However, the possible transfer of additional immigration powers to Quebec, and further devolution to other provinces such as Alberta, bears watching. Will also be interesting to see how strong a line a Conservative government will take with respect to temporary workers given business community pressures:

Conservative immigration policy should be focused on the ultimate goal of citizenship, the party’s critic on the file said Thursday while moderating a panel in Ottawa.

Tom Kmiec criticized the sharp increase in temporary residents in Canada, as a large number of potential immigrants compete for few permanent resident opportunities. 

“We don’t want people just to come here, work here for a few years, and then leave,” Kmiec said in an interview after the panel at the Canada Strong and Free Network conference.

“You can see the numbers are getting worse and worse and worse.”

The panel members explored politically conservative solutions to Canada’s ballooning population growth, which the Liberal government admits is becoming unsustainable. 

Canada should focus on integrating people into Canada on permanent basis, Kmiec said.

That means moving beyond immigration targets and filling labour gaps to an approach that focuses on making newcomers part of “the Canadian family,” he said.

Immigration Minister Marc Miller promised in March that Ottawa would put a “soft cap” on the number of temporary residents allowed to come to Canada. Those targets are expected to be set in September. 

Miller also levelled out the number of new permanent residents expected to come to Canada in 2026, putting at least a temporary halt to year-after-year increases to immigration levels. 

But the fix will require focusing on the experiences people have when they come to Canada, including reducing massive processing backlogs, Kmiec said. 

“Immigration is not accounting,” he said.

There has not been enough emphasis on citizenship in recent years in Canada, Aaron Wudrick, the director of the the Macdonald-Laurier Institute’s domestic policy program, told the panel. 

The system has largely become an economic exercise, he said. 

The Liberals have come under increased scrutiny over the last year for some of the consequences of the rapidly increasing number of temporary residents, including the impact on the availability and affordability of housing. 

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has suggested the possibility of tying immigration levels to new housing starts in response. 

That would likely mean lowering immigration levels, at least temporarily, Wudrick said, but doing so will have consequences.

“A lot of businesses in this country have a difficult time filling low-wage work, the solution has been to import cheap labour,” he said. 

When that low-cost labour is no longer available, prices are likely to go up, he said. 

“There’s not a magic bullet, where we’re just going to cut the numbers and suddenly all these problems are going to go away.”

Quebec Conservative Leader Eric Duhaime, who also appeared on the panel, advocated for giving provinces more control of the immigration in their jurisdictions.

Quebec already sets its own immigration targets, and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has argued her province should have the same power.

The federal Conservative policy on that will likely be part of the party’s next election platform, Kmiec said.

“That’s something being actively debated, I think, within the (conservative) movement more broadly,” he said. 

Source: Conservative immigration policy should focus on the goal of citizenship: Tory critic

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For his Canadian citizenship, Quebec resident had to pass a Parisian French test. He wonders why

2024/04/08 Leave a comment

Of all the issues facing immigration and citizenship policy, this has to be one of the least important. And of course, Canadian citizenship French testing is for all of Canada, not just Quebec:

When Rev. Christian Schreiner first looked into taking a mandatory French language test to obtain his Canadian citizenship, he was shocked to find out his exam would be sent to France for final evaluation.

Schreiner, dean of the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in Quebec City, started his application when he heard that his country of birth, Germany, had approved legislation to end a ban on holding dual citizenship.

The longtime permanent resident of Canada had been waiting for this moment for 16 years.

When Schreiner logged onto Immigration, Refugees Citizenship Canada to start the process of pursuing a language exam and clicked on the link for the Test d’évaluation de français, TEF Canada, he was brought to a website run by a Parisian organization, the Paris Île-de-France Regional Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

“I thought I had maybe clicked on the wrong link, so I went back but everything checks out. So that is the one that is authorized,” said Schreiner.

Schreiner completed his French exam on March 15 at Edu-inter — a French immersion school in Quebec City — where an employee informed him during the oral evaluation section that he wouldn’t be the one evaluating Schreiner’s performance.

“He had an iPad and he recorded the whole thing,” said Schreiner.

“I asked him: ‘what is that for?’ He said … ‘I’m only doing the test with you, but I’m not evaluating anything. I can only send this in and then basically it gets sent to Paris and they decide whether or not your French is sufficient.'”

Although Schreiner passed the exam, completing one of several steps toward gaining his citizenship, he’s now speaking out about how the exam is based on French from France and he is questioning why Canada has to outsource evaluations abroad.

“I think this is still kind of a leftover, like a colonial leftover,” said Schreiner.

“If I want to become a Canadian citizen, it’s France that decides whether or not I’m good enough. There’s something wrong there.”

Meeting French or English language requirement

CCI Paris Île-de-France (CCIP-IDF), the organization with the Paris office, says it represents the interests of more than 840,000 French companies.

According to its website, the TEF was officially certified by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) in 2004 as the “only test officially approved by Canadian authorities.”

The location of the evaluation does not have any impact on the applicant, said the Ministry of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, in an emailed statement.

“All language proficiency assessment tests approved for Canadian immigration purposes are administered by third-party organizations independent of IRCC,” read the statement.

“Organizations must demonstrate that they meet the criteria … including matching test results to the Canadian language benchmarks.”

Developing test for ‘Quebec context’

In its statement, the department said the TEF test was put in place by the Quebec government for new French-speakers moving or immigrating to the province. They said while the TEF is not a federal requirement for citizenship, it is one of several “acceptable proofs” that can be submitted to the government to apply for citizenship and meet the language requirement — as immigrants need to prove their abilities in either English or French.

Besides French diplomas previously submitted for immigration purposes, the ministry says on its website that it won’t accept any other third-party test results other than those listed for citizenship, even if they’re similar to the approved exams.

The office of Christine Fréchette, minister of immigration, francisation and integration, said she addressed this issue when the Opposition raised it in 2023 and “work is underway to develop a test adapted to the Quebec context.”

Rethinking the language test

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the outsourcing of the test,” said Taylor Ireland, president and owner of ACA-Formation Linguistique, a French language school in Quebec City.

“But there’s more than enough organizations in Canada that could develop a test.”

He says while there are benefits to having private organizations test candidates because of accessibility, it is feasible to develop other options.

“It would take some time to do … There’s always a tendency to go back to a test that’s already known,” said Ireland.

“But we have more than enough capacity and knowledge in order to have our own Canadian-made test.”

Ireland says generally, there are not going to be huge differences between an international French or French from France compared to the French spoken in Quebec, but there might be slight “regionalisms.”

The Quebec government says it wants 80 per cent of non-Quebec university students to learn French. But how feasible is that?

He says this is not the first time questions relating to the French exam have been raised.

“To have the test itself be designed and then corrected by a company in France is somewhat confusing,” said Ireland.

Following his exam in March, Schreiner says he looked into the English testing options to see if the evaluation was similar to the French equivalent.

“I wanted to know, had I done the English test, would they send it to London, England? No, they don’t. They send it to the offices in Toronto,” said Schreiner. “Why can’t Canada evaluate whether or not people speak French?”

Prometric, a test administration company headquartered in the U.S., develops and delivers along with other organizations the Canadian English Language Proficiency Index Program (CELPIP) Test, one of three options used for immigration and citizenship. The CELPIP offices are located in Toronto, according to its website.

Test from France had its challenges, says Schreiner

Schreiner says the test itself had its challenges. In one part, he had to listen to 40 different sound bites.

The audio, which was in a French-from-France accent, became more and more challenging near the end of the exam, said Schreiner. He said the topic of the radio interview he had to listen was climate change and the extinction of species.

“It was really more vocabulary. There were words that I did not know and quite a few of them, which is something that doesn’t happen that often to me here in Quebec,” said Schreiner.

Schreiner, whose father was a French teacher, speaks French at home with his kids and wife — who is Québécoise.

Although he passed the exam, he says he should be considered an “ideal guinea pig” — someone who shouldn’t really struggle with an exam that is meant to test “basic competence.”

Christophe Fernandez, director general of the Edu-Inter language school where Schreiner took his test, confirmed in a statement that the centre is one of several in the province officially allowed to offer the test.

He confirmed the team does not give the final scores but does do some evaluations. Fernandez says the Paris office collects and double-checks the examinations to give a final grade.

Source: For his Canadian citizenship, Quebec resident had to pass a Parisian French test. He wonders why

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Regg Cohn: India’s anti-Muslim citizenship law is discriminatory and disappointing — but not surprising

2024/04/04 Leave a comment

One of the better articles on the law:

…Modi’s BJP followers (and their historical antecedents) argue they are not merely throwing off the yoke of British colonial rule, which retreated in 1947. No, his supporters insist they are uprooting — decolonizing — a more enduring form of historical domination by India’s Moghul conquerors who imported Islam centuries ago, long before the British era.

That is one of the complications of the decolonization paradigm — the push for purification can easily go further back in time. People can keep peeling back layers of colonization and conquest until they reach their target, which is why Modi’s Hinduization movement is less concerned with the idea of white supremacy than Islamic hegemony.

There’s yet another conceptual challenge for Hindutva’s critics (of which I am one). India is far from alone in embracing religiosity or ethnicity as the measure of who shall qualify for citizenship or be disqualified, who will be welcomed with open arms or herded into closed camps.

Israel is increasingly criticized for religious discrimination for granting automatic sanctuary to Jewish immigrants under its Law of Return, enacted after its founding in 1948 (in the post-Holocaust era when Jews still faced pogroms in parts of Eastern Europe and persecution much of the Middle East). That Israel, as a Jewish state, privileges Jews is one of the reasons many critics claim “Zionism is racism.”

Yet it is a curious double standard. For India is only the latest in a long line of countries that prioritize religion in a way that Canadians — who welcome people of all faiths — perhaps cannot fathom.

Religion has been the raison d’être of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Lebanon has kept its Palestinian refugees in camps since they fled their homes in 1948, long restricting their permitted occupations lest an influx of Sunni Muslims alter the country’s delicate religious balance — or compete for coveted jobs (after protests, those restrictions were partly eased in recent years).

Bhutan, a little-known kingdom nestled in the Himalayas along India’s northern border, has long been seen as a Buddhist paradise despite its mistreatment of Hindu refugees fleeing strife in neighbouring Nepal (shunting them into camps for years without letting them settle, for fear of changing the kingdom’s ethnic makeup). Germany has long recognized ethnicity for citizenship, regardless of place of birth — granting automatic status to those with German blood who “resettle” in Deutschland.

Against that backdrop, India’s new discriminatory citizenship law is surely disappointing, but hardly surprising — and assuredly not unique. It merely reminds us of the complexity of ethnic identity and religious rivalry around the world — and how historical grievances are so easily transformed into political grudges and legal cudgels.

Source: India’s anti-Muslim citizenship law is discriminatory and disappointing — but not surprising

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Lisée | Indépendance migratoire

2024/03/28 Leave a comment

Hope (or dread) springs eternal. And sovereignty is today’s world in practice means some form of institutions or agreements that address practical realities.

But agree with Meggs on the importance of citizenship ” Il n’y a aucun symbole plus fort d’adhésion et d’appartenance d’une personne immigrante à sa nouvelle société que la naturalisation ou la citoyenneté, mais ce sont des États-nations qui déterminent les conditions de citoyenneté.” If only the federal government would have the same appreciation rather proposing to eliminate the oath attestation (in person or virtual), move back to in-person ceremonies (between 80-90 percent are virtual), issue the updated study guide and above all, consider citizenship as meaningful and contributing to belonging and identify, not just client service.

It always bothered me when responsible for citizenship over a decade or so, that we under-invested in citizenship in Quebec, despite it being one of the few federal programs that touch Quebec residents directly, a significant touchpoint:

Les tensions entre Québec et Ottawa au sujet de l’immigration constituent une publicité ambulante pour l’indépendance du Québec. Parce qu’elles illustrent mieux que toutes autres le prix de la dépendance. Car voilà un dossier qui a une incidence directe sur l’ensemble de notre vie collective.

Sans être la cause de nos maux, l’augmentation fulgurante des nouveaux venus depuis cinq ans est le facteur super aggravant qui pousse au point de rupture nos hôpitaux, nos écoles et nos garderies. Ainsi que notre marché du logement, ce qui provoque une augmentation marquée de l’itinérance, même en région. De surcroît, selon les calculs du commissaire à la langue française, depuis 2011, l’afflux de temporaires a fait bondir de 40 % le nombre d’habitants du Québec qui ont l’anglais comme langue de travail et de 50 % le nombre de ceux qui ne connaissent pas le français.

Les membres du gouvernement québécois parlent, justement, de « point de rupture », de « louisianisation » et d’enjeux essentiels pour la nation. Alors que des actions résolues sont nécessaires, ils sont réduits à tenir des conférences de presse, à écrire des lettres et à convoquer des rencontres où ils doivent plaider leur cause devant plus puissants qu’eux. Comme les kremlinologues qui scrutaient les photos pour déterminer quel personnage était apparu ou disparu dans l’entourage du tyran, nous devons comparer les versions française et anglaise des points de presse de Justin Trudeau et de son ministre et ami d’enfance Marc Miller pour déterminer si l’ouverture affichée par l’un est partiellement ou complètement contredite par l’autre.

Autrement dit : nous ne sommes pas souverains. Sur ce point essentiel, nous sommes des sujets.

Il importe de souligner qu’aucun migrant ne peut être tenu pour responsable de ce qui se produit. Le nouvel arrivant n’a fait qu’emprunter les pistes ouvertes par nos gouvernements pour trouver ici, pour lui et sa famille, un avenir meilleur. Le migrant a fait un bon calcul de risques ; nos gouvernements, non.

François Legault ne peut invoquer sa propre turpitude, lui qui a été élu deux fois sur la promesse de maîtriser l’immigration, mais qui a présidé à la plus forte augmentation de l’histoire du Québec du nombre de travailleurs temporaires. Rien de ce qu’il a annoncé à leur sujet n’en réduit le nombre. Reste que l’ensemble des doléances exprimées à Ottawa pour que ce dernier refrène ses ardeurs immigrationnistes exprime combien le Québec est à la merci des humeurs fédérales.

On pourrait croire que, comme le Québec indépendant serait lié par les mêmes traités internationaux et ferait face aux mêmes flux migratoires, la situation changerait peu. On aurait tort.

D’abord, l’arrivée sur la carte mondiale d’un nouveau pays clairement désigné comme francophone provoquerait chez les candidats à la migration un changement de comportement. Ceux qui chérissent le rêve canadien — et anglophone — se dirigeraient vers les portes d’à côté.

Ensuite, un Québec souverain aurait le pouvoir de traiter beaucoup plus rapidement les demandes d’asile. La Cour suprême du Canada a un jour décidé que les migrants avaient les mêmes droits que les citoyens de faire appel des décisions judiciaires, ce qui ajoute des années au processus. La Constitution d’un Québec souverain pourrait faire une distinction entre migrants et citoyens et limiter à quelques mois le processus d’acceptation ou de refus.

Québec pourrait aussi décider de limiter la réunification familiale aux seuls conjoints et enfants, et non à la famille étendue. Comme le Royaume-Uni, il pourrait demander qu’un conjoint en âge de travailler démontre une connaissance de la langue du pays d’accueil au point d’entrée afin de mieux assurer son intégration.

Les Canadiens s’établissant au Québec seraient aussi des migrants. Alors qu’on observe une augmentation du nombre d’unilingues anglophones déménageant en Outaouais, il leur faudrait, dans un Québec souverain, satisfaire aux mêmes conditions de connaissance du français que ceux venus de Londres ou de Singapour.

Dans son excellent ouvrage L’immigration au Québec. Comment on peut faire mieux, Anne Michèle Meggs place en haut de la liste des avantages la création d’une citoyenneté québécoise. « Il n’y a aucun symbole plus fort d’adhésion et d’appartenance d’une personne immigrante à sa nouvelle société que la naturalisation ou la citoyenneté, mais ce sont des États-nations qui déterminent les conditions de citoyenneté. Il y a la question de droit de sol (est citoyen celui qui est né au pays) ou de droit de sang (est citoyen celui qui est né d’un parent-citoyen), des conditions de statut et de durée de séjour pour l’obtention du statut de citoyen, des conditions linguistiques, mais il y a aussi des conditions liées aux connaissances sur le nouveau pays (histoire, géographie, système démocratique, lois, valeurs, etc.). »

Le serment que prêteraient les néo-Québécois serait différent de l’actuel, que voici : « J’affirme solennellement que je serai fidèle et porterai sincère allégeance à Sa Majesté le roi Charles III, roi du Canada, à ses héritiers et successeurs, que j’observerai fidèlement les lois du Canada, y compris la Constitution, qui reconnaît et confirme les droits ancestraux ou issus de traités des Premières Nations, des Inuits et des Métis, et que je remplirai loyalement mes obligations de citoyen canadien. »

L’indépendance, note Meggs, libérerait les Québécois d’un débat cornélien : ne pas suivre la courbe démographique du voisin canadien équivaut-il à une perte de pouvoir dans la fédération ? Si on y reste, oui. Le Québec deviendra politiquement de plus en plus insignifiant. Si on la quitte, cela n’a plus la moindre importance politique. Qu’ils soient 8, 9 ou 12 millions, les Québécois pèseront toujours 100 % dans leurs institutions politiques. Et on pourrait, enfin, biffer de notre vocabulaire l’expression « C’est la faute du fédéral. ».

Source: Chronique | Indépendance migratoire

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Germany set to add citizenship test questions about Jews and Israel

2024/03/28 Leave a comment

Of note (similar in a sense to ensuring new Canadians know about Indigenous peoples and the various harmful actions of Canadian governments):

Those seeking German citizenship could soon have to answer test questions about antisemitism, Germany’s commitment to Israel and Jewish life in Germany.

The catalogue of more than 300 questions from which citizenship test questions can be selected is to be amended shortly, the interior ministry said in a statement, pending final approval. New questions, German magazine Der Spiegel reported, are to include: What is a Jewish house of prayer called? When was the State of Israel founded? What is the reason for Germany’s special responsibility for Israel? How is Holocaust denial punished in Germany? And, somewhat mysteriously: Who can become a member of the approximately 40 Jewish Maccabi sports clubs in Germany? (Anyone, according to the organization’s FAQ.)

The move comes months after the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt made a written commitment for the “right of the State of Israel to exist” a requirement for naturalization.

Germany has cracked down on pro-Palestinian voices and on antisemitism amid Israel’s war in Gaza in response to the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel. Germany and German institutions have come under criticism in recent months for enforcing strict speech policies affecting pro-Palestinian protests. Museum shows, book talks and other art events have been canceled.

“One thing is particularly important to me,” Interior Minister Nancy Faeser told Der Spiegel. “As a result of the German crime against humanity of the Holocaust comes our special responsibility for the protection of Jews and for the protection of the State of Israel. This responsibility is part of our identity today.”

“Anyone who doesn’t share our values can’t get a German passport. We have drawn a crystal clear red line here,” Faeser said. “Antisemitism, racism and other forms of contempt for humanity rule out naturalization.”

The 33-question citizenship test is one of several prerequisites to becoming a German citizen. To pass, applicants must correctly answer at least 17 multiple-choice questions within an hour.

A wave of more than 2,000 antisemitic incidents logged by authorities since Oct. 7 has prompted German leaders to call for better enforcement of the country’s antisemitism laws in recent months.

“Antisemitism has no place in Germany,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in an address to German parliament in late October. “We will do everything to oppose it. We will do this as citizens, and as bearers of political responsibility.”

This includes enforcing existing laws, Scholz said.

While antisemitism itself is not a crime in Germany, antisemitic motivation for a crime can be considered in sentencing. In April 2023, the government announced that it would increase annual payments to the Central Council of Jews in Germany to almost $24 million, in part “to further strengthen the safety and security of Jewish communities.”

Holocaust denial is illegal in Germany, and punishable by prison time.

Source: Germany set to add citizenship test questions about Jews and Israel

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Opinion: Jack Letts and other Canadians held in Syria deserve proper justice

2024/03/27 Leave a comment

Not convinced, given the difficulty, if not impossibility, of successful prosecution in Canada. And Letts never had a meaningful connection to Canada and his parents, understandably, only approached when his UK citizenship, where he had lived virtually his entire life, revoked his UK citizenship, effectively dumping him on Canada:

When we met Canadian citizen Jack Letts in a prison in Northeast Syria last August, he asked if we thought he would still be there in 10 years. At that point he had been locked up in harrowing conditions without charge or trial for more than six years.

The letters, photos and books we were able to bring to him from his mother, who lives in Ottawa, were Jack’s first news of his family in years. Our visit was the first confirmation for his family in two years that he was even alive. He has no access to a lawyer. And he is not receiving any support from Canadian officials, as the Canadian government refuses to carry out consular visits in the region.

We paused before answering, not wanting to crush his sprits or give false hope. We told him it was unlikely he would still be in detention in 10 years, but that there was no prospect of short-term release. We told him we hoped he might be back in Canada in a year.

“Back in Canada,” of course, does not necessarily mean out of detention. If there is credible evidence that Jack has committed terrorism-related or other crimes, he would rightly be charged under Canadian law. Jack told us that he would willingly face any such allegation, as long as it involved a fair procedure. That, clearly, is not on offer in Northeast Syria.

We were cautiously optimistic because of a pending appeal application before the Supreme Court of Canada in a legal challenge brought by Jack and three other Canadian men unlawfully detained in Northeast Syria. Little did we know, however, that three months later the Supreme Court would inexplicably deny leave to hear that appeal, a deep disappointment. The court does not give reasons for leave decisions.

We have now passed the halfway point in what we hope will not prove to be misguided optimism of justice within a year. However, six months on, there is no sign that the Canadian government is readying to repatriate Jack.

Jack Letts is not alone. There are at least eight other Canadian men unlawfully imprisoned in Northeast Syria. We also know of one Canadian woman, 13 Canadian children and three non-Canadian women who are mothers of some of those children, who are held in a dangerous and overcrowded detention camp in the region, also with no end in sight.

And those Canadians are not alone. There are more than 50,000 prisoners, more than half of them children, unlawfully detained across Northeast Syria. Most are Syrian or Iraqi, but in all there are 60 different nationalities in the camps and prisons. Some have very likely been responsible for terrible abuses during the years that ISIL controlled that region, while others were themselves victims of or opponents to ISIL. All are denied any justice.

We met with one other Canadian male prisoner, all of the women, and six of the children while we were on the ground in August. The human rights violations they are enduring are extensive, and the Canadian government’s failure to take steps to protect them is a disgrace.

Last week, an exceptional application was filed with the Supreme Court, asking for reconsideration of the decision not to hear an appeal. Given the ongoing intransigence of the government, turning to the court, no matter how extraordinary the request, seems the only option. Past progress with repatriation has generally only happened under threat of possible court action.

That application has been brought because the situation on the ground continues to deteriorate, and the risks to these Canadians grow even more alarming. That is due in part to shifting political and military circumstances in the Middle East since the Oct. 7th Hamas attack in Israel and the humanitarian catastrophe unleashed by more than five months of unrelenting bombardment of Gaza by the Israeli military.

No doubt taking advantage of international focus being diverted to the Gaza crisis, the Turkish military has ramped up its deadly drone attacks in Northeast Syria. ISIL activity also appears to be increasing. And now there is talk that the U.S. military, whose presence in Northeast Syria has provided a minimal degree of stability, may be preparing to withdraw its troops. Notably, the U.S. government repeatedly calls on Canada and other countries to repatriate their nationals.

Things were bad enough when we were in Northeast Syria in August. The situation has only worsened since and seems slated to become more dire. What is needed is not protracted litigation. What is needed is a political decision to bring all Canadians home from there, to hold them accountable in our legal system if warranted. It is time for human rights to prevail.

Kim Pate is an Independent Senator for Ontario. Alex Neve is a Senior Fellow at the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. Scott Heatherington is a retired Canadian ambassador and diplomat. Hadayt Nazami is an immigration and human rights lawyer in Toronto. They travelled to Northeast Syria as a civil society humanitarian delegation last August.

Source: Opinion: Jack Letts and other Canadians held in Syria deserve proper justice

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After a decade in Canada, his citizenship application was not accepted — for filing one day early

2024/03/27 Leave a comment

Seem to recall another similar similar case, suggesting that IRCC only does the final check the day of the ceremony, not allowing them to catch such cases before, sparing unecessary embarrassment and inconvenience. Appears to be rare however (recommendation to applicants, don’t cut it too fine given risks:

Daniel Aguilar has been waiting almost a decade to become a Canadian citizen.

He’s now wishing he had waited one more day before applying.

Aguilar submitted his application in July, and passed the citizenship exam in January.

That date, however, never came.

His application was not accepted for the most unusual and, to Aguilar, frustrating reason.

The Colombian man was told in a recent email from Immigration that there was an error in documenting the number of days he spent in Canada to qualify for his citizenship.

According to officials, he missed the required 1,095 days — by one day.

Now, he was told, he must withdraw his application and reapply.

“It’s more than seven months since I submitted my application and nobody took the time to review the physical presence (requirement) in order to allow the application to keep moving forward,” said Aguilar.

Along with his wife and four children, he has lived in London, Ont., since he came to Canada in 2014 via the United States.

“Why did they wait until this time to tell me I didn’t meet the criteria, just before I was ready for my ceremony?” said Aguilar, who says he feels he’s still a foreigner in the country. “That should have been done at the beginning of their process of the application, not at the end.”

The snafu and further delay to Aguilar’s citizenship followed a recent report that found the proportion of eligible permanent residents acquiring citizenship has dropped significantly, especially during the last census period.

According to the Statistics Canada study, the percentages of permanent residents who acquired Canadian citizenship after they met the residency requirement has decreased from 75 per cent in 1996 to just 46 per cent in 2021. Between the two most recent national surveys (2016 and 2021), the citizenship naturalization rate fell by 14.7 per cent.

The worrisome trend has prompted concerns over the value of Canadian citizenship and the potential consequences the decline may have on civil engagement, community involvement and electoral participation, as well as allegiance to the country.

This is also happening while the Immigration Department is still tackling ongoing backlogs in all of its programs, built up as a result of the operational disruptions caused by the office lockdown and travel restrictions during the pandemic.

Despite efforts to hire more staff and digitize application processing, the overall number of permanent and temporary residence as well as citizenship applications in the system has grown from 2,017,700 to 2,188,400 in the past year. Files that have exceeded the standard processing times have also grown from 896,300 to 930,000; as of January, 19 per cent of the 267,400 citizenship applications are considered backlogged.

Aguilar said requiring him to submit a new citizenship application for missing a day of physical presence doesn’t make sense when the Immigration Department has bigger problems to worry about, especially given that with the time he’s spent in Canada during the processing of his application, he would have surpassed the requirement regardless.

“According to Immigration, I need to go through the whole process again and they are going to be processing my application from scratch, just for the one missing day,” said the 45-year-old man, who works three jobs as a security guard, transit driver and landscaper.

“They are creating extra work for themselves. They are creating the backlog for themselves.”

Immigration officials said there are no waivers for adult applicants for this particular requirement and citizenship cannot be granted if the required days are not met.

“If the applicant miscalculated absences and submitted the application without having the required number of days, the application will be refused,” said a department spokesperson, who didn’t explain why the physical presence assessment only takes place at the end of the application process. He did say Aguilar’s file is still “in progress.”

The journey to citizenship has been long for the former refugee who fled Colombian paramilitaries, arrived in late 2014, had an asylum hearing in 2016, won an appeal in 2019 to overturn the initial refusal and received his permanent resident paper in 2021 after being a protected person on temporary status for two years.

Despite his years in Canada, the law stipulated that only half of the days he spent as a protected person were counted toward his citizenship application. Since he had made four overseas trips, Aguilar said he waited until July 6, 2023, to apply for his citizenship, confident that the extra time would have made up for his days absent from Canada.

In an email to Aguilar on Feb. 15, the Immigration Department pointed out a discrepancy in a trip he made to Mexico in 2020 during the pandemic to treat severe back pain.

“Our findings show that your return date to Canada on this specific trip was 2020/09/14 02:13:58 AM Entry Pearson International Airport – Terminal 3 and not 2020/09/04,” said the letter, offering Aguilar the option to withdraw his application.

“With the adjustments that have been made, you currently have 1,094 days during the following eligibility period: 2018/07/09 to 2023/07/08. You are presently 1 day short of meeting the physical presence requirement.”

The irony, said Aguilar, was his flight from the trip actually arrived in Toronto at 10:30 p.m. on Sept. 13, 2020, as per his itinerary, even though he admitted he made a mistake by filling in a wrong date. However, due to delays caused by public health protocols, he said he had to wait in lines and did not get cleared at the customs until 2:30 a.m. the next day, based on immigration officials’ record.

“To Immigration, technically I arrived the next day even though I actually landed in the airport in Mississauga the day before,” he lamented.

Aguilar said he had twice emailed the immigration office in Kitchener that handled his application for advice in his attempt to remedy the situation without having to go through the entire process again, let alone pay another $630 application fee.

He said he had no choice but to withdraw his application earlier this month after not getting a response; he is still waiting for officials to authorize his withdrawal, which he was told would take six to eight weeks.

“I would love to have the right to vote, because that is the only way to participate in democracy in this country,” he said. “Having the citizenship will make me feel I belong to this country. As a permanent resident, even though you have all the other rights, you don’t feel like you’re a complete Canadian.”

Source: After a decade in Canada, his citizenship application was not accepted — for filing one day early

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Article of interest recap

2024/03/25 Leave a comment

For the 1st time, Canada will set targets for temporary residents After trimming growth in Permanent Residents, imposing caps on international students, Minister Miller reverses course again and reduces the number of temporary foreign workers. Taken together, marks a significant repudiation of previous decisions and ministers, ironically making it easier for a possible future conservative government to impose further limits should it choose to do so. And including temporary foreign workers and international students in the annual levels plan is long overdue.

The Coalition for a Better Future’s report Fragile Growth: An Urgent Need to Get the Basics Right reiterated productivity and related economic challenges.

Scotia Bank’s Raising the Bar, Not Just Lowering the Number: Canada’s Immigration Policy Confronts Critical Choices makes the case for a charter focus on economic immigration and increasing productivity.

Parissa Mahboubi’s Canada’s immigration system isn’t living up to its potential. Here’s how to fix it provides a familiar list of recommendations, along with the puzzling one for more business immigrants given that government is notoriously bad is assessing entrepreneurship as previous programs have indicated.Life in Canada is ‘more expensive’ than most immigrants expected, new poll finds. Not surprising findings from Leger, highlighting a declining value proposition for immigrants.

Daniel Bertrand of the ICC argues Stop undervaluing the contributions that international students make to Canada, noting the need for “a much more strategic approach, modelled after the economic immigration process, with a points system that prioritizes these more valuable areas of study.”

No surprise that Trudeau rules out Quebec’s request for full control over immigration (Trudeau dit non à confier les pleins pouvoirs en immigration au Québec) with Michel David noting the Les limites du bluff. More detailed explanations of the reason behind the refusal in Marc Miller émet de fortes réserves sur les demandes de Québec en immigration, my favourite being, with respect to family class, « C’est très difficile de légiférer l’amour, [et de] demander à quelqu’un d’épouser quelqu’un qui parle uniquement français ».

Citizenship

Using coercion, Russia has successfully imposed its citizenship in Ukraine’s occupied territories, horrific example of citizenship as an instrument of war and denial of identity.

India’s new citizenship law for religious minorities leaves Muslims out, confirms the Modi governments overall approach of Hindu nationalism.

Omar Khan, in Ramadan heralds a political awakening for Canadian Muslims, notes the need for political responsibly among Muslim and other Canadians “it’s a responsibility to recognize that proper understanding between communities comes through dialogue, not ultimatums. There should be no litmus tests for elected officials wishing to address Muslim congregations. Those with divergent opinions should be engaged, not frozen out.”

David Akin assesses A closer look at the growing diversity of Conservatives under Poilievre, highlighting the party’s recruiting efforts (and quoting me).

Other

John McWhorter continues his contrarian streak in No, the SAT Isn’t Racist, making convincing arguments in favour of standardized testing.

Marsha Lederman highlights the increased censorship in the Exodus from literary magazine Guernica reveals the censorship the Israel-Hamas war has wrought in terms of free and honest artistic expression.

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COVID-19 Immigration Effects – January 2024 update

2024/03/11 Leave a comment

Regular monthly data update.

Overall normal post December increase across programs with the exception of asylum claimants and students.

The percentage of former temporary residents transitioning to permanent residency was the highest to date, 78 percent of all Permanent Residents.

Asylum claimants continue at about 15,000 per month.

The impact of the cap on international students is not yet apparent in the February website data (possible leading indicator). February operational data on applications and permits issued will likely indicate impact.

Full 2023 settlement services now included, showing 53 percent increase compared to 2022.

Full 2023 citizenship application data now included, showing 20 percent increase compared to 2022, with the January number of new citizens increasing by a comparable on a year-over-year basis.   

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