Dutrisac: Au diable le Québec! [immigration processing delays]

2021/10/28 Leave a comment

Complaints about slow processing of Quebec appliccations. Hard to know without better comparative data but Quebec’s policy decisions play a role:

Que le Québec soit en mesure de suivre ou non, le gouvernement Trudeau poursuit une politique énergique en matière d’immigration. Les seuils annuels d’admission sont passés de 280 000 à 350 000 ces dernières années. Comme la pandémie a contribué à réduire le nombre d’immigrants reçus, à la fois en raison des contraintes touchant les voyages internationaux et de l’exacerbation des lacunes administratives d’Immigration Canada, l’administration fédérale doit faire du rattrapage en 2021 et traiter 400 000 admissions.

Il semble que la bouchée soit très grosse pour Immigration Canada, qui peine à faire son travail adéquatement. Le ministère est empêtré dans l’accueil des réfugiés afghans et n’arrive pas à délivrer les permis de séjour aux étudiants étrangers en temps utile. Les détenteurs d’un certificat de sélection du Québec (CSQ) sont toujours aussi nombreux à attendre 26 mois en moyenne avant que le gouvernement fédéral ne daigne leur accorder leur résidence permanente pour qu’ils deviennent des immigrants officiellement admis avec tous les droits que ce statut confère.

En 2020, à cause des problèmes administratifs affectant les bureaux d’Immigration Canada en Nouvelle-Écosse qui traitent les demandes de résidence permanente, les autorités fédérales n’ont pu admettre le nombre d’immigrants prévu dans le plan d’immigration du Québec. Cette année, il appert que le rattrapage prévu de 7000 immigrants, ajoutés aux quelque 45 000 autres qui figurent dans le plan, ne pourra pas se faire parce que l’administration fédérale n’arrive pas à traiter les dossiers.

Dans le reste du Canada, l’octroi de la résidence permanente — Ottawa y est responsable de la sélection de tous les immigrants — est beaucoup plus rapide. Ainsi, il est de six mois avec le service Entrée express destiné aux immigrants qualifiés. C’est donc deux poids, deux mesures : une administration fédérale capable d’être efficace pour accorder avec célérité la résidence permanente à des travailleurs qualifiés dans le reste du Canada et la même administration qui a besoin de deux à trois ans pour faire la même chose au Québec.

Au sein des organismes d’aide aux nouveaux arrivants et chez les avocats spécialisés en immigration, on cherche à comprendre les raisons d’une telle disparité de traitement. Immigration Canada n’a plus l’argument de la réduction des seuils d’immigration décrétés par le gouvernement caquiste à son arrivée : le seuil établi par le gouvernement Legault pour 2021 équivaut, avec le rattrapage, à ceux fixés auparavant par le gouvernement Couillard.

En octobre 2020, le ministre fédéral de l’Immigration, des Réfugiés et de la Citoyenneté, Marco Mendicino, a lancé un programme afin d’accorder des points aux candidats « francophones et bilingues » pour Entrée express. Le gouvernement Trudeau avait annoncé son intention de porter à 4,4 % le pourcentage d’immigration francophone en dehors du Québec, alors qu’il était de 2,82 %. Ce nouvel objectif correspond à la proportion des francophones qui subsistent dans le reste du Canada. En avril dernier, le ministre a aussi ouvert une voie rapide pour accorder leur résidence permanente à 90 000 travailleurs temporaires et étudiants étrangers en sol canadien. Invité à adopter le même programme, Québec avait décliné puisque cette sélection définie par Ottawa ne correspondait pas à ses critères et parce que le programme était injuste pour les détenteurs d’un CSQ qui poireautent deux à trois ans avant de devenir immigrants reçus.

Il semble que les mesures portent leurs fruits, du moins du point de vue du ministre fédéral. Ottawa pourra compter sur de nouveaux arrivants francophones établis au Québec pour se rapprocher de sa cible. Le Journal de Montréal a rapporté que plusieurs travailleurs et étudiants étrangers établis dans la région de Montréal, désespérant d’obtenir leur résidence permanente, avaient déménagé leurs pénates en Ontario. Ils ont obtenu le précieux statut en quelques mois.

Il s’agit d’une forme de concurrence malsaine, qui s’ajoute à l’incurie administrative réservée au Québec. Le gouvernement Trudeau exerce une pression sur les fonctionnaires d’Immigration Canada pour qu’ils remplissent cette commande d’accueillir 400 000 immigrants cette année. Entre satisfaire les besoins du Québec et ceux du reste du Canada, les fonctionnaires fédéraux écoutent la voix de leur maître et favorisent le système d’immigration qui relève totalement d’eux.

C’est peut-être voulu, c’est peut-être systémique, mais ce qui est clair, c’est que ce traitement inéquitable sape le système québécois d’immigration.

Source: https://www.ledevoir.com/opinion/editoriaux/642762/ottawa-et-l-immigration-au-diable-le-quebec?utm_source=infolettre-2021-10-26&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=infolettre-quotidienne

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How Can Australia Rethink Its Immigration Policies?

2021/10/28 Leave a comment

The ongoing divergence between Canada and Australia remains, striking given how much the two countries have borrowed ideas and approaches from each other in the past:

Australia has begun having necessary public debates about its post-pandemic recovery. One of the more crucial elements of this recovery is how the country re-establishes its immigration program, which has effectively been paused for the past year and a half. In recent decades Australia’s national strategy has relied on sourcing a significant number of skilled migrants to off-set birthrates that are below the replacement level, drive economic activity, and enhance the country’s overall capabilities. That strategy proved successful.

Due to this, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry has begun pushing for 200,000 skilled migrant visas to be issued annually, a return to the pre-pandemic average. However, advice provided to the new premier of New South Wales, Dominic Perrottet, indicated that Australia will require 2 million new residents over the next five years to meet labor shortages, effectively double the pre-pandemic intake. This would match Canada’s ambitious new target for its own national expansion (one it is already meeting).

In Parag Khanna’s new book, “Move,” the author argues that the post-pandemic world will see a fierce competition for young talent by migrant-accepting countries. Countries that are able to both attract and retain people will find themselves at a distinct advantage. Pre-pandemic Australia could rightly claim to be a lifestyle superpower, providing it with a serious asset for attracting these highly skilled migrants, yet the country’s highly protectionist response to the pandemic may have blunted this image.

While in recent decades Australia has offered migrants opportunities and ways of life that they otherwise may not have had, it has also not made fully accessing these opportunities particularly easy. Australia’s visa system is notoriously complex and expensive, with myriad hurdles to jump, and no clear pathway toward permanent residency. Migrants can spend a decade or more bouncing between an array of insecure short-term visas, limiting their ability to make long-term plans and subsequently limiting their ability to feel welcome and valued in the country. If Australia wishes to compete in a post-pandemic contest for skills it will need a less obstructionist visa system.

Yet there is more to this equation than just Canberra creating the administrative processes to maximize its power and potential. While states may be self-interested entities, they also face conditions that prevent them from acting perfectly in their own self-interest. Immigration can be an emotionally sensitive subject, making the politics around it difficult to navigate. There is a tension between what the country requires and what is politically achievable.

Australia, like other Western liberal democracies, is currently facing a crisis of confidence in its own ideas and values. Admittedly, Australia is not in as degraded a state as other similar countries, but a suspicion of liberalism – and its openness to the world – exists within the country and should not be ignored. This sentiment is born out of a paradox within the nation-state, where some elements within liberal societies believe that the state is undermining the nation.

The political psychologist and behavioral economist Karen Stenner has argued that liberal democracies have reached a stage of complexity that around one-third of their citizens have difficulty adjusting themselves to. These people value consistency, conformity, and homogeneity over difference and change. This disposition can tolerate changing societies under the right conditions, but it is susceptible to arousal and agitation through political demagoguery and media outlets that prey on their insecurities — leading to support for more insular and authoritarian styles of governing.

Following several decades of rapid social change, the COVID-19 pandemic could not have been a worse global-scale event for those who would like to keep this authoritarian disposition dormant. It has exacerbated the sense among some that states are acting against the interests of the public, leading to a further retreating into in-groups. The fear would be that this public sentiment now makes it far too difficult to re-establish Australia’s significant immigration program.

Yet Australia now faces not only economic conditions that require an increased labor force, but also strategic conditions that require an increase in state power. Canberra must confront the dual problem of a powerful and belligerent regional adversary in China alongside a primary security partner in the United States whose domestic instability is making it far less reliable. To negotiate this difficult terrain Australia requires more people to enhance its economic, diplomatic, defense, and cultural capabilities.

The serious question that Canberra must now ask itself is: How does it take the necessary steps to increase its capabilities without disrupting its own internal stability?

Addressing the culture of suspicion and contradictions at the heart of immigration process should be the first place to start. In recent decades Australia has asked migrants to provide the country with labor, knowledge, and taxes, but not civic engagement. Those who perceive that migrants are not “loyal” to the country have been aided in this perception by a visa system that doesn’t give migrants the opportunity to fully invest themselves in the country. There’s the potential to address both problems if handled correctly.

This would also require a change in public narrative, highlighting the courage and resilience of migrants, the honor Australia should feel at being chosen as a destination country, and the prosperity and social enhancement that flows from their contributions to society. If psychological insecurity is the political impediment to Australia’s expanded migration program, then migration as a tool to enhance national security should be emphasized.

The pandemic has offered governments the opportunity to rethink how they approach these key nation-building initiatives. It has also provided an example of what states can do when they focus their minds on a task. This should make it clear to Canberra that such necessary rethinking of immigration’s key role in Australia’s nation-building should not be deemed too difficult to pursue.

Grant Wyeth is a Melbourne-based political analyst specializing in Australia and the Pacific, India and Canada.

Source: How Can Australia Rethink Its Immigration Policies?

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Ontario to ask Ottawa to help more PSWs immigrate

2021/10/28 Leave a comment

Of note:

The Ford government will be closely watching the shakeup of Justin Trudeau’s cabinet on Tuesday to see which Liberal MP takes over immigration.

That’s because whoever it is will largely determine the success of Ontario’s ambitious plan to fix its beleaguered system of long-term care.

The Progressive Conservative (PC) government’s plan is three-pronged: to pass legislation strengthening care standards in nursing homes; to spend $2.7 billion for 30,000 new beds; and to spend another $4.9 billion to hire 27,000 full-time workers.

But meeting the most expensive objective requires migrants, which in turn depends on Ottawa’s willingness to give Ontario the control it wants over jobs that tend to attract foreigners to the province.

“Ontario generally … is working with Ottawa for more flexibility (over) our immigration,” Ontario’s Long-Term Care Minister Rod Phillips said at an event hosted by the Canadian Club of Toronto last week.

“If we’re going to get those 27,000 people … there’s no way we get there without providing pathways.”

Before the last Parliament dissolved in August, Phillips spoke to Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland about attracting more migrants to work as nurses and personal support workers (PSWs), he said.

The PCs plan to resume those discussions sometime after Tuesday, when the prime minister either renames Marco Mendicino as his minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, or appoints someone else.

The PCs want more autonomy in running the Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program (OINP), and for Ottawa to let it accept more immigrants through the program each year, said Monte McNaughton, Ontario’s minister of Labour, Training and Skills Development, last week.

A source close to McNaughton told iPolitics the PCs want to double the 8,900 immigrants Ontario accepts each year through the OINP, which is open to foreign workers, international students, and other would-be migrants who work jobs the Ontario and federal governments categorize as in need.

A foreigner who applies to the OINP has to be nominated for permanent residence by the provincial government, and his or her application must be approved by Ottawa.

In 2018, there were 56,000 full-time-equivalent positions in Ontario’s long-term-care sector, and 58 per cent of them were PSWs.

The 27,000 full-time-equivalent positions the PCs want to add over the next four years include 17,000 PSWs, according to comments made by Phillips that were reported by the Ottawa Citizen.

Currently, the OINP doesn’t consider PSWs “skilled workers,” thereby disqualifying them from most of the program’s streams. They can only qualify through the OINP’s “in-demand skills” stream, which has other complicating requirements, including that the applicant already has a job lined up in Ontario that pays more than the provincial average for the position, and that the applicant recently had a job in the same field in Ontario.

Many sectors in Ontario are short workers; government officials say 290,000 jobs are unfilled.

To attempt to fill them, McNaughton announced last week that the Ontario government will introduce a bill making it easier for people trained in certain professions outside Canada to become licensed in Ontario. While the bill would cover jobs in law, accounting, architecture, engineering, and plumbing, it wouldn’t apply to licensed health-care workers, however.

The PCs are interested in exploring similar legislation for immigrant health-care workers, but the sector’s complexity precludes them from McNaughton’s bill, said a source close to the minister.

Trudeau’s government shares some of the PCs’ goals for immigration and long-term care. During the federal election campaign, the Liberals promised to train 50,000 PSWs in Canada and raise their wages to $25/hour. Their platform also included promises to reform economic-immigration programs and to recognize more foreign job credentials.

While she’s in favour of classifying PSWs in a way that makes it easier for them to immigrate, it’s just “one piece of the puzzle” of filling the sector’s staff shortage, Donna Duncan, CEO of the Ontario Long Term Care Association, told iPolitics.

The group represents 70 per cent of the province’s nursing homes, including those which are private, not-for-profit, and municipally run.

Source: Ontario to ask Ottawa to help more PSWs immigrate

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#COVID-19: Comparing provinces with other countries 27 October Update

2021/10/28 Leave a comment

The latest charts, compiled 27 October. Canadians fully vaccinated 74.8 percent, higher than USA 58.1 percent and the UK 68.2 percent).

Vaccinations: Canadian North ahead of Quebec, UK ahead of Canada, Japan ahead of Italy and France, Australia ahead of California. China fully vaccinated 76.4 percent, India 20.6 percent.

Trendline Charts:

Infections: The chart shows the number of infections in Alberta starting to level off unlike the Prairies or British Columbia.

Deaths: Alberta deaths, along with the Prairies albeit to a lesser extent, continue to climb.

Vaccinations: Alberta vaccinations continue to surpass the Prairies. Immigration source country vaccination rates tapering off.

Weekly

Infections: UK ahead of New York.

Deaths per million: Alberta ahead of Ontario.

Useful analysis in the Economist on the effectiveness of vaccine mandates:

In the 24 hours after France announced that it would require proof of vaccination or a negative covid-19 test to enter many public spaces, 1m people signed up for jabs. Other countries are following suit: Italy imposed a vaccine-or-test policy last week.Listen to this story

How effective will such rules be? The response in France was robust, but many of those people might have sought jabs anyway. In American polls, most unvaccinated people say they do not intend to get shots.

Because jabs for covid-19 are new, the impact of mandating them will probably differ from that of requiring children to get well-established vaccines. However, history still offers relevant data on hardline refuseniks’ susceptibility to legal fiat.https://infographics.economist.com/2021/20211023_GDC100_2/index.html

The link between mandates and uptake of standard vaccines in childhood is murky. Much of Europe enjoys broad coverage without mandates, whereas poor countries’ edicts are often honoured in the breach. Even among countries with similar gdp per person, those with mandates do not vaccinate more—perhaps because only places with low uptake resort to coercion.

Another way to assess impact is studying changes over time when new mandates come in. Uganda’s long-run upward trend in jab rates actually flattened out after the country imposed a mandate. However, it only began requiring vaccines once 80% of children were already getting them.

In rich countries mandates have helped a bit. In 2016 Australia ended an exemption for conscientious objectors. Its jab rate for polio rose by three percentage points. After imposing new mandates in 2017-18 following outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases, Italy saw gains in measles shots, and France in meningitis-C jabs. In six countries that have stiffened rules since 2000, the average gain was 2.2 percentage points.https://infographics.economist.com/2021/20211023_GDC100_3/index.html

The best evidence that mandates matter comes from America. Some states offer carve-outs from mandates only for medical reasons; others also recognise religious or philosophical ones. After adjusting for demographic and political characteristics that also affect jab rates, uptake in states with the fewest exceptions is 1.1 percentage points higher than in those with the most.

These effects sound small. But since jab rates cannot exceed 100%, mandates can only do so much if uptake is already high. Moreover, for diseases like measles, 95% of people need protection to reach herd immunity. A few percentage points can determine if outbreaks take off or fizzle out.■

Source: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2021/10/23/the-impact-of-vaccine-mandates-is-modest-but-potentially-crucial

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Canada has a big-time nursing shortage. So why can’t these two fully certified nurses get the OK to practise?

2021/10/27 Leave a comment

Of note, along with the backlog numbers for the various programs:

A former intensive-care nurse in the Philippines, Katrina Deauna has watched from the sidelines as Ontario — and all of Canada — struggles with chronic nursing shortages laid bare by the pandemic.

While the foreign caregiver enjoys looking after the 18-month-old baby girl and six-year-old son of her Canadian employer, she says, she would rather use her front-line nursing skills and experience to help those fighting for their lives against COVID-19.

Deauna has met all the licensing requirements of the Ontario College of Nursing. All she is missing is the authorization to work — either through a letter that confirms she’s eligible for permanent residence or a bridging open work permit.

“We are ready to practise in our profession. We are just waiting for our papers,” says the 28-year-old, who worked in the intensive-care unit of the Manila Doctors Hospital, one of the top hospitals in the Philippines, for three years until September 2019, when she was hired as a nanny in Toronto.

“They’re talking about the shortages of nurses in Ontario and Canada. And here we are. The only thing that’s keeping us from our practice is a piece of immigration paper.”

According to Ontario’s regulatory body of nurses, there are currently at least 41 applicants who meet all of its registration requirements but are waiting for the immigration authorization to work in Canada. It’s not sure what the numbers are for other provinces.

Statistics Canada reported that in the first three months of this year, the health-care and social-assistance sector had the largest year-over-year increase in job vacancies compared to other sectors, rising by 27,700 to 98,700 vacancies — an increase of 39 per cent. The positions with the largest vacancy increase were registered nurses and registered psychiatric nurses. Half of those positions had been vacant for 90 days or more, according to Statistics Canada.

Ontario has, so far, been hardest hit. With a ratio of 725 registered nurses per 100,000 people, it ranks as the lowest province in Canada and well below the national average of 811 nurses per 100,000 people, according to 2019 data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information.

Hospitals across the province currently have a vacancy rate of 18 to 22 per cent for nurses, the Ontario Nurses’ Association says.

“Some smaller hospitals closed their emergency departments after four o’clock because they don’t have enough staff,” says Vicki McKenna, head of the association, adding that some operating rooms are running at limited capacity for the same reason..

While complaints from internationally trained nurses have traditionally had to do with the lengthy registration and licensing process with regulators, McKenna said it’s deplorable that those who have met the licensing requirement are being held back due to an immigration backlog.

“We need these nurses, and we can’t afford to have them languish on that list, and we can’t afford to lose them to other provinces. The nursing shortages aren’t in Ontario alone. It’s across this country and it’s an international issue,” she said.

“The U.S. is recruiting hard. Our nurses are leaving, in some cases, to what is seen to be greener pastures there, and we can’t afford to sit and watch. We have to do something.”

Reduced processing capacity due to lockdowns here and abroad, as well as travel restrictions worldwide, have wreaked havoc in the immigration system during the pandemic.

As of July 31, more than 561,700 people were in the queue for permanent residence and 748,381 had a pending temporary residence application as students, workers or visitors, while the backlog for citizenship stood at 376,458 people.

Traditionally, many internationally educated nurses from the Philippines, the Caribbean and Africa arrive and work as foreign caregivers while trying to register and restart their licensing process in Canada once they’re here.

The permanent residence backlogs for foreign caregivers began long before the onset of the pandemic in early 2020. In April, Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino announced a move to prioritize the permanent residence applications of 6,000 caregivers by Dec. 31.

The immigration department said it had processed the applications for a total of 3,253 people under the initiative up to Oct. 17, but it’s not known how many of those were caregivers because the number included their family members. Officials were unable to say how much the caregiver backlogs have been reduced since the announcement.

“Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada has prioritized applications from workers in essential occupations in agriculture and health care, where labour is most needed to protect the health of Canadians and ensure a sufficient food supply,” said department spokesperson Rémi Larivière.

“Applicants who intended to work in agriculture or health care but who applied for an open work permit and didn’t have a valid job offer in advance would not be triaged for priority processing.”

Deauna said she was thrilled with the government announcement, but feels those with pending nursing licences should be fast-tracked if Canadian officials are serious about addressing the shortages of nurses in the country in the wake of the pandemic.

She applied for permanent residence and the bridging open work permit in August 2020 but only received an acknowledgment of receipt this past June. Her caregiver work permit has expired since June.

The Ontario licensing process requires of applicants practical nursing experience within the three years before a certificate of registration is issued.

Deauna fears she may have to go back to the Philippines to get back to practice and restart the licensing process if her immigration and nursing certificate don’t come through before June.

“I can’t afford more delay in my permanent residence or open work permit,” she noted.

Leslie Apurada arrived in 2018 under the home support worker program to look after an elderly man with dementia in Montreal and initiated her licensing process with the Ontario College of Nurses a year later.

The former Filipino registered nurse with a psychogeriatric background underwent Canada’s national nursing assessment, registered for prep courses and sat for — and passed — a couple of required nursing exams, all while working full time to look after her client.

Even though her employer was supportive and tried to spare her from overtime work while she was studying for exams and attending courses, Apurada said she was mentally and physically exhausted jumping through all the hoops to get past the final qualifying test in June. She’s since been waiting for her immigration authorization to work.

“During the height of the pandemic … Canada’s prime minister said we’re all in this together. But we, caregivers, feel we’re always pushed to the sideline. No one really answers to us why the backlog for the caregiver programs has been so extensive,” said the 31-year-old, who is now enrolled in an online course about nephrology at Humber College.

“It’s disheartening to see how strained the Canadian health system is while all along we are here. We’ve passed all the exams and we could’ve helped.”

Karla Ducusin, another former RN from the Philippines, came to Canada in late 2018 by way of Israel to look after an elderly couple with medical needs in Markham. She’s responsible for preparing them meals, administering their medications, escorting them to doctor’s appointments and helping with household chores.

The permanent residence application that she filed last October costs $1,050 and each time she extends her caregiver work permit, it’s another $155.

Given she’s now in Canada on the so-called implied status — in transition with a pending permanent residence application in the system, Ducusin said she has lost her OHIP, which requires a temporary foreign worker to have a valid work permit to be eligible. Her caregiver work permit expired last November.

“I want to be able to help my family more financially. My father is sick and my two younger brothers are not working. I could make a lot more money and pay more taxes as a nurse than as a caregiver,” said the 32-year-old, whose file will be closed by the College of Nurses of Ontario if there’s no update for two years.

“This is putting a heavy toll on our mental health. You wake up every day and there’s still no movement in your immigration application. It’s just so frustrating.”

Source: Canada has a big-time nursing shortage. So why can’t these two fully certified nurses get the OK to practise?

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Online criteria for Afghan refugee program changes, applies only to those who’ve fled

2021/10/27 Leave a comment

While one can understand the rationale given the difficulties in leaving Afghanistan under the Taliban, arguably the need is greatest for those stuck in the country. Will likely provoke controversy among the many who have already been working to raise the issues and help them leave:

The Canadian government has quietly changed the criteria on its website for a special program for vulnerable Afghan refugees so that only those who have already managed to escape to other countries are eligible.

The online criteria for the “special humanitarian program” used to include Afghans “who are in Afghanistan or outside of Afghanistan,” but it was changed this month to apply only to those “outside of Afghanistan.”

The program is one of two set up to help bring 40,000 Afghan refugees to Canada and is intended for vulnerable groups including women leaders, persecuted religious or ethnic minorities, LGBTQ people and journalists.

The online criteria for the other program, which is aimed at interpreters and others who helped Canada during its military mission as well as embassy staff, still allows those inside Afghanistan to apply.

When the government first announced the special humanitarian program in August, it said it would apply to those outside Afghanistan, but it ultimately included those stuck inside the war-torn country in its online criteria.

Canada was the first country worldwide to  launch a special pathway to Canada for women, girls, LGBTQ and targeted minorities in Afghanistan.

Groups working with Afghans trying to flee the country said the change to the program’s eligibility criteria on Canada’s official website would sow confusion and desperation among Afghans hoping to come to Canada.

It could drive Afghans to resort to people smugglers to get outside the country in order to qualify, they warned.

Alex Cohen, a spokesman for Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino, said Canada was “the first country in the world to announce a humanitarian program for Afghan refugees, which will see some 40,000 refugees start new lives in this country.”

The humanitarian initiative, he said, requires refugees to have left their country of origin to be consistent with the 1951 UN Convention on Refugees.

He said the government is “adapting our programs to the evolving situation in Afghanistan, and have added a provision to enable two new partner organisations to refer exceptional cases of individuals who are inside Afghanistan.”

“We regularly review IRCC’s public communications to ensure they reflect our policies and provide the best possible information to applicants, and update them accordingly,” he said. “The edit to our website was a communications change, not reflective of a policy shift.”

Stephen Watt of Northern Lights Canada, a refugee organization, said the government’s plan to bring 40,000 Afghans to Canada has been wrapped in secrecy ever since it was announced.

“There is still no clear way to apply to the program, or to discover who it is accepting or how it is operating,” he said. “This is a life and death question for many of the people we are talking to within Afghanistan.

“Our government needs to come clean about its plans for these very vulnerable people who it promised to help in the heat of the election, and provide a clear path for providing that help. This isn’t a time for empty promises and secret processes.”

Canada ended its airlift mission from Kabul near the end of August as the U.S. was completing its own withdrawal from the country. Thousands of people with permission to travel to Canada were left behind — including Canadian citizens.

Since the Taliban seized control, it has been increasingly difficult to get people out.

Wendy Noury Long, director of the Afghan Interpreters Association, said she feared that government’s change to its criteria, made in mid October, would drive desperate Afghans to go to extreme lengths to get out of the country so they qualify.

“People will be thinking how do I get out? Do I contact human smugglers? Countries are actively deporting people back to Afghanistan,” she said.

“This is a policy change. This is the explanation of whether you qualify. You are taking a huge risk to try to get out to another country and you might find yourself deported back to Afghanistan.”

The humanitarian program Canada set up to help Afghans at risk has strict eligibility criteria. To qualify, Afghans must also be a woman leader, a human rights advocate, a member of a persecuted religious or ethic minority, in the LGBTQ community, or a journalist or someone who has helped Canadian journalists. As of mid October, they must be located outside Afghanistan.

Those who fit these criteria need to register for refugee status through existing refugee programs, with the United Nations Refugee Agency or the government where they live, and wait to be referred. They can also be identified as eligible by a private sponsor.

Around 3,700 Canadians and Afghan refugees, including former interpreters, were airlifted out by Canada before the end of August.

Approximately 1,700 interpreters and other Afghans with papers to come to Canada are currently in safehouses in Kabul. Some safehouses, being run by an NGO and funded by veterans and private donations, face closure within weeks because of lack of funding.

Source: Online criteria for Afghan refugee program changes, applies only to those who’ve fled

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Australian voters rethinking immigration in wake of extended border closures, poll suggests

2021/10/27 Leave a comment

Interesting shifts:

Australia’s prolonged international border closure appears to have lowered the political temperature around immigration, with the number of voters believing levels are too high dropping from 56% in January 2019, and 64% the year before that, to 37% in the latest Guardian Essential survey.

While the pandemic has shifted the dynamics of the debate, the latest poll of 1,781 respondents suggests immigration remains a divisive issue. Migration is back on the political agenda because both the federal and state governments have flagged a rethink of the size and mix of Australia’s migration program once the border reopens.

In the latest Guardian Essential survey, more than half of respondents (52%) say migration levels are either too low or about right, while 37% say too high, and 11% are undecided. Just over half the sample (51%) agrees that immigration is vital for Australia’s business and economy (20% are opposed that view).

But 63% of respondents also believe that increasing immigration levels would add more pressure on the housing system and infrastructure (only 11% disagreed).

While half the Guardian Essential sample (50%) thinks boosting immigration will help businesses recover from the economic shock of the pandemic by giving them the skilled labour they need (22% disagree) – a majority of respondents are evidently not convinced that immigration helps Australia deal with skills shortages as the population ages (only 49% agree with that proposition and 22% disagreed).

Source: Australian voters rethinking immigration in wake of extended border closures, poll suggests

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Douglas Todd: What do Indigenous voices say about immigration?

2021/10/26 Leave a comment

Some interesting voices. A more comprehensive survey would be of interest:

As a First Nations leader, what would you think of Canada’s immigration policy?

“It’s a bit late to ask that question,” answers Tsawwassen First Nations Chief Ken Baird, with a wry smile.

Indeed, Canada’s Indigenous people have never really been asked how they feel about immigration policy, despite experiencing wave after wave of newcomers.

A small number of First Nations leaders over the years, however, have said they want more influence in shaping immigration. There came a point more than a decade ago when the Assembly of First Nations resolved to “freeze all immigration coming into Canada until the federal government addresses, commits, and delivers resources to improve housing conditions, education, health and employment in First Nations communities.”

But not much came of the Assembly’s demand. Immigration policy in Canada continues to be made mostly behind closed doors, particularly in the Prime Minister’s Office.

First Nations are often said to be in a double-bind when it comes to the issue of large-scale immigration, which has shaped Canada more than most nations.

“Regarding immigration, Aboriginal peoples are caught between a rock and a hard place,” academics Bonita Lawrence, a member of the Mi’kmaq Nation, and Enaskhi Dua have said. Either Indigenous people become implicated in anti-immigration rhetoric, they said, “or they support struggles of people of colour that fail to take seriously the reality of ongoing colonization.”

Outstanding questions are many: How does increasing Indigenous self-determination fit with immigration? And how does it connect to official multiculturalism, which supports the thriving of all of Canada’s subcultures? Should an umbrella organization for the country’s 1.6 million Indigenous people help set immigration levels, as Quebec does?

While the Tsawwassen First Nation’s elected chief says Indigenous people, like others, have a wide range of views about immigration, he is personally mostly sanguine about it.

“I’m all for people who want to come here and work hard and build themselves a life and have good family values. And 99 per cent of immigrants do. And I think that’s pretty admirable,” Baird said.

While Baird is among the First Nations leaders who don’t intend to push on immigration issues, University of B.C. sociologist Rima Wilkes and colleagues have made public presentations in which they ask questions about immigration and Indigenous peoples. Their questions are designed to urge Ottawa to take First Nations perspectives more seriously.

“What does it mean to settle people on someone else’s land?” Wilkes asks in a presentation. “Why is there ‘consultation’ (with First Nations) on natural resources such as mining, oil and gas and timber, but not on the human resources such as immigration policy? What about real decision-making?”

Veteran B.C. Indigenous leader Bill Wilson, who helped found the First Nations Summit, has said he is open to most forms of immigration, particularly for refugees.

When asked about immigration, the member of northern Vancouver Island’s Kwak’wala-speaking peoples, who is also father of former Liberal cabinet minister Jody Wilson-Raybould, told a story about the late Vancouver Sun aboriginal affairs reporter Ron Rose, with whom he became close friends.

“It may have very well been Ron Rose asking me the same question (in the 1980s): ‘What do I think about immigration and the people coming in?’” said the blunt-talking hereditary chief. “I said to him, ‘Well, at least the colour is getting better. He and I laughed. And he said, ‘You’re an a–hole.’ And then we moved on.”

The citizenship exam that is required of all new immigrants, Wilson believes, should include more on Indigenous history in Canada.

“I don’t have any problem with people coming to this country. But what I object to is they’re not required to understand the history,” he said. “Hopefully they could start to embrace some of the laws we are finally resorting to as a country in terms of (Indigenous peoples’) relationship to the land and the water and the sea resources.”

The First Nations lawyer believes a portion of new immigrants, the majority of whom are now non-white, “are basically oblivious to Indigenous issues” at the same time they are becoming more influential. “WASPS are obviously becoming a minority and losing a great deal of their power.”

Baird, who worked as a fisher and water-system specialist before becoming chief of the self-governing Tsawwassen First Nation, believes the coming together of Indigenous people with early settlers and immigrants has “turned us all into minorities in a way. And that’s a good thing.”

Although some wonder whether Canada’s official multiculturalism policy ignores the special status of First Nations, Baird said, “I don’t see a problem with it. At the end of the day, we all want to be treated equal and have the same rights and prosperous lives. And your colour and blood and race and religion shouldn’t matter. That’s part of being in a free country.”

Wilson values bringing in more refugees, but he questions the country’s immigrant-investor programs, both national and provincial, which have urged wealthy foreign nationals to gain Canadian passports by promising to divert money into the economy.

Wilson strongly opposed such “selective citizenship,” saying “money-backed immigration is not sincere and it’s not necessary.” But “accepting refugees makes sense,” he said, because their inclusion “is based on need.”

Although Wilson generally agrees First Nations should get more say in immigration policy, especially over their own traditional territories, he is not sure how that would work.

“How do you implement that? We have a multiplicity of tribes. There are 27 separate tribes in the province of B.C. alone.”

When it comes to questions of Canada’s Indigenous peoples and immigration, the conversation is only beginning.

Source: Douglas Todd: What do Indigenous voices say about immigration?

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Ibbitson: No one considers Canada’s immigration record to be a big deal, and that’s remarkable

2021/10/25 Leave a comment

Correct, even if more discussion about the advisability of such an expansionist approach is needed.

But is is striking that the latest Focus Canada survey by the Environics Institute shows remarkable stability in Canadian generally positive attitudes regarding immigration despite a difficult pandemic year:

With a little more than two months to go, Canada is comfortably on track to meet its goal of welcoming 401,000 new permanent residents this year, despite closed borders and other pandemic restrictions.

That Canada is on the cusp of achieving such a goal in such times is remarkable. Even more remarkable is that no one seems to consider this a big deal.

“We’re in the home stretch,” Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino told me. “Our goal of landing 401,000 new permanent residents in 2021 is well within sight.”

And the Liberal government remains committed to setting immigration records every year, with 411,000 new arrivals slated for 2022 and 421,000 in 2023. Canada is now taking in well in excess of 1 per cent of its population of 38.5 million annually.

The Immigration department has been meeting these targets by converting temporary workers, graduated international students and asylum claimants already in Canada to permanent residents. Those measures, however, are winding down. Visa offices are open once again around the world and fully vaccinated travellers are allowed to enter Canada.

The COVID-19 pandemic revealed hard truths. One is that some of Canada’s most essential workers aren’t in high tech or trades; they’re supermarket workers and truck drivers and others who keep the wheels turning. Immigration policy must recognize their importance.

Another is that immigration will account even more for labour-force growth after the pandemic than it has in the past. Canada’s total fertility rate in 2016 was 1.6, short of the 2.1 children per woman needed to keep a population stable. Today it’s down to 1.4.

Don Kerr, a specialist of demography at King’s College at the University of Western Ontario, shared with me data on fertility rates by census metropolitan area, based on Statistics Canada’s 2020 birth data. Many major cities have fertility rates below the national average.

Vancouver’s fertility is 1.09, comparable to the ultra-low fertility rates of Pacific countries such as Japan and South Korea, while Victoria has fallen to a remarkable low of 0.95. Edmonton (1.41), Calgary (1.33) and Montreal (1.41) are at or close to the national average, but Toronto is only at 1.21, and Halifax is at 1.1.

“Canadian women are delaying their first birth further and further, having fewer children and opting for childlessness to a greater extent than ever before,” Prof. Kerr observed. Thirty-two out of 33 census metropolitan areas saw a decline in fertility over the past decade, even prior to the pandemic.

“Canada’s natural increase is at an unprecedented low,” said Prof. Kerr. “If the smaller cohorts to follow the millennials continue with this very low fertility, we can expect even fewer births.”

If so, then immigration is the only route to filling labour shortages and sustaining the economy. The good news is that new polling data provided to The Globe and Mail by the Environics Institute and Century Initiative show that attitudes toward immigration remain positive and stable.

Sixty-five per cent of those polled disagreed with the statement: “Immigration levels are too high.” Only 29 per cent agreed. Flipped around, 57 per cent agreed that “Canada needs more immigrants to increase its population” (37 per cent disagreed) and 80 per cent agreed/16 per cent disagreed that “the economic impact of immigration is positive.”

(The survey was based on landline and cellphone interviews with 2,000 Canadians from Sept. 7-23, and has a posted margin of error of 2.2 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.)

In the recent federal election, every major national party supported an open immigration policy. Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party, which would ratchet the numbers down, received 5 per cent of the vote, but even that modest level of support was probably based mainly on the party’s opposition to vaccine mandates.

Far from opposing immigration, provinces such as Ontario are asking Ottawa to increase the numbers they can bring in under the provincial nominee program.

Mr. Mendicino may or may not remain as Immigration Minister after a new cabinet is sworn in Oct. 26. His and other departments struggled to extricate Canadians and those who had served Canada when the Taliban swept to power in Afghanistan in August.

But overall the country’s immigration performance on this minister’s watch has been impressive. And Canadians should congratulate themselves on remaining an open and welcoming society, even as so many others have closed their doors.

Source: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-no-one-considers-canadas-immigration-record-to-be-a-big-deal-and-thats/

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USA: Criminal Illegal Immigration Rates Fall Along the Border

2021/10/25 Leave a comment

Of note:

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) just announced that they have encountered 1,431,179 people out of 1,960,519 total enforcement actions in FY2021 along the borders of the United States. When it comes to immigration enforcement, the two components of CBP are the Office of Field Operations and the Border Patrol. Relative to the 478,648 individuals encountered by CBP in FY2020, the number of individuals encountered is up by a factor of three in FY2021. Although the number of individuals encounters by CBP rose enormously in FY2021, the rate of criminals among them dropped to new lows.

CBP defines criminal noncitizens (they used to be called criminal aliens) as individuals who are not U.S. citizens and who have been convicted of crimes here or abroad if the conviction is for conduct which is also a crime in the United States. The CBP data also include noncitizens and U.S. citizens who are arrested as a result of being wanted by other law enforcement agencies. So as to not exclude any criminal illegal immigrants through unintentional omission, this blog post counts all apprehensions of criminals by CBP as noncitizen illegal immigrants. This results in an overcount of illegal immigrant criminals, but it’s better to make errors that overcount illegal immigrant criminality rather than errors that undercount it. In 2016, about 6.4 percent of all illegal immigrant individuals encountered by CBP were criminals. In FY2021, only about 1.9 percent of illegal immigrants apprehended by CBP were criminals (Figure 1).

The absolute number of criminal illegal immigrants encountered by CBP also fell from FY2016 to FY2021, but not in every year. In FY2016, CBP encountered 38,758 criminals out of approximately 607,761 individuals encountered. In FY 2021, CBP encountered 28,213 criminals out of 1,431,179 total illegal immigrants encountered. During that time, the number of illegal immigrants encountered by CBP increased by 236 percent and the number of criminals encountered fell by over 27 percent. In some of the intervening years, the absolute number of criminal illegal immigrants rose, but it generally trended downward.

It’s remarkable that such a vast increase in the number of illegal immigrants apprehended in FY2021 included a lower percentage of criminals than earlier years. Perhaps the supply of criminal illegal immigrants seeking to enter the United States is relatively inelastic and massive changes in the number of individuals seeking to enter unlawfully or ask for asylum are non‐​criminals. In other words, reforms in U.S. immigrant policy that could attract more illegal immigrants or changes in foreign conditions that prompt mass migration do not seem to much affect the flow of criminals.

Many Americans want to keep the border closed, increase harsh border security methods, or restrict asylum because they fear that those encountered are criminals. Based on data supplied by CBP, the criminal illegal immigrant proportion of all encounters along the border are lower in FY2021 than in previous years despite the large increase in the number of encounters. Illegal immigration is a serious problem that imposes high costs on Americans and migrants, but it does not pose a serious criminal threat.

Source: Criminal Illegal Immigration Rates Fall Along the Border

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