UK Conservative Leadership: Sunak’s hardline immigration plan includes a cap on refugees and floating detention centres for asylum seekers

2022/07/26 Leave a comment

Of note as the two contenders compete for the anti-immigration vote:

Rishi Sunak has sparked outrage as he set out a hardline plan to deal with immigration if he becomes prime minister. The package features a cap on annual refugee numbers and the withholding of aid from some of the world’s poorest countries if they refuse to take back failed asylum seekers.

The former chancellor, who is trailing Liz Truss in polls of Conservative Party members in the current leadership election, said he would ramp up the controversial plan to operate deportation flights to Rwanda and that he would seek to establish similar schemes with other countries

And he said he would bar anyone arriving by small boat across the Channel from remaining in the UK – despite the fact that the majority of unauthorised arrivals are currently awarded asylum status.

Meanwhile, Ms Truss has also doubled down on support for the controversial plan, calling it the “right” policy and indicating she could extend the scheme further.

“I’m determined to see it through to full implementation, as well as exploring other countries that we can work on similar partnerships with. It’s the right thing to do,” she told the Mail on Sunday.

“I’m also determined to make sure that we have the right level of forces at our border. I’m going to increase the border force to make sure that we have the proper protection in place directly at the border.”

Mr Sunak’s plans were branded “cruel” by aid charity Oxfam, whose head of government relations Sam Nadel said: “If anything, this shows that the heat of campaigning leads to bad policy. If the former chancellor wins this race, he will be more than a party leader, he will be prime minister and a world leader.

“To meet a world in desperate crisis – facing climate change, famine and conflict – with cruel policies such as these would not live up to the role. We need more aid and safe and legal routes to the UK.”

Mr Sunak, who admits he is the underdog in the race to succeed Boris Johnson, declared on Saturday that illegal immigration was one of five national emergencies that would require him to put the UK on a “crisis footing” as soon as he took office.

His “10-point plan to stop illegal immigration” is significantly more hardline than the measures contained in the Nationality and Borders Act that was put into law by Priti Patel earlier this year.

It will put him on course for a clash with the European Court of Human Rights by narrowing the definition of who qualifies for asylum in the UK, as well as giving authorities additional powers to tag, detain and monitor incomers.

And it will put him on a collision course with aid charities by explicitly linking humanitarian support with cooperation on immigration – something Christian Aid has described as “beyond the pale”.

States that fail to take back nationals who have committed offences or been denied the right to stay in the UK – as Eritrea, Iraq and Sudan are currently understood to do – would be denied access to British aid and subjected to retaliatory trade and visa measures.

Mr Sunak – whose own grandparents arrived in the UK from India as legal migrants – would introduce a cap, set annually by parliament, on the number of refugees to be accepted by “safe and legal routes”, while ensuring that others are removed from the country.

Effectively barring the way to remaining in Britain for those entering the country by unauthorised routes, his plan states: “The only route to asylum in the UK will be a safe and legal route.”

A military-led Small Boats Taskforce, backed by investment in surveillance technology, would be given the resources and authority needed to “end small boat beach landings” and oversee the detention and removal of those crossing the Channel in dinghies.

Adapted cruise ships would be used as floating detention camps for migrants deemed to have arrived in the UK illegally, in a bid to rein in the £5m-a-day cost of housing them in hotels.

Mr Sunak would seek an urgent meeting with French president Emmanuel Macron in an effort to “hold the French to account”, with clear targets on stopping boats and “no options off the table”.

He promised to do “whatever it takes” to implement and scale up the agreement with Rwanda, under which the African country is paid to accept asylum seekers without their claims ever having been considered in the UK. And he said he would pursue similar arrangements with other states.

Meanwhile, penalties on businesses using illegal migrant labour would be toughened, and Mr Sunak would set a target of resolving 80 per cent of asylum claims within six months in order to reduce the current backlog of more than 100,000 applications awaiting an initial decision.

Mr Sunak, who supported Brexit, said his “reasonable, fair and proportionate” package would enable him to fulfil the Leave campaign’s promise to “take back control of our borders”.

“Right now the system is chaotic, with law-abiding citizens seeing boats full of illegal immigrants coming from the safe country of France, with our sailors and coastguards seemingly powerless to stop them,” he said. “It must stop, and if I am prime minister I will stop it.”

But Refugee Council CEO Enver Solomon urged both candidates in the Tory leadership race to “take a new direction” and to ditch the Rwanda scheme in favour of safe routes and humanitarian visas.

“Whoever becomes our next prime minister must replace our broken asylum system with a system that is fair, humane and orderly,” said Mr Solomon.

“This is an opportunity to commit to increasing safe routes, such as family reunion and humanitarian visas, so that those at risk of violence and persecution do not have to make dangerous journeys to find safety here. We urge our next prime minister to take a new direction and abandon the cruel Rwanda scheme.”

Pete Moorey, head of campaigns and UK advocacy at Christian Aid, condemned the proposed linkage of migration and aid.

“At a time when conflict and the climate crisis are pushing more people into poverty in East Africa and many other parts of the world, any proposal that further shrinks our financial support is beyond the pale,” he said. “The UK has a historic and moral responsibility to ending extreme poverty. We should be leading the world in tackling the interlocking global crises of hunger, climate, and conflict. That is what leadership looks like.”

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said: “Rishi Sunak as chancellor of the Exchequer, and Liz Truss as foreign secretary, signed off the Rwanda deal – writing off £120m of taxpayers’ money on an unworkable scheme that the government has admitted is unenforceable with a very high risk of fraud.

“They have been responsible for wasting taxpayers’ money, and have served in the cabinet that has totally failed to stop the criminal gangs or sort out the asylum system.

“The Conservatives have been in power for 12 years. It beggars belief that they claim to be the ones to sort things out when they have both failed for so long.”

Source: Sunak’s hardline immigration plan includes a cap on refugees and floating detention centres for asylum seekers

Filed under Immigration, Politics Tagged with , , , ,

Russia moves to shut agency handling immigration to Israel amid Ukraine rift

2022/07/26 Leave a comment

Of note:

Russia has threatened to shut down a major Jewish agency that promotes immigration to Israel amid tensions between the two nations over the invasion of Ukraine.

The Justice Ministry seeks to liquidate the country’s branch of the Jewish Agency for Israel, according to a notice from Moscow’s Basmanny district court, where the case will be heard Thursday.

The court’s website does not say what laws the nonprofit agency had broken, and Russia’s Justice Ministry, which filed for its dissolution on July 15, did not respond to a request for comment.

Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov said the dissolution was related to a breach of “compliance with Russian legislation.” He refused to give further details at a news conference Friday.

Acting Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said in a statement Thursday that a delegation with representatives from his office and several other ministries would travel to Russia for talks ahead of the hearing about the agency, which operates in coordination with his government.

Lapid accused Russia of carrying out war crimes in Ukraine when he was foreign minister in April.

Established in 1929, the Jewish Agency, or Sochnut, was instrumental in the formation of the state of Israel in 1948.

It was banned by the Soviet Union, where state-sanctioned antisemitism barred Jews from many jobs and schools. Yuri Kanner, the president of the Russian Jewish Congress, told NBC News on Friday that an office opened in Russia shortly after the Soviet bloc collapsed in 1989.

Since then, it has helped to advance Israel’s Law of Return, which states that any Jewish person, or a person with one or more Jewish grandparents, has the right to settle in Israel and obtain citizenship.Hundreds of thousands of people have relocated from Russia.

“This is an old and reputable institution,” Kanner said, adding that it had never been embroiled in any scandals.

NBC News has asked the agency for comment.

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

IRCC Anti-Racism Strategy 2.0: “Energy, Conviction and Courage” [too preachy for my taste]

2022/07/25 Leave a comment

Apart from the overly preachy tag line, this strategy reflects considerable work and reflection (disclosure I know some of the people involved). Like so many government reports, far too much emphasis on process and general messaging, but the strategy includes 24 specific action items under four pillars: leadership accountability, equitable workplace, policy and program design, and service delivery.

While it may be churlish to note, reading this detailed over 30 page strategy that clearly involved significant resources across the department is in sharp contrast with IRCC’s inability to deliver on its core responsibilities as seen in immigration and citizenship backlogs and the lack of oversight over Service Canada’s failures on passport.

A large department like IRCC should, of course, be able to “walk and chew gum” at the same time, but, as in so many areas, these kinds of initiatives, valid as they are, further distract or make it harder to deliver on core responsibilities.

Concrete measures highlighted in the report are highlighted below.

Starting with representation, the main gap is with respect to executives with the greatest gap being non-Black visible minorities.

In relation to the overall populations (Census 2016) – Indigenous 4.9 percent, visible minorities 22.3 percent of which Blacks represent 3.5 percent – Black representation at all three levels is the strongest. While the population of Black and non-Black visible minorities will likely be about 10 percent higher in the 2021 Census, the revised numbers are unlikely to change the overall picture significantly.

Usefully, the report provides a clear benchmark to measure success: the degree to which IRCC anti-racism initiatives moves the needle on the percentage that feel that “IRCC implements initiatives that promote anti-racism in the workplace.” Current numbers highlight the issue – only 65 percent of Blacks and 76 percent of non-Black visible minorities compared to 83 percent of not visible minorities.

But if the range of initiatives, engagement and comprehensiveness do not move the needle and reduce disparities, one will have to question their effectiveness, the reasons for lack of progress and the reasons why the perception by employees that not much has changed.

Failure to move the needle may also call into question the Clerk’s Call to Action on Anti-Racism, Equity, and Inclusion in the Federal Public Service, as in many ways IRCC was a model department in responding to the call.

And of course, service delivery failures in immigration and citizenship have a greater impact on Black and other visible minorities than than IRCC employees.

Source: Anti-Racism Strategy 2.0

Filed under Immigration, Racism Tagged with ,

How a Canadian lawyer is helping the growing number of ultra-rich looking to exit China

2022/07/25 Leave a comment

Interesting profile of Canadian immigration lawyer David Lesperance who specializes in business immigration.
Remain unconvinced that governments can design investor immigration or citizenship programs for the ultra-rich that provide meaningful benefits to Canada and Canadians as both the previous federal program, Quebec’s current program and programs of other countries largely demonstrate:
When a Chinese-Canadian billionaire faced a closed-door trial last month, four years after being snatched from Hong Kong, the event did not go unnoticed among China’s wealthy entrepreneurs.
It was the latest sign that they could be next as Beijing pushes down on the country’s most affluent business people, says a Canadian lawyer whose unique practice focuses on building back-up plans for “ultra-high-net-worth” individuals.
That nervousness is fueling a growing and urgent interest in leaving mainland China or Hong Kong, says David Lesperance.

The number of very-rich business people based in the region contacting him for help in getting out has tripled in the last couple of years, he says, as President Xi Jinping consolidates power, eliminates opponents and tightens his grip on once-free-wheeling Hong Kong.

And they tend to be wealthier, often worth billions, people who had been entrenched where they were until recently.

“These are clients who realize the chances of getting caught have increased dramatically — to not a will but a when question,” said Lesperance. “That group has now for the first time really contemplated ‘I’m going to have to leave some day. There is definitely a wildfire.’”

“We’ve been very busy since the beginning of the year.”

The resulting flight of “golden geese” could be an economic boon for the countries where they land. Canada is definitely among the mix of possible destinations but governments here should do more to attract the rich fleeing China — and their fortunes, said the lawyer

But luring such migrants is not without controversy. Ottawa’s investor immigrant program was actually cancelled in 2014 because of what the then-Conservative government said were an array of problems. Those immigrants had to fork out a relatively tiny investment, paid less taxes here, on average, than nannies, spent little time in Canada, and often learned neither English or French, critics said.

So far, China has not seen a major exodus of its richest citizens. It’s still home to 626 billionaires, second only to the United States’ 724, according to Forbes.

But Lesperance is not the only advisor noticing a growing trend among China’s wealthy to move at least their money out of the country.

Increasing numbers are parking assets in Singapore via the city state’s “family office” system, according to a survey in March by CNBC. Jenga, one of the firms that handles such transfers, told the news outlet it had seen demand double in just the previous 12 months.

Lesperance seems to come by the work honestly, having been raised in an almost borderless environment himself. A native of Windsor, Ont., his father worked in the auto industry across the river in Detroit and two of his siblings were born in a hospital there, giving them instant dual citizenship

He says his practice — which combines immigration and taxation advice — is divided about equally between clients in China/Hong Kong, the Middle East and the United States. He’s now based in Poland, where he can fit clients from multiple time zones into his daily schedule.

Many of Saudi Arabia’s wealthy are worried about Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman rising to the throne when his father, the king, dies. In the U.S., clients looking to decamp are divided between those who fear Democrats will boost taxes on the wealthy, and others who worry about a sharp shift to the right if the Republicans regain power nationally.

But the case of China highlights the dramatic changes Xi has wrought since coming to power in 2012, and the shifting role of business tycoons in the nominally Communist country.

Anxieties began with the 2019 proposal of an extradition treaty from Hong Kong to China, said Lesperance. It has increased as Beijing tightened the screws on Hong Kong, introducing a widely criticized National Security Law, imprisoning dissidents including media mogul Jimmy Lai and curbing the limited amount of democracy in the city’s government.

And there have been further scares on the mainland. Beijing recently quashed the thriving private-education industry and applied new pressure on the high-tech sector. Jack Ma, billionaire head of the Alibaba technology conglomerate, disappeared for months in 2020 and 2021 after he publicly criticized Chinese regulators, as an IPO for his Ant Group was suddenly axed.

Other moguls have also disappeared mysteriously. Xi’s announcement of a “common prosperity” program to more evenly spread wealth across the Chinese population has further put the very rich under pressure. Many China experts speculate that such campaigns are also about eliminating rivals to the Party’s — and Xi’s — power and control.

And then there is Xiao Jianhua, the Chinese born-and-bred Canadian citizen who was taken from his home in a Hong Kong hotel in 2017, surfacing just recently for a hasty, secretly held trial in China on unclear charges. His family in Toronto is still waiting to hear the verdict.

The case is “often cited” by clients who fear they could similarly run afoul of the government, said Lesperance. His bottom-line advice is that they prepare in advance for just that happening, rather than wait and see if things turn bad.

“You want to prevent the problem and avoid the wildfire, as opposed to trying to put it out after your house is on fire.”

Lesperance tells clients they must focus on moving both “ass and assets” — finding a place for their money and themselves and their family. That means deciding on a new home that works both “at the board table and the breakfast table,” somewhere the children can get a good education and the entrepreneur can keep running his or her business.

Popular destinations include Australia, New Zealand, the U.K., the U.S. and this country.

To get into Canada, those wealthy migrants can set up a subsidiary of their business here and obtain work permits as corporate transfers. Provincial “nominee” programs provide a pathway to permanent residence but they’re a “dog’s breakfast,” said Lesperance.

He recommends Ottawa revive the investor immigrant class, with reforms to address past issues. That could include requiring the person to provide a clear financial benefit to Canada, a system to weed out money launderers and other “undesirables,” strict application of tax laws, and imposing a large fee to cover the cost of processing those and other applications, the lawyer said. With all of it done in a clear, timely way.

“The thing to remember is that Canada is in competition for these Golden Geese and must present an opportunity which is competitive with all the other countries which are also trying to get this group.”

Source: How a Canadian lawyer is helping the growing number of ultra-rich looking to exit China

Filed under citizenship-by-investment, Immigration Tagged with

Tories, advocates call on Ottawa to remove bureaucratic hurdles to resettling Afghans

2022/07/23 Leave a comment

Needed:

Opposition Conservatives are calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government to extend a special immigration program it set up to bring Afghans trying to flee the Taliban to Canada.

Tory MP Jasraj Singh Hallan says Ottawa has failed in its moral obligation to help people who assisted Canada with its military mission in Afghanistan and now face reprisals from the Taliban, which seized control of Kabul last year.

Trudeau’s government had announced plans to resettle 40,000 Afghans and put in place several programs through Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada to help meet the goal.

Among those was a special immigration program to which Afghan nationals could apply if they had assisted members of the Canadian Armed Forces as interpreters or worked at Canada’s embassy.

Ottawa made room for 18,000 Afghans to come to Canada through this program.

According to the federal government’s website, it has received around 15,000 applications, 10,730 of which have been approved.

It reports that 7,205 Afghans have actually arrived through the program.

“It took the government a year to process less than half of the Afghans who applied through these measures,” Hallan said at a news conference Thursday.

He said a recent decision by the Ottawa to wind down the program because nearly all of the application spots are full is “shameful.”

Hallan also questioned why caps were placed on these programs in the first place, including the government’s overall commitment of taking 40,000 Afghans, when there are thousands more in danger.

Speaking in Nova Scotia on Thursday, Trudeau didn’t directly address whether Ottawa would expand the special measures program, but said one of the challenges is that there are hundreds of thousands of Afghans who would like to leave.

Hallan was joined at his news conference by two Afghans who managed to leave and make it to Canada.

Saeeq Shajjan, a lawyer, said colleagues have spent 11 months waiting to hear back from the federal immigration department, a delay he says is unacceptable.

He pointed out the situation is nothing like routine family reunification where a relative is waiting safely in another country to come to Canada.

“You’re talking about people who are at risk right now just because of the services they provided to the Canadian mission in Afghanistan, and it really needs to change now.”

Rahima Paiman, who was among those evacuated to Canada last year, said some Afghans are hiding in third countries, adding that women face particular risk under Taliban rule.

“Those women who did their best in Afghanistan are now in danger. Their very lives are at risk. I’m requesting you to please not stop supporting women in Afghanistan.”

Source: Tories, advocates call on Ottawa to remove bureaucratic hurdles to resettling Afghans

Filed under Immigration, Refugees Tagged with ,

B.C. ending immigration detention arrangement with CBSA, citing human rights

2022/07/23 Leave a comment

Will be interesting too see if Quebec and Nova Scotia follow suit:

British Columbia is ending an agreement with Canada Border Services Agency to hold immigration detainees in provincial correctional centres, saying the arrangement doesn’t align with its stance on human rights.

Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth said in a statement Thursday the province conducted a review that analyzed its contract with the agency, including public safety, and consulted with advocacy groups.

“The review brought to light that aspects of the arrangement do not align with our government’s commitment to upholding human rights standards or our dedication to pursuing social justice and equity for everyone,” he said.

The report said the number of immigration detainees in provincial custody is declining but provincial jails are used to holding “high risk detainees.” It also noted that while CBSA compensates BC Corrections to hold detainees, it does not cover the total cost.

“This is a trend that is likely to continue given the overall reduction in the number of detainees in provincial custody. If the arrangement ended, these are resources that could be used to support BC Corrections’ clients, including individuals in custody with complex needs and behaviours,” it said.

The move comes following calls from the groups Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International for B.C. to terminate its immigration detention contract with the federal government.

The groups released a report in June 2021 saying immigrants with no criminal charges against them are detained in holding centres, federal prisons or provincial jails for “indeterminate amounts of time.” They launched a campaign calling on B.C. to end its contract last October, and later expanded their push to Quebec and Nova Scotia.

“Canada is among the few countries in the global north with no legal limit on the duration of immigration detention, meaning people can be detained for months or years with no end in sight,” the groups said in a joint news release following the announcement. “British Columbia’s decision is a major milestone on the path to ending immigration detention in provincial jails in Canada.”

Ketty Nivyabandi, secretary-general of Amnesty International Canada, said in the statement that she commends B.C. on being the first province to make the decision, calling ita “momentous step.”

“This is a true human rights victory, one which upholds the dignity and rights of people who come to Canada in search of safety or a better life,” she said.

Farnworth said BC Corrections will be providing CBSA with 12 months’ notice as is required under its current contract.

The human rights groups said BC Corrections has told them the province will give the agency official written notice to terminate the contract next week.

Source: B.C. ending immigration detention arrangement with CBSA, citing human rights

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Canada’s immigration backlog has never been worse

2022/07/23 Leave a comment

The ever increasing backlogs understandably continue to attract attention. However, apart from CILA and a few individuals, haven’t seen any call for a pause in applications or heaven forbid, reduced levels, to address the backlogs:

In tandem with the increasing backlog has also been a precipitous rise in Federal Court cases from frustrated applicants demanding a reply from the IRCC.

They’re called “mandamus cases,” and it’s essentially an application for the court to order a response from IRCC. Before the pandemic there were only a few dozen mandamus cases per year. Last year, there were more than 400.

In prior statements, the federal government has largely attributed the crushing IRCC delays to the COVID-19 pandemic and the avalanche of refugee applications from Afghanistan and Ukraine. Last month, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the formation of a special committee to figure out how to reduce wait times.

Amid history-making line-ups at Canadian airports and passport offices, an absolutely crushing backlog at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada is putting them all to shame.

According to numbers obtained from the IRCC by the immigration-focused publication CIC News, there are now 2.7 million people waiting for Ottawa to process their immigration application.

The backlog encompasses every application filed to IRCC, from citizenship to visas to requests for permanent residency. The backlog of citizenship applications alone stands at 444,792, while most of the list (1.7 million) is applications for temporary residence.

Not only is it the worst immigration backlog of all time, but it is growing exponentially with each passing week. This time last year, the backlog was just 1.5 million names, according to CIC News. In just the last 30 days, the list has grown by 300,000 — an increase of roughly 1,000 new applicants per day.

All told, there are now more people awaiting a reply from the IRCC than there are residents of Atlantic Canada. As of press time, the population of all four Atlantic provinces (including Newfoundland and Labrador) is roughly 2.5 million.

If the backlog continues to grow at the current rate, it will only be another four months until the number of applicants awaiting processing by the IRCC is equivalent to 10 per cent of the Canadian population of 38 million.

This has thrown immigration wait times into complete disarray at the precise time that Canada is touting itself as a haven for refugees, most notably from Afghanistan and Ukraine.

Many of those 2.7 million represent foreign nationals dwelling in a kind of awkward limbo as they spend years awaiting updates from the IRCC.

Last month, Pakistani man Kazim Ali told CTV he applied for Canada’s Express Entry program in 2020, when the estimated wait for a reply was six months. Two years later, he hasn’t heard a thing, bringing the life of he and his wife “to a screeching halt” as they delay career choices and even children until they can hear back.

An increasingly overwhelmed IRCC is also making it difficult to reliably schedule any event in Canada that involves foreign nationals. Last month, both a Montreal AIDS symposium and a major Toronto tech conference saw dozens of invitees unable to attend because of difficulties in obtaining Canadian visas.

In a recent report by the Business Council of Canada, Canadian employers cited “processing delays” as the top barrier to recruiting international talent.

“Frustrated by application processing delays, complex rules, and the cost of navigating the system, fewer than a quarter (of survey respondents) say the immigration system currently serves their business needs well,” it read.

In tandem with the increasing backlog has also been a precipitous rise in Federal Court cases from frustrated applicants demanding a reply from the IRCC.

They’re called “mandamus cases,” and it’s essentially an application for the court to order a response from IRCC. Before the pandemic there were only a few dozen mandamus cases per year. Last year, there were more than 400.

In prior statements, the federal government has largely attributed the crushing IRCC delays to the COVID-19 pandemic and the avalanche of refugee applications from Afghanistan and Ukraine. Last month, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the formation of a special committee to figure out how to reduce wait times.

Source: Canada’s immigration backlog has never been worse 

Brian Lilley on Roxham Road (usual hyperbole about Trudeau’s tweet):

In the first six months of this year, more people crossed illegally into Canada at Roxham Road in Quebec than in all of 2019. The asylum seekers fast-track route may have all but shut down for much of the pandemic, but now it’s back in business with gusto.

According to the latest federal figures, 16,319 people entered Canada at “irregular” border crossings in Quebec between Jan. 1, 2022, and June 30, 2022. That includes 3,449 in May and 3,066 in June.

Those are the second- and third-highest months on record, surpassed only by August 2017.

By comparison, in 2019 a total of 16,136 people crossed at Roxham Road, and there were 18,518 illegal crossers in 2018 and 18,836 in 2017. The advent of COVID-19 saw the flow of asylum seekers at the Quebec-New York border slow to a trickle with just over 3,000 in 2020 and just over 4,000 in 2021, with most of them coming in December of that year.

This whole thing started when Justin Trudeau put out a tweet welcoming the world to Canada as then newly elected president Donald Trump threatened to deport people back to Haiti from the United States. What was lost on most is that Trump was ending a program that allowed people to stay in the U.S. if they were displaced by the earthquake or at risk following Haiti’s 2004 coup. Canada had ended a similar program years earlier under the Harper government and Trudeau had kept the policy in place and was removing people even as he criticized Trump.

With Trump threatening to do what Canada had already done, many looked north, and Trudeau welcomed them with open arms.

“To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength #WelcomeToCanada” Trudeau tweeted on January 28, 2017.

Days later, embassy staff from Mexico were writing to officials at Global Affairs seeking advice on how to handle people looking to declare refugee status in Canada.

“We are receiving an increasing number of enquiries from the public about requesting refugee status in Canada, and a number clearly having links with our Prime Minister’s tweet this weekend,” one email read.

It wasn’t just staff in Mexico. Word spread that Canada would take anyone as a refugee and many decided to use the illegal border crossing to skip dealing with the system.

Since then, more than 77,000 people — that’s more than the population of Belleville, Ont. or Chateauguay, Que. — have crossed at Roxham alone. The government has built special processing facilities there, establishing posts for immigration and RCMP officers to process people.

This is nothing short of the Liberals attempting to import another American political issue into Canada to wedge the Conservatives. In Canada, Conservatives support high numbers for legal immigration, something we saw throughout the Harper years.

What Conservatives don’t support is people who break the law.

This is where we get into word games. The Liberals claim no one is breaking the law, that these are asylum seekers and under Canadian — and international — law it is legal for them to seek asylum. The reality is, the government has giant signs warning people that it is illegal to cross at Roxham and the RCMP give verbal warnings that anyone doing so will be arrested for breaking the law.

They only claim asylum once arrested.

Nigeria is the biggest source of people crossing at Roxham and just 30% of the more than 16,000 who crossed there between February 2017 and March 2022 were accepted as valid refugees. For the more than 10,000 Haitians who crossed — the second-largest source country, just 23% were accepted.

Roxham Road has become a way for those looking to skip the long delays in legal, economic migration to get into Canada.

This isn’t how a properly functioning immigration and refugee system should work, but very little of what the Trudeau government is doing these days is working properly.

Source: LILLEY: Trudeau continues immigration games as Roxham Road sees record numbers

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , , ,

Munro and Lamb: The pandemic forced Canadian business out of a tech lethargy. What happens next?

2022/07/21 Leave a comment

A reminder that the government’s strategy of relying on immigration to address labour shortages neglects the role that technology can and does play.

The government’s focus on addressing business demands for more immigration reduces incentives for businesses to adapt new technology and improve productivity.

This analysis by Munro and Lamb should be a wake-up call to governments:

Canadians tend to think that innovation is mainly about inventing, producing and selling new technologies and products. Largely neglected in the discourse about innovation in Canada is the critical role of technology adoption or tech-taking. Technology adoption is often viewed as a lesser form of innovation, if it is viewed as innovation at all. Yet, adopting technologies that range from data analytics software to communication and collaboration tools, e-commerce platforms, and design technologies can enhance productivity and growth. It can also generate more and better employment opportunities, and enable new and different kinds of innovation.

Why are so many Canadian firms technology adoption laggards? Why are they content with low-tech business strategies? The short answer, borrowing an observation from Peter Nicholson, is that Canadian business has been “only as innovative as it has needed to be” – and, we might add, can be. Firms across a range of sectors have been able to maintain above-average profits for decades with low-wage strategies and minimal innovation and technology adoption. Among those that have seen the need to change, many face resource, knowledge and skills constraints that prevent them from doing so.

But our longstanding low-tech, low-innovation equilibrium may be changing, as we reveal in a new report on Canada’s technology trajectories.

Not only has the pandemic forced firms in key sectors to adopt new technologies to sustain operations, but recent changes in the ways technologies are packaged and sold have improved the cost-benefit analysis facing firms. For example, the increasing adoption of cloud solutions has meant that instead of making large upfront investments in hardware or software, firms can now purchase subscriptions that are easily administered, can be scaled up or down, canceled or customized and often have readily accessible education and consulting services. Are we in the midst of a fundamental shift in Canadian firms’ attitudes about the benefits and feasibility of adopting new technologies? Or will pre-pandemic lethargy return?

Canada’s pre-pandemic tech lethargy

Prior to the pandemic, Canada was a laggard on business investments in information and communications technologies (ICT). ICT investment per job in Canada, for example, has ranged from just 54 per cent to 68 per cent of U.S. levels since the late 1990s – largely due to lower investment in software and databases and contributing to our weak productivity relative to the U.S.

On another measure of ICT investment, Canada’s performance has deteriorated absolutely and relative to peers. In 2000, ICT investment as a share of total gross fixed capital formation (GFCF) in Canada was roughly 16 per cent. By 2019, this had declined to 11 per cent – roughly six percentage points lower than investment levels in France and the U.S. Since 1995 – when Canada trailed only the U.K. and the U.S. among G7 countries for whom data were available – we have been overtaken by France and Italy and now trail four of the six countries with available data (figure 1).

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Canadian firms often cite weak incentives to explain why they do not adopt technology, with many firms saying that investment is “not necessary for continued operations” or that they were “not convinced of the economic benefit” of candidate technologies. Other data aligns with this explanation. Notably, Canadian firms’ profitability has been rising over the past two decades, reducing incentives to adopt technologies to sustain revenue. Between 1997 and 2017, average annual growth of after-tax profits rose 7.6 per cent over the period. Profits as a share of GDP rose from 8.4 per cent in 1997 to 15.2 per cent by 2017, and since 2000 have exceeded that of the U.S. both before and after tax (figure 2).

At the same time, many firms recognize how technology adoption could help maintain or improve competitiveness, but they lack the capacity to make the change. This includes financial resources to purchase new technologies or technology service subscriptions; access to skills to implement, use, and maintain technologies; organizational and management cultures equipped to embrace and effectively use new technologies; and other factors. Given these weak incentives and substantial barriers, it is easy to see why business leaders might stick with existing low-tech strategies rather than shifting to an alternative.

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The pandemic tech shock

The pandemic and associated restrictions sent shockwaves through Canada’s low-tech equilibrium. Key sectors recognized that lagging technology adoption was no longer an option. Implementing a range of communications, e-commerce, logistics and other technologies would be necessary for survival. 

Retail firms, for example, realized that they had to find ways to reach customers virtually or go out of business. Turn-key online sales platforms, like Canada’s own Shopify, along with government- and industry-supported digital adoption support programs, like Digital Main Street, helped move many businesses’ retail operations online. The result? From February 2020 to May 2021 retail e-commerce sales in Canada increased by over $2 billion, reaching an all-time high of more than $4.1 billion – an increase of 127 per cent relative to May 2019 (figure 3).

Similarly, non-retail firms that depend on the efforts of people to provide services, collaborate, and interact with clients and colleagues to generate value have adopted virtual platforms to enable interaction. Platforms like Google Meets, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and myriad collaboration software. In the first quarter of 2021, when businesses were asked what technologies they adopted due to the pandemic, collaboration tools and cloud solutions were the most frequently cited.

This rose to over 50 per cent of businesses in information and cultural industries and professional, scientific, and technical services, two highly knowledge-intensive sectors. What began as a necessary change to maintain operations and sales has the potential to become a new, higher technology equilibrium for Canada.

The intangible shift

Much of the accelerated tech adoption amidst the pandemic has been facilitated by a trend that was gathering momentum before the pandemic – a shift away from more tangible kinds of technology investment, like hardware and IT systems, and toward more intangible, ICT-as-a-service investments, like cloud solutions and ready-made software. More intangible technology options help address some of the historical barriers to technology adoption, such as high cost, high skills needs, and integration with existing systems.

Cloud computing services offer a useful illustration. Instead of making large upfront investments in physical software and/or hardware, firms are now able to purchase ongoing subscriptions for services, which are easily administered and can be scaled up or down, canceled or customized depending on the effectiveness of the services and firms’ changing needs. Cloud services help de-risk and ease the purchase and use of digital technologies, overcoming one of the key barriers to technology adoption and use that have long faced Canadian firms.

And the shift is striking: Canadian firms spent $420 million on cloud services in 2006 and nearly $2.6 billion in 2014 – an annual growth rate of more than 25 per cent over the period. Contrast that to the 20 per cent annual growth in cloud service spending among firms in the U.S. over the same period. By 2017, 29 per cent of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) reported using cloud computing technologies over the previous three years, which was the most frequently selected technology, above data analytics, customer relationship management software, and enterprise resource planning software, to name a few.

The embrace of cloud services prior to and during the pandemic suggests that current data and measurement probably underestimate the extent to which Canadian firms are investing in and using technology because subscription cloud services are not always reported by firms as technology investments. By how much, exactly, is not clear, though there are some signals.

Moreover, while we expect that, over time, these investments will begin to have an effect on, and show up in measurements of, productivity and growth, we are not yet seeing the results. Still, given what we know about the relationships among technology adoption, productivity and growth, it is encouraging to see technology adoption strategies emerging in the face of new constellations of incentives and capabilities.

What’s next for technology diffusion in Canada? 

What does the future hold for technology adoption in Canada? Early indicators suggest that many Canadian firms may stick with the technologies they adopted during the pandemic and add more. Retail firms have learned that e-commerce can complement and expand in-person sales, and many employers have seen how remote work and collaboration can improve talent recruitment and retention. Moreover, the intangible shift has reduced the cost of technologies, making long-term technology adoption options more feasible.

Still, old habits die hard. A number of managers still prefer to have their employees interact in-person and many retail firms will welcome the return to in-person, albeit smaller, markets. Those firms that try to maintain higher technology adoption patterns will need people with technical skills to implement and use new kinds of technologies – and these skills may be scarce in the years ahead. Access to digital infrastructure (such as sufficient broadband) remains spotty in rural and remote areas, and cybersecurity continues to be a challenge for many firms. Even with new incentives to maintain or increase technology adoption, barriers will remain.

If governments and large anchor firms can find ways to help small and medium firms overcome labour and infrastructure challenges, Canada might shift to a higher technology adoption trajectory and reap the innovation and productivity benefits it generates. The financial, technical, and infrastructure support provided by programs like Digital Main Street, the Canada Digital Adoption Program, and the Universal Broadband Fund are promising signs that governments are willing to do their part. What remains to be seen is whether Canadian businesses are ready to leave behind the low-wage, low-technology equilibrium and embrace a higher technology, higher productivity, and higher wage and well-being future.

Source: The pandemic forced Canadian business out of a tech lethargy. What happens next?

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Canada’s immigration backlog grows to 2.7 million people

2022/07/21 Leave a comment

As always, canadavisa.com provides a valuable service sharing the detailed numbers one backlogs (it appears I was too charitable with respect to citizenship in my May update):

Canada continues to struggle with its immigration applications as its inventory now stands at some 2.7 million people.

This represents a growth of nearly 300,000 people over the past six weeks.

The backlog has nearly doubled over the past year and nearly tripled since the start of the pandemic.

It has progressed as follows since last July:

The citizenship inventory stands at 444,792 applicants as of July 15, compared to 394,664 on June 1.

The permanent residence inventory stands at 514,116 people as of July 17, compared to 522,047 as of June 6.

On July 17, the temporary residence inventory stood at 1,720,123 people, compared to 1,471,173 persons, also as of June 6.

CIC News made this data request to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada(IRCC) on June 30 and received the data on July 18.

Express Entry draws resume due to backlog reduction

A total of 51,616 Express Entry applicants are waiting on decisions as of July 17, a significant reduction from the 88,903 reported when comparable was available on March 15.

The reduction in Express Entry backlogs means IRCC can once again hold all program draws, and processing times for new Express Entry applicants are back to the six-month standard. On July 6, IRCC held its first all-program draw since December 2020.

Family class inventory is up slightly

The overall inventory of family class applicants is up to 118,251 persons compared to 112,837 persons on June 6.

The Spouses, Partners and Children Program inventory has increased compared to early June. It stands at 68,159 persons compared to 67,929 persons last month. The figure for July was found by adding Spouses and Partners to Children and Other Family Class for the purpose of comparison.

The Parents and Grandparents Program (PGP) has seen another increase. It is now at 47,025 persons compared to 41,802 persons. IRCC has yet to announce details on its plans for the PGP 2022.

Discover if You Are Eligible for Canadian Immigration

Summer backlog growth is normal, to an extent

The temporary residence inventory has increased by nearly 250,000 persons compared to June 6.

Increases were observed in the number of applicants for study permits, temporary resident visas, visitor records, work permits, and work permit extensions.

The growth of IRCC’s backlog is normal to an extent over the summer months. More people look to obtain temporary resident visas to visit family and friends during the warmest time of the year in Canada.

In addition, many international students who complete their studies in the spring go on to apply for Post-Graduation Work Permits (PGWP), which is Canada’s largest work permit category.

Most international students also submit their study permit applications in the months leading up to the start of Canada’s academic calendar. This results in Canada usually welcoming over 200,000 new international students leading into September each year.

The main exception is the Canada-Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel(CUAET), which Canada introduced in March to provide Ukrainians with the opportunity to relocate following Russia’s invasion. Since March 17, IRCC has received 362,664 CUAET applications, causing its backlog to swell.

However, the overall growth of the backlog, a nearly three-fold increase since the start of the pandemic in March 2020, highlights ongoing challenges with Canada’s immigration system. It is a function of IRCC continuing to welcome new applications throughout the pandemic even though its processing capacity was limited for large stretches of 2020 and 2021.

The department is now playing catch-up and is taking steps such as hiring additional processing staff and looking to invest in technological upgrades.

Meanwhile, other arms of the federal government have taken notice of Canada’s immigration application challenges.

In May, the Canadian Parliament’s Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration (CIMM) began a study on the backlogs. It will result in a public study containing recommendations for improvement.

In June, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau created a federal task force to address backlog challenges. It is made up of a group of federal ministers, who will make recommendations to address issues that are causing the delay in application processing. The goal is to create both long-term and short-term solutions that will clear the backlogs and improve the quality and speed of services.

Inventory in tables

The following tables show more details on IRCC’s inventory.

Citizenship Inventory

Application type Persons as of July 15, 2022
Grant 387,368
Proof 57,424
Total Citizenship Inventory 444,792

Immigration Inventory

Immigration Category Persons as of July 17
Economic Class 211,903
Family Class 118,251
Humanitarian & Compassionate / Public Policy 29,848
Permit Holders Class 16
Protected Persons 154,098
Total Immigration Inventory 514,116

Express Entry Inventory

Immigration Category Persons as of July 17
Canadian Experience Class (EE) 5,195
Federal Skilled Workers (EE) 18,127
Skilled Trades (EE) 369
Provincial/Territorial Nominees (EE) 27,925
Total Immigration Inventory 51,616

Family Class Inventory

Immigration Category Persons as of July 17, 2022
Children & Other Family Class 9,147
FCH-Family relations – H&C 3,067
Parents and Grandparents 47,025
Spouses & Partners 59,012
Total Family Class Inventory 118,251

Economic Class Inventory

Immigration category Persons as of July 17, 2022
Agri-Food Pilot Program 765
Atlantic Immigration Pilot Programs 2,380
Atlantic Immigration Program 33
Canadian Experience Class (EE) 5,195
Canadian Experience Class (No EE) 109
Caring for Children 60
Federal Entrepreneur 4
Federal Self Employed 4,502
Federal Skilled Workers (C-50) 123
Federal Skilled Workers (EE) 18,127
Federal Skilled Workers (Pre C-50) 23
High Medical Needs 7
Home Child Care Pilot 18,191
Home Support Worker Pilot 6,912
Interim Pathway Measure 767
Live-in Caregiver 931
Provincial/Territorial Nominees (EE) 27,925
Provincial/Territorial Nominees (No EE) 35,599
Quebec Entrepreneur 281
Quebec Investor 11,115
Quebec Self Employed 94
Quebec Skilled Workers 24,570
Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot 1,118
Skilled Trades (EE) 369
Skilled Trades (No EE) 2
Start-up Business 1,309
TR to PR 51,392
Total Economic Class Inventory 211,903

Humanitarian and Compassionate Inventory

Immigration Category Persons as of July 17, 2022
HC & PH class-ADM Dependant Person Overseas 44
Humanitarian & Compassionate Straight 3,067
Humanitarian & Compassionate with Risk or Discrimination 47,025
Public Policy With RAP 59,012
Public Policy Without RAP 118,251
Total H&C Inventory 5,341

Permit Holders Inventory

Immigration Category Persons as of July 17, 2022
Permit Holders Class 16
Total Permit Holders Inventory 16

Protected Persons Inventory

Immigration Category Persons as of July 17, 2022
Blended Visa Office-Referred 150
Dependants Abroad of Protected Persons 26,628
Federal Government-assisted Refugees 33,531
Privately Sponsored Refugees 71,076
Protected Persons Landed In Canada 21,770
Quebec Government-assisted Refugees 943
Total Protected Persons Inventory 154,098

Temporary Residence Inventory

Application type Persons as of July 17, 2022
Study Permit 196,729
Study Permit Extension 35,482
Temporary Resident Visa 903,971
Visitor Record 90,195
Work Permit 313,710
Work Permit – Extension 180,036
Total Temporary Residence Inventory 1,720,123

Source: Canada’s immigration backlog grows to 2.7 million people

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New Zealand launches new immigration visa category, opens from September | Mint

2022/07/21 Leave a comment

Higher threshold than most, along with focus on active not passive investment:

To attract experienced, high-value investors to invest in domestic businesses, the New Zealand government has created a new investor migrant visa category. The new Active Investor Plus visa category will replace the existing Investor 1 and Investor 2 visa categories. Eligibility criteria for New Zealand’s Active Investor Plus visa category includes a minimum $5 million investment and only 50% of that can be invested in listed equities.

“We have so many fantastic businesses in New Zealand that are making a real name for themselves in the global marketplace. Our Government has a goal to support these businesses to grow into even more successful global brands, and updating our investor visa settings is a key part of our strategy to attract high-value investors,” Economic and Regional Development Minister Stuart Nash said.

The new Active Investor Plus visa will open on 19 September 2022. Applications under the Investor 1 and Investor 2 visas will no longer be accepted after 27 July 2022. The government said said that all applications in the current pipeline will continue to be processed by Immigration New Zealand.

The new Active Investor Plus visa will replace the old investment visa categories and would require migrants to make investments in New Zealand businesses, the minister said.

He said that the new visa regime is meant to attract more active investors who can deliver real benefits to the New Zealand economy over a long period of time.

“The new Active Investor Plus visa will replace the old investment visa categories, which although successful in attracting a large amount of funds over past decade – over $12b –often resulted in passive investment in shares and bonds rather than directly into New Zealand companies,” he said.

“Applicants who make acceptable direct investments, among other requirements, will be eligible for the new visa with a $5 million minimum investment and receive the highest rating which is a lower minimum amount than those who choose more indirect investments. The minimum amount required for indirect investments will be $15 million,” he added.

Source: New Zealand launches new immigration visa category, opens from September | Mint

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