Does COVID-19 mean the age of global migration is over?

2020/08/18 Leave a comment

Good overview of one of the more significant papers on immigration post-COVID by Alain Gamien that policy makers need to consider and reflect upon:

Is the age of migration coming to an end?

For decades, easy air travel, globalization and international competition for talent in some sectors have made the growing movement of people around the world seem unstoppable.

Until now.

With the pandemic leading to less demand for skilled labour, a smaller aging population to support, and a proliferation of travel restrictions, the future of human migration looks pretty grim post-COVID-19.

“We have had the migration boom, now we are heading into the bust,” said Alan Gamlen, a human geographer at Monash University in Australia and author of a new paper about the outlook of migration, Migration and mobility after the 2020 pandemic: The end of an age?

If Canada’s immigration numbers between April and June — the first full quarter under the influence of the pandemic — are any indication of what is to come, things don’t bode well.

According to a new study to be released later this week by the Association for Canadian Studies, the number of permanent residents admitted to Canada dropped by 64 per cent to 34,260 in the second quarter of 2020, compared to 94,275 during the same period last year.

Those who came under the skilled economic class fell a whopping 52 per cent to 24,805 from 51,665; the family class is down 78 per cent to 5,990 from 27,080; and resettled refugees and protected persons declined by 83 per cent to just 2,685 from 14,570.

While much of that is due to border closures, experts say it’s not immediately clear if the downward trend will be totally reversed once travel restrictions are eased.

In his paper, released in August as part of the International Organization for Migration’s “think series,” Gamlen posed ten key questions that guide future migration and mobility trends.

The No. 1 question on the list is whether countries will need less labour migration.

Unemployment has skyrocketed during the pandemic. With corporate borrowing at a historic high, Gamlen said many companies now lack the revenue to service debt and are either folding or cutting staff.

The net result will be a reduction in demand for migrant labour, with a large pool of unemployed domestic workers and mounting political pressure to hire them over migrant workers.

“It is hard to find grounds for much optimism regarding the short- to medium-term outlook,” Gamlen told the Star.

“We will continue to see dependence on migrant labour in certain sectors of the economy, particularly at the high and low ends of the skills spectrum. This is because some sectors involve work that native workers can’t or won’t do, and because innovation will remain a key driver of prosperity.”

Further complicating the forecast is the uneven death toll COVID-19 has taken on the elderly population, a group that’s particularly vulnerable to the virus as seen in the death rates around the world.

“If high mortality rates persist until a vaccine can be mass produced, the overall death toll could amount to a significant portion of the elderly cohort,” said Gamlen, a long-standing research associate at Oxford University’s Centre on Migration, Policy and Society.

“If the pandemic devastates a specific generation, it will affect long-term dependency ratios and dynamics of demographic transition. It could reduce the proportion of dependent elderly people in the population and the financial cost of aged care, while generating a boom of babies conceived in lockdown.”

Places where people can move freely to another country by choice will likely see a decline in those rates as they put their migration plan on hold, but the traditional labour-sending countries in the developing world will see a “buildup” of people longing to leave their homelands, said Gamlen.

“The interaction of these changing flows from different places will, I think, lead to a period of unstable, non-linear changes in migration patterns,” he argued.

“The overall volume will decrease, but flows might be less predictable — like when you turn the kitchen tap halfway off, and the water starts spraying out sideways instead of flowing nicely down into the sink.”

Gamlen said it’s inevitable that the numbers of people crossing borders, especially on a permanent and long-term basis, will fall further before they bounce back — if they ever do.

“A huge amount depends on how governments manage all this. They will have a lot of control over when and how borders start to reopen and their choices in this regard will affect both the recovery timeline from the pandemic and from the economic crisis,” he said.

“Opening too early could reignite the spread of the virus. Opening too late could stifle growth and lead to a new era of closed-shop nationalism — which has ended very badly in the past.”

In its immigration study, the Association for Canadian Studies polled 1,531 Canadians between July 31 and August 2 about their attitude to immigration. Forty-six per cent of respondents still believed immigration would have a very positive or somewhat positive impact on Canada while 26 per cent of people held the opposite view.

Given the pandemic, 36 per cent of the respondents said Ottawa should prioritize the admission of those with family members in Canada, followed by refugees (16%), temporary foreign workers (12%), skilled immigrants (8%) and international students (7%).

Jack Jedwab, the academic association’s president, said whether the pandemic will mark the end of migration depends on how long the contagion lasts.

“Canadians seem comfortable with the reduced numbers and are still positive about the impact of immigration and committed to immigration as a strategy for medium to long term economic growth,” Jedwab said.

“But it is not clear when the medium term will occur. The contagion does not provide us with a time frame. There will be a need to reassess the needs regarding immigration given the economic uncertainty and what the changing circumstances call for.”

Source: https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2020/08/17/does-covid-19-mean-the-age-of-global-migration-is-over.html

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‘Why not us?’: Asylum seekers on COVID-19 front lines demand permanent residency

2020/08/17 Leave a comment

All too predictable, the understandable debates over who’s in and who’s out, which happens with respect to most government programs, whether immigration or other:

Doll Jean Frejus Nguessan Bi says he couldn’t sleep at all last night.

The asylum seeker from Ivory Coast works as a security guard in hospitals and long-term care homes in the Montreal area, where he watched many of his colleagues stop coming in as deaths linked to COVID-19 began to mount this spring.

But while Nguessan Bi kept working, he said he found out Friday that he would be excluded from a new government program to fast-track the permanent residency applications of some asylum seekers working on the front lines during the pandemic.

“Why (not) us? We who gave our hearts and our love… Why are we abandoned?” he said in an interview at a protest camp across the street from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Montreal riding office Saturday. “What did we do to deserve this?”

Ottawa announced Friday that asylum seekers working in specific jobs in the health-care sector would be eligible for permanent residency without first having to wait for their asylum claims to be accepted, as is typically the process.

Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino said the move came in response to public demand for so-called “Guardian Angels” — many in Quebec — to be recognized for their work.

“They demonstrated a uniquely Canadian quality in that they were looking out for others and so that is why is today is so special,” Mendicino said in an interview Friday afternoon.

But asylum seekers and their supporters say Ottawa’s plan excludes thousands of workers without permanent status in Canada who have laboured on the front lines during the pandemic, often at great personal risk to themselves and their families.

That includes security guards and janitorial staff, factory workers, and farm labourers, among others.

“I have friends who worked with me in security that abandoned (their posts) because they were afraid of getting infected. But I stayed,” said Nguessan Bi.

He said he wants Trudeau and Quebec Premier Francois Legault to do something to help asylum seekers who are not eligible for the new program.

Several dozen people rallied in front of Trudeau’s office on Saturday to demand permanent residency for all asylum seekers.

“It’s an act of recognition. They deserve status,” Joseph Clormeus, a member of Debout pour la dignite, a Montreal advocacy group that organized the rally, told the crowd.

Anite Presume, a Haitian asylum seeker who came to Quebec in August 2017 from the United States, was among the protesters.

She works in a medication factory, and said she kept working during the pandemic despite the risks.

“To take the bus, we were all stressed, but we still went to work because it was essential. They needed medication for the hospitals,” she said in an interview.

She said she has not received a response yet to her application for asylum in Canada, and lives under a cloud of uncertainty and stress about her future.

“It’s a feeling of rejection,” Presume said, about not being included in Ottawa’s regularization program. “They rejected us as if we did nothing.”

To apply for residency under the new program, applicants must have claimed asylum in Canada prior to March 13 and have spent no less than 120 hours working as an orderly, nurse or another designated occupation between the date of their claim and Aug. 14.

They must also demonstrate they have six months of experience in the profession before they can receive permanent residency and have until the end of August 2021 to meet that requirement.

The program was the result of negotiations between the federal government and Quebec, who have had a strained relationship on the question of immigration, and in particular the asylum claimants, in recent years.

Public support has been building for asylum seekers’ demand for permanent residency after it was revealed that refugee claimants were among those toiling in Quebec’s long-term care facilities, which were hard-hit by COVID-19.

Source: ‘Why not us?’: Asylum seekers on COVID-19 front lines demand permanent residency

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COVID-19 Impact on Immigration to Canada: June 2020 update

2020/08/17 Leave a comment

The deck examines the impact of COVID-19 on immigration to Canada: Permanent Residents, Temporary Workers, Students, Citizenship and Visitor Visas updated with June data and web data for key programs.
Key observations:
  • Immigration continued bounce back compared to May and overall quarter save for TRs
  • PRs: From 10,950 in May to 19,180. June Year-over-year decline: Greater gap between Economic only -22.6% compared to Family -69.0%, Refugees -80.2%
  • Provincial Nominee Program: Increase from 2,970 in May to 4,940. June Year-over-year decline smaller than May: -30.9%
  • TR to PRs transition: Increase from 5,820 in May to 12,955. Year-over-year increase of 39.8% (i.e., those already in Canada)
  • TRs/IMP: Ongoing decline from 15,700 in May to 13,950. June Year-over-year decline: Agreements -51.0%, Canadian Interests -46.3%
  • TRs/TFWP: Stable— 9,365 in May compared to 9,200. June Year-over-year decline: Caregivers -64.5%, Agriculture -8.9%, Other LMIA -50.1%
  • Students: Decline from 30,785 in May to 16,000. June Year-over-year decrease: 32.8%
  • Citizenship: Increase from virtually none in May (53) to 1,656. June Year-over-year decrease: 92.0%.(2019 monthly average was about 20,000)
  • Visitor Visas: Complete shutdown. China authorizations declined faster and sharper
  • IRCC Website interest (July, Work and study permits, settlement services and citizenship) broadly reflect these trends)

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Quebec farms facing lost profits and rotting harvests due to migrant worker shortage

2020/08/15 Leave a comment

A further reminder of our dependence of foreign seasonal agriculture workers:

Nineteen-year-old Florence Lachapelle was among hundreds of Quebecers who tried their hand at planting seeds and harvesting produce this summer, replacing migrant workers who were unable to leave their countries because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

And while Lachapelle spent long days working the fields on Francois D’Aoust’s farm in Havelock, Que., too few other Quebecers took up the call to help the province’s struggling agricultural industry.

Despite a recruiting drive by the provincial government in April, the lack of labour this season has forced farmers to cut production or leave food rotting in the fields.

Unfortunately for Lachapelle, she fell ill with mononucleosis after two months and returned home to Montreal. She said the work was very demanding with so few migrant workers available.

“They’re professionals and we’re simply not,” Lachapelle said in a recent interview.

D’Aoust said he hired a handful of people to work alongside Lachapelle, who were out of work in other sectors such as communications, film and the restaurant industry. But once their opportunities returned, he said, they left for their better-paying jobs.

“Not a lot of people are used to (physical) work all day,” D’Aoust said in a recent interview. “It’s just not the kind of work that we do. It’s rare that people are in shape and can (work) all day in the field.

“People that are farmers, themselves, in their country, surely they are at an advantage.”

D’Aoust and his wife, Melina Plante, have hired the same four Guatemalan seasonal workers year after year. But this year the farmhands were stuck at home at the beginning of Quebec’s farming season due to travel restrictions their country imposed to limit the spread of COVID-19.

He said it takes inexperienced Quebecers up to three times as long to do farm work compared to a migrant worker. That meant he had to pay locals to do less work, eating into his profits.

D’Aoust slashed production at his farm, Les Bontes de la Vallee, by 60 per cent this year because he and his wife figured they would only have migrant workers later in the harvest season.

Two Guatemalan workers eventually made it on D’Aoust and Plante’s farm — but the financial damage to the business was done. “What we hope is to pass through this difficult period without too much loss and start again next year,” he said. “We just want to stay alive.”

For Michel Ricard, who owns 60 hectares of farmland in Saint-Alexis-de-Montcalm, about 60 kilometres north of Montreal, he said he’s going to lose a lot money and food this year because migrant workers from Mexico and Guatemala haven’t been able to arrive.

By the end of August, Ricard said he expects to lose approximately $100,000 dollars worth of cucumbers because he has no one to pick them.

Experienced foreign workers are “essential for the future, for me, and for the majority of growers of vegetables,” he said in a recent interview.

“The people from Guatemala are able to work from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. It’s not a problem. Sometimes I need to stop them because they want to continue, but sometimes I say ‘that’s enough for today.'”

Local workers haven’t been much help to him, he said. Ricard had his daughter post a message on Facebook to reach out to prospective farmhands, but he said only eight came through for him.

“It was impossible,” Ricard said.

The Union des producteurs agricoles, which represents about 42,000 Quebec farmers, says there are close to 2,000 fewer migrant workers on Quebec farms than usual. Despite the UPA’s efforts to lure Quebec workers through a recruiting drive, just under 1,400 were assigned to Quebec farms this year.

“It didn’t replace, really, the foreign workers,” UPA President Marcel Groleau said in a recent interview. “It helped on some issues … but those workers are not trained and can’t really replace the foreign workers that are trained and have experience on farms.”

Farmers such as D’Aoust and Ricard say migrant farmhands are willing to work longer hours, even for minimal pay.

Groleau said the federal government’s emergency response benefit, which offers up to $2,000 a month to many people who have lost jobs, has encouraged Quebecers to stay away from the gruelling field work.

“When you can get two thousand dollars a month sitting at home,” Groleau said, “it’s not really interesting to go on a farm and work a little bit for minimum wage.”

Source: Quebec farms facing lost profits and rotting harvests due to migrant worker shortage

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Conservative Party can lead on anti-racism policy—a blueprint

2020/08/12 Leave a comment

Apart from some of the usual partisan sniping regarding other parties (undermines their arguments), some useful and practical policy suggestions:

It can be argued that two topics leading discussions in 2020 are COVID-19 and racism, particularly anti-Black racism. While these discussions around anti-Black racism have been loudest in the U.S, Canada has not escaped the calls to address the systemic issues that exist here.

In a recent interview with the Globe and Mail, former prime minister Brian Mulroney discussed the need for Canadian political leaders to rethink current practices to address the economic damage of COVID-19 and the prevalence of systemic racism, especially Canada’s treatment of Indigenous people. His recommendations prioritize strong economic and social policies including a dramatic increase in immigration.

It is unfortunate conservative values do not first come to mind when reflecting upon best practices to address systemic racism.

The Association of Black Conservatives believe that a Conservative Party anti-racism framework which includes bold economic and social policies is achievable. In order to address systemic racism, we must discuss the Conservative Party’s policies on immigration, the economy, education, cultural outreach and data collection.

The Conservative Party can no longer afford to have its immigration policies defined by opponents who are able to paint an inaccurate picture of the party’s stance on immigration. While the Harper era increased the length of time required to become a Canadian citizen, Jason Kenney, Canada’s longest serving immigration minister, welcomed the highest number of permanent residents under any minister.

Increasingly, immigrants have come to Canada as skilled economic migrants. In developing an immigration policy, the Conservative Party should look at legislation which does away with employers’ ability to request “Canadian experience” as this discriminates against immigrants. We have heard first-hand stories from newcomers facing difficulties gaining professional employment due to the Canadian experience requirement, and would encourage collecting more formal data on this.

In addition, there must be a discussion on Foreign Credential Recognition (FCR) for newcomers. The Conference Board of Canada estimates that $17 billion could be generated in the Canadian economy if newcomers could work in their respective fields of interest and/or study. Easing these systemic barriers will have positive results for Canada. Various provinces have taken steps to address this.

Most recently, Alberta passed Bill 11, the Fair Registration Practices Act, which will not only speed up the process for getting credentials recognized, but also ensure registration practices are transparent, objective and fair. Policies like this should be replicated at the national level.

Left-leaning parties respond to what they perceive as the core concerns(immigration and social issues) of visible minority communities with symbolism.

This is illustrated by Alberta NDP MLA David Shepherd when he was asked about what initiatives the Alberta NDP undertook to address police carding. He responded by acknowledging they did not take the necessary steps to address carding however, they “worked to empower these communities and to lift them up, to include them in the $25-a-day daycare, to make sure they had the opportunity to access grants, to make sure that they had the opportunity to sit with us and tell us what they needed”.

In response to the anti-racism protests of 2020, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau bowed a knee but offered no substantive actions to address the issues. This is in contrast to Alberta, where Justice Minister Doug Schweitzer committed to speed up the review and modernization of the Police Act and address the lingering issues of systemic racism, such as carding.

In reality, racialized communities are just as concerned with economic issues as other Canadians. The backbone of the Black and other visible minority communities in Canada is small business especially in industries like professional, retail and food services. As such, the Conservative Party needs to contemplate small business funding programs that target visible minority communities.

Education is an important topic for all Canadians. About one-third of the population lives with children at home, this is the same for minority groups. A 2016 Statistics Canada survey on education and labour market integration of Black youth in Canada found that among Black youth aged 15 to 25, 94 per cent of them wanted to achieve higher education, but their optimism about what they were expected to achieve dropped to 60 per cent. Contributing factors include socioeconomic status (21 per cent of Black adults are low-income compared to 12 per cent of the rest of the population), lack of representation of Black teachers, and negative attitudes and perceptions of Black students.

For example, in Ontario, this has led to students being discouraged and streamed into “applied” fields when they could easily excel in the “academic” streams. This practice of streaming has heavily disadvantaged Black students. The Conservative government of Ontario recently announced it would end this systemic discriminatory practice. Decisions of this nature will go a long way in opening opportunities for minority communities. In addition, we should look at developing matching grants and scholarships to further reduce barriers and provide greater access to continued education for racialized students.

Representation matters. We can no longer hide under the guise of “identity politics” or the idea that “targets are quotas” and hence, bad. The Conservative Party needs a meaningful and deliberate policy on multiculturalism. The Association of Black Conservatives is one such effort towards encouraging multiculturalism and ethnic outreach; this is a model that should be welcomed and replicated within other minority communities by the party.

The party needs to actively commit to targets to achieve equity, diversity and inclusion starting with party membership, party staff, candidates, political staff and board appointees. There is an argument that doing this means quotas, but this argument falsely assumes that qualified or competent visible minorities candidates do not exist. Not only is this false, but multiple studies, such as a 2020 study by Zuhra Abawi and Ardavan Eizadaridad of Niagara University and Wilfred Laurier University, respectively, have shown that there is a range of biases in hiring practices for racialized candidates, including being far less likely to be called for an interview, compared to their non-visible minority counterparts who have equivalent qualifications and experience. The party needs to adopt policies that are intentional about diversity.

Lastly, Conservatives value evidence-based decision making. Therefore, let’s advocate for better data to inform our policies. Data collection is an important step in being able to identify and address an issue.

Take COVID-19 for example. The Centers for Disease Control  noted “long-standing systemic health and social inequities have put many people from racial and ethnic minority groups at increased risk of getting sick and dying from COVID-19“. Currently, Canada has not collected race-based data for COVID-19, regardless of repeated calls to do so. We’ve recently learned, thanks to the data from the City of Toronto, that 83 per cent of COVID cases in the city are racialized people.

Most Canadians may know that Canadian immigration laws prior to 1962 included racial and other discriminatory provisions. However, most may not know that  it was John Diefenbaker, a Conservative prime minister, who introduced the Bill of Rights in 1960 and thereafter Order-in-Council PC 1962-86, which eliminated all racial discrimination from Canadian immigration laws and instead replaced it with the skilled-based points system which continues until this day.

Conservatives can continue to lead on the issue of anti-racism over the symbolism of left-leaning parties by instituting meaningful policies that empower communities.

Akolisa Ufodike is the chair of the National Council of the Association of Black Conservatives, and Susanna Ally is a board member. Louis Butt is a recent University of Toronto graduate in history and political science. 

Source: Conservative Party can lead on anti-racism policy—a blueprint

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From Jordan to Morden: Iraqi family thrilled to be in Manitoba under new program to resettle skilled refugees

2020/08/11 Leave a comment

Nice story highlighting a family that benefited from the Economic Mobility Pathways Project and Talent Beyond Boundaries:

Mokhles Abdulghani had never heard of Morden, a small community in southern Manitoba, before last spring when he was interviewed by a city official there in search of skilled immigrants.

But the Iraqi refugee quickly fell in love with Morden’s natural beauty and the changing seasons after watching YouTube videos about the city that would soon become his new home.

After spending five years in limbo as refugees in Jordan, Abdulghani, his wife and three children could hardly contain their excitement when they arrived in Morden this weekend.

“We already feel like home in Morden,” the mechanical engineer said Sunday. Still in quarantine, the family could only glimpse their adopted community through the living-room window.

“We can’t wait to start our new life in this country,” said Abdulghani, whose family is the first admitted to Canada under a new program launched by the federal government to resettle skilled refugees to fill the country’s labour gaps.

The Economic Mobility Pathways Project aims to bring 500 skilled workers and their families to Canada over two years, the world’s largest pilot project of its kind. Australia has a similar program and has committed to admitting 100 skilled refugees as permanent residents.

The project is one of the pledges Canada made at the 2019 U.N. Global Refugee Forum to create more pathways for refugees to use their skills as a route out of displacement.

Through the initiative, candidates with skills and knowledge can apply for permanent residence as economic migrants, instead of as resettled refugees sponsored by the federal government and private community groups — a process that can take years.

“Many refugees have immense talent and should have the opportunity, just like other skilled people, to use economic visas to relocate to a secure future. Canada’s work to open these pathways offers a safe and legal new solution for refugees,” said Dana Wagner of Talent Beyond Boundaries, a non-governmental organization that has built a refugee talent pool and is matching candidates with employers from around the world.

“There’s an extraordinary need for new solutions for refugees. Displacement is rising and conditions facing refugees during the pandemic are worsening. Meanwhile, companies in essential sectors like health care and manufacturing are still in critical need of skills. Mokhles and many more like him can be part of Canada’s recovery story.”

In April 2019, Abdulghani, 35, was selected by Morden, a city of less than 10,000 people, which recommended him for the Manitoba provincial immigration nomination program. The city is committed to offering wraparound supports to the families, including job-matching support.

Abdulghani, who has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Technology-Baghdad, said he and his wife Hajir Saad Ghareeb, 27, left Kurdistan in 2015 for Jordan after racism against them and other Sunnis, in particular in Northern Iraq, intensified.

“We were happy in our first year in Amman because we felt safe and nobody would hurt us there,” he said. “But life was very hard. We were refugees and could only work illegally. I worked as a mechanical maintenance engineer at an electrical cable factory. I was earning less than half of what I should have been making in that position.”

Abdulghani applied for scholarships to continue his studies and finally got the financial support of a German Catholic charity to enrol in a master’s program in mechatronics engineering at Philadelphia University in Jordan. He graduated in February.

“I was working fulltime and studying fulltime, and maybe had two hours of sleep each day,” he recalled. “But when you have no hope, you do anything to rebuild your life. You use every drop of energy to keep going. You don’t care if you are tired or not.”

The family was thrilled when they received their Canadian permanent residence visas on March 15, almost a year after they were initially picked by the city of Morden. Then two days later, Jordan closed down its airport to international flights amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Finally, in early August, the family learned they would board a Canadian repatriation flight that departed Friday and arrived in Winnipeg late Saturday, after hours of stopovers in Istanbul and Montreal.

Abdulghani has already had two online interviews for jobs in Morden and nearby Winkler. He is also planning to take a doctoral degree after learning about the University of Manitoba’s renowned biomedical engineering program.

“It’s been an amazing first day in Morden for us,” said Abdulghani, who has yet to meet anyone other than a cab driver who was sent by the city to guide his rental car to their new home Saturday, where they are under quarantine. (Officials have filled the fridge in their apartment with food.) “We are still living this moment. We can’t believe we are here.”

According to Talent Beyond Boundaries, there are now 20,000 refugees registered in its talent database — most of them now living in Jordan and Lebanon. Fifty-seven have been shortlisted for Canada’s new project. Ontario, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia and Yukon have also signed on to participate in the program.

Source: From Jordan to Morden: Iraqi family thrilled to be in Manitoba under new program to resettle skilled refugees

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Case of woman wrongly accused of spying for Russia requires ministerial review, intelligence expert says

2020/08/11 Leave a comment

Pretty fundamental mix-up along with unwillingness to consider an error, until forced by the courts. Wark’s point regarding the systemic weaknesses sting:

Most Canadians seem to have an extraordinary — sometimes naive — faith that if they tell the truth, their government will do the right thing, come to the right conclusion, or make the right decision.

It is one of those charming, but also maybe alarming aspects of our character.

David and Elena Crenna certainly fell into that category at the beginning of their bizarre six-year legal odyssey that saw the Canada Border Services Agency’s war crimes investigation unit accuse Elena, a former Russian translator, of being a post-Cold War spy.

The Liberal government quietly abandoned its case against her last month after a Federal Court judge essentially challenged justice department lawyers and border agency officials to read the legal and dictionary definition of espionage.

“I am unable to reasonably find any reason to believe the applicant was engaged in anything secret, clandestine, surreptitious or covert,” Federal Court Justice Henry Brown ruled in April.

Crenna had previously been deemed inadmissible to Canada by an immigration adjudicator who sided with a Canadian Border Agency assessment that concluded she helped the Russian security service spy.

Governments talk a lot today fighting disinformation, particularly Russian and Chinese online attacks and smears, but abjectly fail to appreciate that lying to sow discord and lying to save one’s skin is a time-honoured, well-honed tradition of spies, according to one of Canada’s leading intelligence experts.

More that, there is a dearth of institutional knowledge, understanding and significantly an appreciation of recent history within federal officialdom, said Wesley Wark, a professor at the University of Ottawa.

He is withering in his criticism of Crenna’s case, and frightened by its implications.

‘A ruthless waste of time’

“This isn’t just a minor case of bureaucracy gone slightly astray,” Wark said in an interview. “I think it is a major case of a bureaucracy that just didn’t know how to operate in the face of these kinds of threats. We need to be able to distinguish between what’s real and what’s not.”

The federal case against Elena Crenna — which Wark described as “a ruthless waste of time” — rested on the dubious word of a now-dead Russian defector.

While doing translation and marketing for a humanitarian housing project in Tver, Russia, the former Elena Filatova said she was approached by an agent of SVR (formerly known as the KGB and later the FSB) who wanted to know what the Canadians were doing.

It is a major case of a bureaucracy that just didn’t know how to operate in the face of these kinds of threats. We need to be able to distinguish between what’s real and what’s not.– Wesley Wark, one of Canada’s top intelligence experts

She did, with the full knowledge and support of her boss, now husband, David Crenna, who said he and Elena were obliged to be transparent with Russian authorities to avoid having the translation project shut down. The pair eventually married in 2012.

Elena Crenna told CBC News in the spring that she never passed along secret information about project she was working on, and did not covertly gather intelligence.

Years later, a FSB defector wrote a tell-all book that alleged a Canadian disarmament program in the 1990s had been penetrated by Russian intelligence.

Without naming either David or Elena Crenna, Sergei Tretyakov claimed Russian intelligence had set a “honey trap” to collect information about the project, referring to the relationship that developed between the Crennas.(In intelligence circles, a honey trap is an operation that uses sex or romantic entanglements to trick or blackmail targets into giving up information.)

Canadian and American intelligence officials, including CSIS and the FBI, interviewed the couple and found their version of events credible.

It was only when Canadian immigration officials were about to allow Elena to stay permanently in the country that border services objected using the information the Crennas had truthfully offered up to the agency in interviews.

It was “Kafkaesque,” said Wark, who believes it is imperative that the agency not be allowed to simply walk away from the case without some kind of introspection and review.

“This is more than just a human tragedy because I think the case reveals a lack of expertise within CBSA, which is troubling given that CBSA is responsible for border security risk management, and responsible for administration of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act,” he said. “I think it reveals some considerable dysfunction among the elements of the Canadian government.”

Wark said it demonstrates “a very significant lack of understanding about the nature of espionage threats” and complete “lack of understanding of the historical context that they were looking at in this particular case.”The threats in today’s world are too serious and complex for border services to make mistakes of this kind in the future, he said.

Wark is calling on Public Safety Minister Bill Blair to institute a review of how the case was handled. Failing that, he is recommending that the National Security Intelligence Review Agency or even the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians look at what happened.

Canada Border Services has routinely declined comment on the case, citing privacy.

For his part, David Crenna doesn’t want to see all of the agency turned upside down — just the war crimes unit that initiated the case against his wife.

The federal government must ensure that section of the agency is “equipped and trained and capable of doing the kind of national security job” that is expected of it, he said.

Federal officials fell for allegations ‘hook, line and sinker’

To watch federal officials “swallow hook, line and sinker” the narrative of a Russian defector trained in disinformation was disheartening and somewhat frightening, he said.

“Essentially, we thought this being Canada that if we told the truth and co-operated, they would eventually come to the conclusion that we were telling the truth,” said David Crenna, who must now go through all of the federal paperwork for his wife to be readmitted to Canada.

She has been stuck in the U.S. during the coronavirus pandemic where she had been awaiting the results of the court case.

There is no indication when Elena Crenna will be allowed to return.

Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/russian-spy-case-1.5678875

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Migrant workers have paid their dues and should be given a path to permanent residency

2020/08/06 Leave a comment

In looking at the issues related to migrant workers, it is important to unpack the different categories of these workers, ranging from the more specialized and higher skilled under the International Mobility Program to the smaller group of lower wage more vulnerable agriculture and related industry workers as shown in the chart below.

So while there is a need for stronger and higher regulation of agriculture workers and other vulnerable groups, including better and safer living conditions, the needs are lower for those coming in under the IMP (about 40 percent of IMP are from Europe and USA, in contrast to TFWP where less than 10 percent are).

Some questions. Does one need to grant permanent residency for what is essentially seasonal work in agriculture, or should the focus be on working and living conditions? If granted permanent residency, would agriculture workers remain in the sector? Do we have data on language fluency as an indicator of ease of integration or surveys that give a sense whether some workers prefer the seasonal nature of the work or not?

Canada has expanded its temporary migration system to bring in a steady supply of exploitable and interchangeable migrant workers who are coerced into accepting low wages and miserable working conditions below standards that Canadians would accept. Now, exposure to COVID-19 has been added to the terms of the bargain.

As scholars, researchers, and teachers of immigration in Canada, we urge our government to adopt long overdue measures to end the vulnerability and exploitation of migrant workers—many of whom are now deemed essential. A litany of studies and reports have long documented the adverse health, human rights, economic, and living conditions experienced by migrant workers, particularly among those in “low-wage positions” and in agriculture.

Contracting COVID-19 is just the latest price these essential workers have paid for sustaining Canada’s economy. Since March 2020, in the agricultural sector alone, more than 1,000 migrant workers have contracted COVID-19, and three workers have died. Migrant workers are also heavily represented in meat-packing plants, and long-term care facilities. Migrant workers do not bring the virus to Canada; the virus infects them here, because the system fails to ensure that workers live and work in safe environments.

Canada’s economy has hundreds of thousands of permanent jobs that depend on temporary migrant workers—harvesting crops, caring for children and the elderly, working in construction and meat packing, and a host of jobs across the service sector. Yet, the numbers of “temporary” migrant workers have skyrocketed—driven, unchecked, by employer demand, while governments and sectors spend little resources on protecting the health and safety of migrant workers. And, the system remains unchallenged, in part because workers do not have universal protection of collective bargaining rights, and employers vote; migrant workers do not.

Under numerous temporary worker program streams, Canada has annually rendered some 300,000 migrants a permanent underclass. Most come from the global south. Many are required to leave families behind, and must leave Canada when their visas expire. As a racialized workforce, their precarious position in the country is a marker of systemic racism. Despite their essential contributions to the Canadian economy, most have no direct pathway to permanent residency.

Migrant workers understandably fear retribution if they complain, try to improve their working conditions, seek health care, or attempt labour organizing. For doing so, precarious migrant workers can face abuse, termination of employment, loss of earnings and future employment, loss of status, and deportation.

Now is the perfect time to rectify this wrong. Canadians recognize, as never before, the essential contribution immigrants and migrant workers make to this country. Further, Canada will fall far short of its annual immigration targets due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Canada aimed to admit 340,000 immigrants this year as permanent residents. Only about half that number will actually arrive. Future intake will also lag.

Canada needs permanent resident immigrants to address the challenges of its socio-demographic realities. Low birth rates, an aging population, and rural depopulation mean long-term skills shortages and labour market gaps across the country. Continuing to fill these gaps through temporary intake programs hurts not only migrant workers but also deprives hundreds of smaller communities of revitalization from the immigration advantage of permanent settlement.

It is a popular misconception that Canada does migrant workers a favour by allowing them to work hard, for little money, in hazardous and degrading conditions. The truth is that we are in their debt. We can no longer continue treating this work as essential and the people who do it as dispensable.

Migrant workers have paid their dues to Canada. It’s time for Canada to reciprocate by offering them permanent residency.

Dr. Harald Bauder is a professor and director of the Immigration Settlement and Studies Program, Ryerson University. Dr. Jenna Hennebry is an associate professor, International Migration Research Centre, Balsillie School of International Affairs, Wilfrid Laurier University. Audrey Macklin is a professor, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto. Dr. Myer Siemiatycki, is a professor emeritus and past founding director, Immigration Settlement and Studies Program, Ryerson University.

Source: Migrant workers have paid their dues and should be given a path to permanent residency

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Home Office to scrap ‘racist algorithm’ for UK visa applicants

2020/08/06 Leave a comment

Of note and a reminder that algorithms reflect the views and biases of the programmers and developers, and thus require careful management and oversight:

The Home Office is to scrap a controversial decision-making algorithm that migrants’ rights campaigners claim created a “hostile environment” for people applying for UK visas.

The “streaming algorithm”, which campaigners have described as racist, has been used since 2015 to process visa applications to the UK. It will be abandoned from Friday, according to a letter from Home Office solicitors seen by the Guardian.

The decision to scrap it comes ahead of a judicial review from the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI), which was to challenge the Home Office’s artificial intelligence system that filters UK visa applications.

Campaigners claim the Home Office decision to drop the algorithm ahead of the court case represents the UK’s first successful challenge to an AI decision-making system.

Chai Patel, JCWI’s legal policy director, said: “The Home Office’s own independent review of the Windrush scandal found it was oblivious to the racist assumptions and systems it operates.

“This streaming tool took decades of institutionally racist practices, such as targeting particular nationalities for immigration raids, and turned them into software. The immigration system needs to be rebuilt from the ground up to monitor such bias and to root it out.”

Source: Home Office to scrap ‘racist algorithm’ for UK visa applicants

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The cost of becoming a U.S. citizen just went up drastically. And asylum is no longer free

2020/08/05 Leave a comment

The final increases, with the citizenship fees approaching UK rates:

The Trump administration announced on Friday an exorbitant increase in fees for some of the most common immigration procedures, including an 81% increase in the cost of U.S. citizenship for naturalization. It will also now charge asylum-seekers, which is an unprecedented move.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) published on Friday a final rule in the Federal Register that details the new cost for dozens of immigration and naturalization applications, a further change in immigration policy to curb legal immigration of low-income foreign nationals.

The fees’ adjustment “to ensure U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services recoversits costs of services,” they agency said in a press release, includes a $50 fee in the Application for Asylum and for Withholding of Removal. That will make the United States one of only four countries around the world that charge a fee for humanitarian protection.

The fee to apply for U.S. citizenship through naturalization will increase from $640 to $1,160 if filed online, or $ 1,170 in paper filing.

Other increases will hit petitions for employment authorization — Form I-765, which will go up by 34% to $550 — and for removing conditions on permanent residenceobtained through marriage (Form I-751), which will go up by 28%, from $595 to $760.

USCIS ADJUSTS FEES FOR IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION BENEFIT REQUESTS

The immigration agency cited the increase in operating costs and the decrease in its income to cover expenses as a reason to raise the fees.

According to the statement, the Department of Homeland Security agency adjusted the rates by a weighted average increase of 20% to recover its operating costs and thus avoid a funding shortfall estimated at $1 billion annually.

“USCIS is required to examine incoming and outgoing expenditures and make adjustments based on that analysis,” said Joseph Edlow, USCIS deputy director for policy, in a press release. “These overdue adjustments in fees are necessary to efficiently and fairly administer our nation’s lawful immigration system, secure the homeland and protect Americans.”

USCIS is facing a crippling budget shortfall and has told Congress it urgently needs $1.2 billion in emergency funding due to a drastic decline in green card and other visa applications. Most services were halted on March 18 due to the coronavirus pandemic and the agency resumed in-person services on June 4.

As services have been restored, the DHS agency has reduced the number of appointments and interviews to ensure social distancing rules.

COST HIKES FOR KEY IMMIGRATION PROCESSES

The most drastic rate increase affect work visas, citizenship, permanent legal residence and documents for families or crime victims.

“Fee waivers are almost entirely eliminated, pricing out lower-income applicants for citizenship and various humanitarian protections,” wrote Doug Rand, co-founder of Boundless Immigration, in his Twitter feed.

The regulation, “will increase fees across the board and eliminate most fee waivers, effectively putting a wealth test on immigrant and refugee communities who want to apply,” said Nicole Melaku, executive director of the National Partnership for New Americans, in a press release.

Some of the other immigration forms affected by the rate increase are:

▪ I-131A, Application for Travel Document (Carrier Documentation)

Current fee: $575. Final Fee: $1,110. Percentage change: 76%.

▪ I-881, Application for Suspension of Deportation

Current fee: $285. Final Fee: $1,810. Percentage change: 535%.

▪ I-539, Application To Extend/Change Nonimmigrant Status

Current fee: $370. Final Fee: $400 ($390 for online filing). Percentage change: 8% (5%).

▪ I-929, Petition for Qualifying Family Member of a U-1 Nonimmigrant (Victims of Criminal Activity)

Current fee: $230. Final Fee: $1,485. Percentage change: 546%.

▪ N-470, Application to Preserve Residence for Naturalization Purposes

Current fee: $355. Final Fee: $1,585. Percentage change: 346%.

“This final rule also encourages online filing by providing a $10 reduction in the fee for applicants who submit forms online,” said USCIS.

Source: The cost of becoming a U.S. citizen just went up drastically. And asylum is no longer free

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