Netherlands: Immigration emerges as key 2020 issue as CDA calls for new targets

2020/01/07 Leave a comment

Of note:

The next general election may not be due until March 2021, but immigration is already emerging as a key issue, thanks to various pronouncements by ruling party stalwarts over the Christmas break.

Christian Democrat member and deputy prime minister Hugo de Jonge became the latest to add his voice to the debate at the weekend when he said he backed new limits on immigration. His comments followed the publication of new figures from national statistics agency CBS which showed immigration from European countries was largely responsible for further growth in the population of the Netherlands. De Jonge said in an interview with the NRC that the Netherlands needs extra skills and workers, and that it should continue to take in refugees.

The Netherlands, he said, does extremely well when it comes to solidarity ‘but, if we want to continue in this way, we have to set limits’. De Jonge declined to give exact figures, preferring instead to talk about ‘targets’. Allowing in 80,000 migrants a year is too many, he said ‘if you calculate how that adds up over time’.

Earlier in the break, prime minister Mark Rutte gave an interview to the Telegraaf in which he said that the free movement of people within Europe is coming under pressure because countries on the edge of Europe were failing to differentiate between refugee and economic migrants. ‘They have to stop the second group,’ Rutte said. ‘If that does not happen, then the Schengen agreement has had it.

The main point in Europe next year (2020) will be migration.’ Poland Refugees made up just 6% of the 132,000 total increase in the population last year, the CBS figures show. Most new arrivals are from Poland, followed by Germany and India.

Also last year, ChristenUnie from the government coalition and the opposition Socialists said they wanted to make it possible for the Netherlands to agree deals with Poland, Romania and Bulgaria about how many and what type of worker should be allowed to come and work here.

‘Ukranians are replacing Poles. Poles, sometimes working in poor conditions, are replacing the Dutch. And [Dutch] people on welfare benefits are being written off,’ ChristenUnie leader Gert-Jan Segers said at the time.

Source: Immigration emerges as key 2020 issue as CDA calls for new targets

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Articles of interest over the holidays – India’s Citizenship Act

2020/01/06 Leave a comment

Northern India’s Uttar Pradesh has been the worst affected in the ongoing protests against a controversial new citizenship law. At least 19 people have died in the state since protests began on 20 December. The BBC’s Vikas Pandey travels to the region to find out why it has witnessed such large-scale and violent protests.

The extremely narrow lanes of Babupurwa in Kanpur city lead me to Mohammed Shareef’s home.

He is sitting outside the small tin-roof house. It has just one room which doubles as a kitchen during the day and bedroom at night. He gets up, hugs me and breaks down. Several minutes pass in silence.

“I have lost everything. I have no will to live. What was my son’s fault? Why did the police shoot him?” he says trying to hold back tears.

Source: Citizenship Act protests: Why fear has gripped Muslims in this Indian state

Protests against a new citizenship law in India risk making investors wary of doing business in Asia’s third-largest economy.

At least 25 people have been killed in nationwide demonstrations against the new rules enacted into law earlier this month. The law bars undocumented Muslims from three neighboring nations seeking Indian citizenship, while allowing people of other faiths to do so.

Source: Protests Against India’s Citizenship Law Risk Spooking Investors Away

As India’s new citizenship law seeks to create a stratified citizenship based on religion, a large number of Indians opposing it are emerging as a people of one book, the country’s Constitution, which came into force on Jan. 26, 1950.

In the past two weeks, diverse crowds across the country have responded to the discriminatory Citizenship Amendment Act, referred to as the C.A.A., passed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government by chanting the preamble to the Constitution of India, with its promises of social, political and economic justice, freedom of thought, expression and belief, equality and fraternity.

Student protesters being herded into police vans, opposition leaders standing outside the Indian Parliament and ebullient crowds of tens of thousands in Hyderabad, Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Chennai have read aloud the preamble and held aloft copies of the Constitution and portraits of B.R. Ambedkar, its chief draftsman.

The C.A.A. offers an accelerated pathway to citizenship for Hindu, Sikh, Zoroastrian, Buddhist and Christian migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan but excludes Muslims. It effectively creates a hierarchical system of citizenship determined by an individual’s religion, reminiscent of Myanmar’s 1982 Citizenship Law, which privileged citizenship for “indigenous races,” excluded the Rohingya and paved the ground for the genocidal violence against them.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/27/opinion/india-constitution-protests.html

The recently enacted Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, carves out a special pathway to citizenship for non-Muslim immigrants from some countries. This sort of discrimination against Muslims is popularly thought of as being a relatively recent phenomenon. However, at the founding of India’s republic, the citizenship provisions of the Constitution also discriminated against Muslim immigrants and ma

The Permit System

After the partition of the country, two waves of immigration occurred from West Pakistan to India. In the first wave, which started from March 1, 1947, large numbers of Hindus and Sikhs arrived here. In the second wave in 1948, many Indian Muslims who had migrated to West Pakistan sought to return to India because of poor conditions there, especially in Karachi. This second wave

In April 1948, Nehru acknowledged that the “influx … of Muslims to Delhi and other parts of India from Pakistan has raised certain difficulties”. The following month, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel wrote to Nehru that there was “considerable discontent” among the public in general and refugees in particular about the Indian government’s “failure to prevent the inflow of Muslims from Pakistan.” The return of “these Muslims”, he explained, “while we are not yet able to rehabilitate Hindus and Sikhs from Pakistan… would again be the breeding ground of communal poison, on which activities of organisation[s] like the RSS thrive.” He believed that returning Indian Muslims were “a great source of danger to the peace and security of Delhi”. Nehru replied and said that this was an “undoubtedly serious” matter.

It was against this backdrop that the Indian government introduced a system on July 19, 1948, under which no person could move from West Pakistan into India without a permit issued by the Indian high commission in Karachi or Lahore.

Read more at: https://www.bloombergquint.com/opinion/citizenship-amendment-act-the-unsecular-origins-of-indian-citizenship-by-abhinav-chandrachud

At 24, Indian transgender Ray has already had to fight many battles for recognition and now faces a new threat – losing her citizenship because of controversial new legislation.

The Delhi-based law student – whose official documents identify her as male – is among tens of thousands of people protesting against the legislation and a mooted nationwide citizens’ register, worried that it will render transgender Indians like herself stateless.

Her fears are not unfounded. In September this year, a petition was filed in India’s Supreme Court after around 2,000 transgenders were left off a citizens’ register in the northeastern state of Assam, throwing their future into doubt.

Despite being legally recognised as a third gender in a historic 2014 Supreme Court ruling, they often live on the extreme fringes of Indian society, with many forced into prostitution, begging or menial jobs.

For a community that already faces severe discrimination in conservative India – much of it from their own families – transgenders feel they are at extra risk from legislation pushed by Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi aimed ostensibly at tackling illegal immigration.

Source: India’s transgenders face losing citizenship with new law

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Articles of interest over the holidays – USA

2020/01/06 Leave a comment

Source: Is America About to Suffer Its Weimar Moment?

Political impact

Of all the concerns about immigration, perhaps none is more important to politicians than how immigration affects political control. In particular, many Republicans believe that immigration has clearly boosted the Democratic Party and that higher immigration will obviously doom the GOP. But historically (and recently), congressional Republicans have performed much better during periods when the immigrant share of the population is high. By contrast, Democrats dominated the low immigration periods.

GOP Almost Always Controls a House of Congress During High Immigration Periods, Rarely Controls Either House During Low Immigration Periods

The Republican Party came into existence in 1854, and while it quickly dominated, the Civil War and Reconstruction make its early history anomalous. Looking solely at the period since Reconstruction, Republicans have controlled at least one House of Congress 85 percent of years when the immigrant share of the population was greater than 10 percent, while not controlling either House 83 percent of all other years (Fig. 1). Moreover, they have controlled both houses 59 percent of the high immigration years, compared to just 7 percent of the low immigration years.

Source: Congressional Republicans Dominate High Immigration Periods | Cato @ Liberty

Citizenship

The citizenship question the Trump administration wanted to add to the 2020 census would have likely been especially sensitive in areas with higher shares of Latinx residents and noncitizens. That’s among the Census Bureau’s final conclusions from its recent experiment testing public reaction to the question.

If courts had not blocked the question from appearing on census forms, it would have also likely lowered self-response rates in parts of the U.S. where Asian residents make up between 5% and 20% of the population, according to the Census Bureau’s final report on the national experiment conducted earlier this year.

The findings released on Monday flesh out preliminary analysis the bureau put out in October when officials announced the question likely would not have had a significant effect on overall self-response rates.

Digging deeper into specific groups, however, the bureau did find statistically significant differences between certain households asked to fill out a test census form with a citizenship question and those presented with forms without one.

“These differences were small,” wrote Victoria Velkoff, the bureau’s associate director for demographic programs, in a blog post about the bureau’s early findings.

Source: Census Bureau Releases Final Report On 2019 Test Of Citizenship Question

Evangelicals

At the time of year when Christians around the world are supposed to unite in celebration of their savior’s birth, this Christmas has been a particularly fractious time for white evangelicals in America. Last week, Christianity Today, a leading evangelical magazine, published an editorial condemning Trump’s “immoral character” and calling for his removal from office. “That he should be removed,” the editorial, written by outgoing editor-in-chief Mark Galli, contended, “we believe, is not a matter of partisan loyalties but loyalty to the Creator of the Ten Commandments.”

It was a stance that nearly broke the internet — the publication’s website temporarily went down as millions tried to read the piece — and revealed the fault lines in a religious movement that is often viewed as a monolithic political force. No sooner had Christianity Today published its words than the piece drew heavy and vitriolic pushback from other conservative Christian voices. Ralph Reed of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, scoffed on Fox News that the publication ought to be renamed “Christianity Yesterday” for being “out of step with the faith community” when it came to Trump. Shortly after, nearly two hundred evangelical leaders signed a letterexpressing their “dissatisfaction” with the editorial for supporting what it called the “entirely-partisan, legally-dubious, and politically-motivated impeachment.”

Secular media pounced on the controversy, seemingly surprised that an evangelical outlet had taken such a stand while also deeming the fracas as part of what The Daily Beast called the “spiraling evangelical Christian civil war.” That’s an overstated assessment of a rather imbalanced divide, but the Christianity Today editorial does point to a committed and principled NeverTrump evangelical movement that has held steadfast since 2015 and which draws a sharp contrast with the spineless Congressional Republicans who, in toto, have folded in complete submission to Trump.

Source: The evangelical resistance?

Ever since the 1970s and the birth of the Religious Right, white evangelicals have been closely associated with the Republican Party. Generally speaking, this has meant white evangelicals tend to lean conservative on most social issues like abortion and same-sex marriage.

But recent political events show that what began as a rightward lean has, on at least one issue, become an area of genuine extremism. Inspired by the Christmastime dustup between Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg and blogger Matt Walsh, Eastern Illinois University political scientist Ryan P. Burge did some data analysis on just how white evangelicals feel about immigration in 2019, and what he found was startling.

Using data from the Cooperate Congressional Election Study, Burge found that on the five immigration questions asked by the survey, white evangelicals had a rightward gap from the mainstream Burge characterized as “humungous” — at least 20 percentage points on four of the five questions.

Source: Study: The Average White Evangelical Is Further Right on Immigration Than Abortion

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Articles of interest over the holidays – China

2020/01/06 Leave a comment

The order from Chinese officials was blunt and urgent. Villagers from Muslim minorities should be pushed into jobs, willing or not. Quotas would be set and families penalized if they refused to go along.

“Make people who are hard to employ renounce their selfish ideas,” the labor bureau of Qapqal, a county in the western region of Xinjiang, said in the directive last year.

Such orders are part of an aggressive campaign to remold Xinjiang’s Muslim minorities — mostly Uighurs and Kazakhs — into an army of workers for factories and other big employers. Under pressure from the authorities, poor farmers, small traders and idle villagers of working age attend training and indoctrination courses for weeks or months, and are then assigned to stitch clothes, make shoes, sweep streets or fill other jobs.

These labor programs represent an expanding front in a major effort by China’s leader, Xi Jinping, to entrench control over this region, where these minorities make up about half the population. They are crucial to the government’s strategy of social re-engineering alongside the indoctrination camps, which have held one million or more Uighurs and Kazakhs.

Source: Inside China’s Push to Turn Muslim Minorities Into an Army of WorkersInside China’s Push to Turn Muslim Minorities Into an Army of WorkersThe Communist Party wants to remold Xinjiang’s minorities into loyal blue-collar workers to supply Chinese factories with cheap labor.

The first grader was a good student and beloved by her classmates, but she was inconsolable, and it was no mystery to her teacher why.

“The most heartbreaking thing is that the girl is often slumped over on the table alone and crying,” he wrote on his blog. “When I asked around, I learned that it was because she missed her mother.”

The mother, he noted, had been sent to a detention camp for Muslim ethnic minorities. The girl’s father had passed away, he added. But instead of letting other relatives raise her, the authorities put her in a state-run boarding school — one of hundreds of such facilities that have opened in China’s far western Xinjiang region.

As many as a million ethnic Uighurs, Kazakhs and others have been sent to internment camps and prisons in Xinjiang over the past three years, an indiscriminate clampdown aimed at weakening the population’s devotion to Islam. Even as these mass detentions have provoked global outrage, though, the Chinese government is pressing ahead with a parallel effort targeting the region’s children.

Source: In China’s Crackdown on Muslims, Children Have Not Been Spared

 

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Articles of interest over the holidays – Immigration

2020/01/06 Leave a comment

2020 Developments

Millions of new Canadians will arrive through Canada’s various immigration programs during the new decade and several expected policy updates will help to pave the way in 2020.

Here’s a look at some of the notable developments that we can expect over the next 12 months both in Canada and beyond that could help shape the future of Canadian immigration policy.

  • Early 2020: Parents and Grandparents Program changes expected

  • 2020-2022 Immigration Levels Plan Announcement by March

  • Ottawa’s commitment to regionalization is undeniable

  • Will citizenship fees be waived in 2020?

  • Watch out for Great Britain and the United States

Source: https://www.cicnews.com/2019/12/canadian-immigration-in-2020-expect-a-big-year-for-provincial-and-regional-immigration-programs-1213412.html

Family Reunification

The Liberal government is postponing the next round of its widely criticized family reunification program while it looks into developing a new intake process, according to a statement from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

The program allows Canadian citizens and permanent residents to apply to bring grandparents and parents to Canada. Critics have called the selection process unfair since all of the online application spots were snapped up in just minutes earlier this year.

In its Monday statement, Immigration Canada said it’s delaying the 2020 round as it works on a new intake system.

“This means that the opportunity to express interest in sponsoring a parent or grandparent will not take place on Jan. 1, 2020,” reads the statement.”Further information about the expected launch date and 2020 intake process will be available in the new year. This will give all interested sponsors the same opportunity to submit an interest-to-sponsor form and a fair chance to be invited to apply.”

Source: Parent and grandparent reunification program reopening postponed as Liberals look at new system, Federal government suspends popular immigration sponsorship program

Rural and Northern Immigration

“Justin Trudeau has decided to destroy eleven Canadian communities with extreme immigration — tripling their size in a decade. They are all Conservative voting communities. And none are in Quebec (of course).”

— Rebel Media personality Ezra Levant

Feigning any semblance of respect for Rebel Media personality Ezra Levant is disingenuous, so we’re not going to bother. In fact, we’re not going to use his name any further. From this point forward, he will be referred to as The Regressive.

Perhaps best known as a far-right fear monger and libel plaintiff, The Regressive tweeted the above factually dubious quote in response to the federal government’s Rural and Northern Immigration Program, which Brandon is one of 11 communities selected to participate in.

It will surprise no on who knows of The Regressive’s work that his numbers are a bit off. It’s a three-year pilot program (not 10), with up to 2,750 immigrants total being accepted annually among its 11 participating communities, which falls very short of tripling any community’s size.

As previously reported in The Brandon Sun, The Wheat City was one of only two Manitoba communities selected for the program, the other being the Gretna-Rhineland-Altona-Plum Coulee region.

Todd on what we learned about immigration in 2019

Migration continues to shape the political futures of Britain, the U.S., parts of Europe and beyond.

But in English-speaking Canada, except for concern about irregular migrants from the U.S. crossing the border, discussion of the complex issues surrounding migration remains muted.

Regardless, migration continues to shape the country — especially in light of Justin Trudeau raising migration levels to among the highest per capita in the world. In 2019 Canada brought in a record 350,000 immigrants, plus a larger-than-ever number of international students and guest workers.

Here are five things we learned about migration this year in Canada:

  1. Foreign capital impacted housing

  2. International-student exploitation occurred

  3. Quebec put migration at the top of its agenda

  4. China loomed larger

  5. Labour force had winners and losers

Source: Douglas Todd: 5 things we learned about migration in 2019

Asylum Seekers

A new refugee law heralded as a way to reduce the number of irregular migrants arriving in Canada from the U.S. has had little impact, according to Canadian government data obtained by the Star.

Immigration statistics show some 400 asylum claims have been deemed ineligible since June 21, 2019, when the rule was introduced to prevent refugees from seeking protection in Canada if they have made similar claims in other countries.

Ottawa had hoped the strategy would deter would-be refugee claimants from crossing into Canada from the U.S.

The number of ineligible cases is a drop in the bucket of the 12,000 claims made by irregular border-crossers from January to September 2019. Ottawa previously did not track asylum seekers who had made claims in other countries and so the new policy did not set a target. However, 400 is much lower than what was anticipated by even migrant rights groups who were critical of the policy change.

“We were surprised to see the low number. It is not clear how the (policy) helps by denying refugees access to the Immigration and Refugee Board,” said Janet Dench of the Canadian Council for Refugees. “From our perspective, this is for the government to send the message that you are not welcomed here and we don’t want you here.”

Source: New asylum laws to restrict flow of migrants from U.S. yield few results

Iranian Asylum Seekers

The number of Iranians seeking asylum in Canada has almost tripled in recent years, even before open military conflict exploded this week between the U.S. and the increasingly damaged Middle Eastern country.

About one in 20 Iranians who obtain visas to fly into Canada as tourists, guest workers or international students have been applying for refugee status, according to a redacted immigration department document obtained under an access-to-information request.

More than 125 Iranians applied each month for asylum in Canada in early 2019, according to the internal report. And for the past 18 months Iranians have made up by far the largest cohort wanting protection on the West Coast of Canada, reports the B.C. Refugee Hub Bulletin.

Iranian asylum seekers in B.C. far surpass the next largest source countries for would-be refugees, which are Mexico, Afghanistan, Colombia and Nigeria. An average of 65 Iranians a month last year sought political refuge while in B.C., which has a strong Iranian-Canadian population on the North Shore and in Coquitlam.

Source: Douglas Todd: More than 125 Iranians were applying each month for asylum in Canada in 2019

Immigrant women in tech (British Columbia)

Women who are new immigrants in B.C. have an especially difficult time finding jobs in the tech sector, according to a Vancouver-based diversity and inclusion expert.

Vancouver is the third-largest tech hub in Canada. But only 18 per cent of tech workers there are women, according to a report by Commercial Real Estate Services Canada.

Jobs in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) industries are predicted to grow over the next decade. But only 50 per cent of immigrants found jobs in their field of study in B.C. last year, according to a 2019 Vancity report.

The organization Immigrant and International Women in Science runs workshops to help immigrant women better integrate themselves into the Canadian tech industry.

Source: Why immigrant women are struggling to get work in Vancouver’s tech hub

Japan

Sasaki added that tightening immigration control is needed to cope with misuse of the refugee system.

Japan saw a sharp rise in asylum-seekers after a 2010 revision granted work permits to applicants who had been waiting longer than six months for screenings. But the revision caused a steep increase in applicants ineligible for work permits.

After the Justice Ministry introduced a stricter process in January 2018, the number of asylum-seekers dropped to 10,493 from 19,629 the year before. Only 42 people were granted refugee status in 2018, with another 40 granted humanitarian protection.

The ministry also took measures to speed up the screening process.

“The refugee system has been established to swiftly grant asylum to people who need protection but … in recent years, the number of people misusing the system has risen and the problem is still prevalent,” Sasaki said.

“In the screening process, officers are overloaded with applications submitted by foreigners coming with the intent to stay in Japan for financial reasons, which hinders proceedings for asylum-seekers who meet the requirements of the Refugee Convention.”

In recent years, Japan has been cracking down on illegal immigrants. Many get prolonged detention, and some have resorted to hunger strikes.

Source: Japan’s immigration chief optimistic asylum and visa woes will improve in 2020

Malaysia

A Holistic Plan on Enforcement Against Illegal Immigrants will be launched next year to combat in a comprehensive manner the influx of illegal immigrants in the country.The plan is aimed at ensuring that Malaysia achieves zero illegal immigrant in the set period through the strengthening of governance and existing enforcement work system.Home Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said the holistic plan entailed strategic cooperation between various ministries and related agencies based on firmer law enforcement and more effective action.He said the flood of illegal immigrants should be tackled through firmer enforcement and legal action so that such a scenario would not remain a national issue which has a negative impact on the country’s social and legal aspects.

Source: Home minister: Malaysia to adopt holistic plan to stem influx of illegal immigrants | Malaysia

Korea

The ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) is preparing to introduce more policies to improve immigrants’ rights in the lead-up to the general election next April hoping to attract voters of multicultural backgrounds.

The DPK’s committee on multiculturalism has suggested recently the party unveil various election promises related to the rights of immigrants including the establishment of a presidential body on multiculturalism so that the body can serve as a control tower to tackle relevant social issues, according to sources. The pledges also include expanding support for undocumented immigrant children, easing the work permission system for foreigners, giving teachers and public servants mandatory education on multiculturalism, improving welfare systems for multicultural families and establishing an overall marriage policy for immigrants. Above all, the committee is planning to introduce laws to give diaspora groups living in Korea support in welfare and jobs which includes a plan to establish a help center for those people.

“As there is no control tower on multiculturalism in the government, similar policies exist between governmental organizations, meaning some taxes are being used redundantly,” said Hong Mi-young, chairwoman of the DPK’s committee on multiculturalism.

Source: DPK to create more multicultural policies for general election

 

 

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Up to a quarter of Russian immigrants to Israel may have left after receiving passports

2019/12/19 Leave a comment

“Citizens of convenience:”

Thousands of immigrants to Israel from the former Soviet Union may have come only to receive an Israeli passport before moving back abroad.

The Hebrew weekly Makor Rishon reported that a cottage industry of companies promising expedited Israeli citizenship, and the passport that comes with it, have sprung up in Russia since the passage of a law allowing new immigrants to receive the travel document within the first three months of their aliyah.

For many in the post-Soviet world, an Israeli passport is considered as desirable as a European Union passport is to Israelis. Russian fixers have started advertising that they can help prospective “olim” obtain “Israeli citizenship within two days” for a cost of thousands of euros.

Under certain circumstances, the paper reported, the three-month period can be shortened to as little as a day, and some immigrants have even been able to receive their passports without having to leave Ben Gurion International Airport.

Based on data from Israel’s Ministry of Immigrant Absorption, Makor Rishon estimated that approximately 8,500 emigres from the former FSU have come just for the passport before immediately leaving the country. One Jewish Agency official estimated that about 25 percent of the immigrants came for a passport and “left the country immediately after receiving it.”

Approximately 10,500 Russians and 6,400 Ukrainians made aliyah in 2018, which was the first year that the majority of new immigrants were not considered Jewish under halacha, or Jewish religious law.

Source: Up to a quarter of Russian immigrants to Israel may have left after receiving passports

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The Liberal government’s foreign policy cop out

2019/12/18 Leave a comment

The has been a continuing refrain over the last 20 to 30 years that Canada needs a  “muscular” foreign service and an infusion of funding to strengthen the foreign service. Yet no government, Liberal or Conservative, has done so given domestic priorities (including trade).

So while it is valid to make these arguments, it would be far better to be more focussed on specific areas where the current foreign service should focus on than pining for something that no government is likely to consider.

And of course, a major factor behind the success and public support for our immigration system is precisely due to it focussed on economic class immigrants, where self-interest comes most into play:

Every October, Canada invades Istanbul in a way that might seem downright crass to Canadian sensibilities. The city’s historic Beyoglu district, one of its richest and most liberal, home to hundreds of bars, restaurants, galleries, clubs and, at one time, the Canadian consulate, transforms into a red and white extravaganza, its cobblestoned alleyways adorned with posters announcing the yearly Canada Edu Days fair.

Now, if the fair feted Canada’s contributions to the world—multiculturalism, cooperation, tolerance—there would be no need for this column. Canada would be, finally, touting all those things that are increasingly, in a world infected by authoritarianism and self-interest, disappearing.

Instead, the fair does what Canada seems to do best in the world: poaching talent. As the name implies, Canada Edu Days is about studying in Canada. Every year, it pairs up Canadian colleges with thousands of young dreamers eyeing a way out of Turkey’s deteriorating economy and its socio-political morass.

That’s great; Canada needs talent, and Turkey’s remarkably talented youth are in desperate need of opportunities. But in and of itself, it’s also a feature of Canada’s failure to act responsibly at a historically critical moment: Rather than bringing what makes Canada great to the world when the world needs leadership, it is capitalizing on the chaos, siphoning off valuable human resources like a war profiteer.

This is the dark side of Canada’s pollyannaish self-image. We are great in large part because we have an immigration system that prioritizes talent over desperation. We can retreat at times of global uncertainty because we have valuable resources and a relatively small population.

But retreat should not be an option in a world where men like Donald Trump, Xi Jinping and Jair Bolsonaro are ascendant. Nor should waiting and hoping that these agents of self-interest will magically disappear and the world will go back to normal. Experts warn that is simply not going to happen. Canada should not be trying to save the world order as it was but helping to shape the world order as it will bewhen the dust finally does settle.

The Liberal government, like past governments, appears unwilling to take on that task.  If the Throne Speech was any indication, Canada’s role in the world will figure even less prominently than it has in the recent past. All the pretty words reinforced what has become the defining feature of the Liberal government on the world stage: It talks in the modernist voice about grand narratives—global peace and harmony, equality and justice—but fails to appreciate the postmodern reality of fragmentation and discord.

What we need is boldness. Canada’s foreign service is in shambles; it needs urgent reform and an infusion of funding. The Liberals may not have created the problem, but they have failed to address it and that failure has had consequences. As Jennifer Welsh, the Canada 150 research chair in Global Governance and Security and director of the Centre for International Peace and Security Studies at McGill University, told me in July, the Liberal government’s foreign policy has been “ineffective” in many cases because it lacks the “deep relationships” needed in a world where traditional alliances are unravelling.

“An operating principle of our foreign policy should be that we have to form relationships around particular issues with countries where we believe we have enough common ground to advance things together,” she said. “In the current environment, that is going to require not necessarily the usual suspects.”

Without a muscular foreign service, there is no developing those relationships. Foreign policy becomes what Daniel Livermore, senior fellow at the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, calls “government by PMO directive”.

“That was very much the case under Harper,” he says. ” The PMO decides something and then says to Global Affairs here’s what we’re going to do. There has been a lot more pushback from Global Affairs under Trudeau but it hasn’t been nearly strong enough.”

The problem, Livermore adds, is fundamental to the department. It lacks the “bench strength” to “offer an entirely different vision of how to do foreign policy.”

For a country like Canada, a middle power with limited heft in the world, knowledge is essential. Middle powers have to carefully pick and choose their moments and identify issues where they feel they can have a measurable impact. But instead of taking up the challenge, the Liberals have retreated into a defensive posture.

Canada should prioritize more engagement with the world at every level, from leadership to the grassroots. Here in Istanbul, it seemed a few years ago that something was about change after the Canadian consulate was shifted to a shiny new office tower in the Levent business district. It was an improvement from the dingy apartment Canada used occupy in Beyoglu, where one woman and her cat would greet visitors with listless stares. It felt as if the new consulate would be more active, more dynamic, more forward leaning.

But the early signs were there of a different kind of shift. Heavy security greeted visitors to the office tower. The C-suite feel also portended the growing Canadian dependence on trade-based diplomacy. Canada would engage with CEOs and business leaders from its perch high above Istanbul’s frenetic streets but at the expense of understanding the mood of the people.

Wouldn’t it be great if instead of a student recruitment fair, Istanbul was painted red red and white with posters announcing the opening of a Canadian cultural centre? Or a multiculturalism festival? Or an art exhibition? Wouldn’t it be great if Canada’s engagement with the world included talking to young people on the streets, the same young people who are now protesting in Hong Kong, Chile and Iraq?

That kind of engagement would mean beefing up our foreign service with people who can speak local languages, who are comfortable leaving the confines of our cozy diplomatic missions and getting their hands dirty. It would mean being bold.

Source: The Liberal government’s foreign policy cop out

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Changes in outcomes of immigrants and non-permanent residents, 2017 Text – Selected

2019/12/17 Leave a comment

The latest. Some encouraging trends:

Immigrants admitted to Canada in 2016 reported a median entry wage of $25,900 in 2017, the highest recorded among immigrants admitted since 1981. Although the entry wages of recent immigrants have increased over the past few years, their income remains lower than that of the overall Canadian population. The Canadian Income Survey estimated the Canadian population’s median wage at $36,100 in 2017.

When immigrants arrive in Canada, they face a number of challenges, such as getting their credentials recognized, being able to speak one of the official languages and acquiring Canadian work experience. However, the longer immigrants live in Canada, the more their income increases and, for some, their income reaches the level of the overall Canadian population.

This analysis uses new data from the Longitudinal Immigration Database (IMDB), which comprises information on permanent and non-permanent (temporary) residents, including asylum claimants. It presents the type of information that can be extracted from the IMDB and its outputs to better understand how the socioeconomic situation of these individuals has evolved.

Recent immigrants have higher entry wages and more work experience prior to admission than before

Over the past 10 years, the median entry wage of immigrants, one year after admission, in 2017 constant dollars, has increased from $20,400 for the 2007 admission year to $25,900 for the 2016 admission year (+27%).

Not all immigrants face the same challenges after admission. Those who had work experience in Canada upon admission reported the highest median entry wages. For the 2016 admission year, income one year after arrival was $39,800 for study and work permit holders, and $38,100 for work permit holders only. These wages are comparable with those of the entire Canadian population. For immigrants who had no experience prior to admission, or who had a study permit only, incomes were $19,900 and $12,500, respectively.

In recent years, an increasing number of non-permanent resident permit holders are transitioning to permanent residence. The observed growth in entry wages can be partly accounted for by differences in income between immigrants with pre-admission work experience in Canada and immigrants without such work experience. From the 2007 admission year to the 2016 admission year, the number of immigrant taxfilers one year after arrival who had work experience in Canada increased by 166%, while the number of immigrants without work experience rose 2%.

Chart 1  Chart 1: Number of immigrant taxfilers one year after admission, by admission year and work experience in Canada prior to admission
Number of immigrant taxfilers one year after admission, by admission year and work experience in Canada prior to admission

Chart 1: Number of immigrant taxfilers one year after admission, by admission year and work experience in Canada prior to admission

Immigrants who hold at least a pre-admission study permit have stronger wage catch-up in the 10 years after admission

Overall, immigrants’ wages increase with the number of years since admission and, for some, their wages eventually reach that of the overall Canadian population ($36,100). For example, the median wage for immigrants admitted in 2007 increased from $20,400 in 2008 to $33,500 in 2017, an increase of 64%.

Wage catch-up factors include pre-admission work experience, which facilitates integration through increased knowledge of official languages and the development of professional networks in Canada, among other things. In 2017, immigrants admitted in 2007 who had held both a study permit and a work permit prior to admission had the highest median wage (up 81% to $63,800), and their wage exceeded that of immigrants who held only a work permit (up 36% to $48,100) and that of Canadians as a whole. The median wage of immigrants admitted in 2007 who held only a pre-admission study permit increased significantly over 10 years (up 163% to $37,600) and now exceeds the median wage of immigrants without pre-admission experience (up 72% to $30,700).

Chart 2  Chart 2: Median wage of immigrants admitted in 2007, 1 year and 10 years after admission, by pre-admission experience
Median wage of immigrants admitted in 2007, 1 year and 10 years after admission, by pre-admission experience

Chart 2: Median wage of immigrants admitted in 2007, 1 year and 10 years after admission, by pre-admission experience

The median wage for asylum claimants increases with length of residence in country

Asylum claimants are individuals who request refugee protection in Canada. Because of their situation, they face many challenges in terms of economic integration. Even after their refugee claim is accepted, asylum claimants have lower median wages than other immigrants with pre-admission experience.

According to a Statistics Canada article on asylum claimants published earlier this year, the number of claimants fluctuated from 2000 to 2018 and reached over 50,000 in 2017 and 2018. Asylum claimants are relatively young. Of those who arrived in 2017, 39% were younger than 25 years of age, while 14% were aged 45 or older.

The median entry wage for asylum claimant taxfilers refers to their income one year after they submitted their refugee claim. Among those who claimed refugee status from 2006 to 2016, the median wage fluctuated between $10,900 and $16,000. As with immigrants, the median wage of asylum claimants increases with each additional year spent in the country. Therefore, the median wage for those who submitted a refugee claim in 2006 was $14,100 in 2007 and $28,600 in 2017.

There are significant differences in income among the top 15 countries of origin for asylum claimants. Among asylum claimants in 2012 who filed taxes in 2017, the highest median wages were reported by claimants from Sri Lanka ($31,600), Somalia ($30,700) and Nigeria ($30,700). Claimants from Afghanistan ($18,200), Iraq ($17,300) and China ($14,300) reported the lowest median wages.

Economic immigrants and their dependants stay more frequently in their province of admission when they have pre-admission work experience

Reasons for immigrating to Canada can influence the likelihood of immigrants to remain in their province of admission over time. For example, family class immigrants come to Canada to be closer to their loved ones, while economic immigrants are selected based on their ability to contribute to the Canadian economy.

In 2017, 86% of immigrant taxfilers admitted in 2012 filed a tax return in their province of admission. The provincial retention rate was highest among family-sponsored immigrants (93%) and slightly lower among refugees (87%). For economic immigrants and their dependants, the retention rate was 82%. However, for these immigrants, the rate was higher among those with a pre-admission work permit only (90%) than among those with no pre-admission experience (81%).

Source: Continue reading 

Filed under Immigration, Integration Tagged with

How to improve Canada’s Parents and Grandparents immigration program in 2020

2019/12/16 Leave a comment

Interesting proposal by Kareem El-Assal for a Parents and Grandparents Human Capital Pilot:

January has typically marked the opening of the window for immigrants to express their interest in sponsoring family under Canada’s Parents and Grandparents Program, or PGP.

However, given the challenges Canada has had managing the PGP and the recent federal election in October, it remains unknown as to when the PGP intake window will open in 2020 and what the application process will look like.

This provides an opportunity to think of innovative solutions that could help improve the PGP. For instance, the federal government might consider launching a new Parents and Grandparents Human Capital Pilot.

PGP costs and benefits

Canada is keeping its PGP intake target stable at about 21,000 people under its 2019-2021 Immigration Levels Plan.

The PGP accounts for only six per cent of all newcomers to Canada because its economic benefits are not as strong as Canada’s other social immigration streams.

It is more beneficial to Canada’s economy to welcome spouses and other dependents, as well as refugees, who tend to arrive at a younger age and will contribute more in working hours and taxes than the average parent and grandparent. The time these former groups spend working in Canada will help to subsidize the health care they will require later in life, whereas parents and grandparents arrive in Canada at ages when they need health care the most, even though they will have yet to contribute in taxes.

There is, however, an economic justification for welcoming parents and grandparents. They provide child care, which enables their families to save money and earn more income by working extra hours. They also help to supplement the household income by working in Canada themselves. This helps us understand why data from the 2016 Census show that immigrant families tend to have nearly identical homeownership rates (69 per cent) and household incomes as Canadian-born families (CAD 85,000 annually).

We must also take into consideration the PGP’s social benefit: strong families are the bedrock of Canadian society.

Frustration abounds

Given that some 100,000 people tried to access a request to sponsor form in January 2019, vying for just 21,000 PGP spots, pleasing everyone is an impossible task and the PGP process has inevitably become a source of widespread frustration.

The federal government has recognized the limitations of the different approaches that it has tried to process PGP applications. It previously operated a first-come, first-served model where it would review applications in the order in which they were received. By 2011, this had produced a backlog of about 165,000 PGP applications. Processing times were over five years which meant that unfortunately, some parents and grandparents passed away before their application could be reviewed.

To tackle the backlog, Canada announced in 2011 that it would temporarily freeze new PGP applications and increased its PGP intake target from about 15,000 annually to 25,000 people in 2012 and 2013, before reducing it to the current target.

In 2017, the federal government introduced a lottery system for the PGP. Interested sponsors had 30 days to submit an expression of interest and the government then randomly selected candidates and invited them to apply to sponsor family.

While this approach was innovative, it had several limitations. Applicants were uncertain if their family member would ever make it into Canada. There were also applicants who were not serious about sponsoring their parents or grandparents—some of them were randomly selected but they never went ahead and submitted an application, regrettably causing delays for the federal government and more genuine candidates.

The federal government returned to a first-come, first-served approach in January 2019. The government set a date and time when the PGP Interest to Sponsor form would be made available online and accepted the first 27,000 submissions. This approach again proved problematic as more than 100,000 people tried to access the form at the same time and the submission period lasted about 10 minutes before the quota was met. Many could not access the form and others that did could not complete it on time, leading to renewed criticism of the process.

Federal government should not be afraid to innovate

We can expect another revamped version of the PGP in 2020. Since the demand to sponsor will continue to exceed the number of available spots, managing the PGP to everyone’s satisfaction will never be possible. But recent lessons provide us with a roadmap of how the federal government can proceed prudently.

First, dropping the expression of interest approach in favour of a return to an application-based model would solve a key headache for the government. This move would require giving stakeholders advance notice of when the application window will open so they can prepare their documentation. When the window does open, the federal government needs to give sponsors a reasonable amount of time to submit an electronic or paper-based application. To avoid overburdening the system, the federal government can increase efforts to attract genuine candidates by requiring that they pay the sponsorship fee in full upfront.

Second, the federal government can adjust its immigration levels based on the number of applications it receives. This would require more flexibility to, say, welcome up to an additional 10,000 PGP in certain years to ensure a reasonable processing standard (e.g., within three years).

Third, it can continue to promote its Super Visa that enables parents and grandparents to visit Canada multiple times for a period of up to 10 years. The Super Visa has been criticized for requiring these individuals to obtain private health insurance, which may be unaffordable for some families, but it at least provides families with certainty that they will be able to reunite with their loved ones. Moreover, encouraging greater use of the Super Visa would take the pressure off the PGP.

Fourth, the federal government can explore other innovative approaches to managing the PGP. Despite the criticism of its efforts to better handle the PGP in recent years, a key reason why Canada’s immigration system is so successful is the federal government’s willingness to find new solutions to longstanding challenges, such as managing backlogs. The introduction of the Express Entry system in January 2015 is a case in point.

Parents and Grandparents Human Capital Pilot

One innovation for consideration is introducing a human capital-based approach to managing some PGP applications. The federal government could launch an Economic Class pilot whereby parents and grandparents who are younger in age and have higher levels of education, work experience, and English or French proficiency would get first preference. The pilot would complement the existing PGP Family Class stream and the Super Visa.

One of the reasons the pilot would be novel is that candidates under federal Express Entry-managed programs receive fewer points once they hit a certain age (a candidate gets no points for their age once they turn 45).

Under the Parents and Grandparents Human Capital Pilot, the federal government could welcome up to 2,750 principal applicants per year (the maximum number allowed under a pilot). This figure would likely be more in the neighbourhood of 3,500 parents and grandparents per year since a share of principal applicants would be accompanied by their spouses.

This idea may be unpopular since critics could argue the PGP exists to strengthen Canadian society, not its economy. But this pilot could at least expedite processing for individuals who meet its criteria and would reduce the number of applications submitted to the PGP, which would help to improve PGP processing times.

Moreover, it is an idea that would be easier to sell to the Canadian public. Previous federal government research has indicated the PGP has less public support than other immigration streams. This is likely due to the perception the PGP has little economic benefit and is a burden to the health care system.

However, by bringing in parents and grandparents who are younger and possess stronger human capital, the federal government could make the argument that such individuals are more likely to contribute to the labour market as workers and could help subsidize the health care they will eventually need in Canada.

The future of the PGP in 2020 remains uncertain. The only certainty is it will remain difficult for Canada to manage a program with some 100,000 people vying for just 21,000 spots.

Source: How to improve Canada’s Parents and Grandparents immigration program in 2020

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

Liberal Platform and Mandate Letter Comparison: IRCC and Diversity, Inclusion and Youth

2019/12/14 Leave a comment

Now that the mandate letters are out, went through the letters for Ministers Mendicino and Chagger, supplementing with other Ministers as needed (e.g., Justice, Public Safety, Innovation). The following table contrasts the platform commitments with the mandate letters, with no major surprises or omissions.

The most striking point was the relatively large number of Minister Chaggar’s commitments, although many are shared with other Ministers.

Hope you find this helpful and welcome any comments.

Liberal Platform and Mandate Letters 2019 – Immigration and Diversity Related

Filed under Citizenship, Immigration, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

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