The New Saudi Diaspora Why MBS Should Worry About Asylum Seekers

2019/08/16 Leave a comment

Interesting article and of course, we have our examples (e.g., Ensaf Haidar, wife of jailed Saudi blogger Raif Badawi):

At first glance, it may not seem as though Saudi university students, disgruntled princes, Islamists, and teenage girls have much in common. But members of all these groups are leaving Saudi Arabia and seeking asylum in the United States, Canada, and Europe. Their numbers may be modest compared with those of the refugees who have fled Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria in the past two decades, but these asylum seekers are a political problem for the kingdom—one that its supposedly modernizing young crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), can no longer ignore.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 815 Saudi citizens applied for asylum in 2017, a 318 percent increase from 2012. And that’s not counting the unofficial asylum seekers—those living abroad in a state of self-exile, delaying their return to the country for fear of repression. The murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi was one of them.

This new, outspoken Saudi diaspora poses several problems for the kingdom. For one, Saudi Arabia spends millions of dollars on scholarships in order to lessen its dependency on foreign labor; it cannot then afford to lose its highly educated young citizens to exile abroad. The diaspora is also creating an image issue: behind every asylum seeker is a story of injustice and repression that punctures the official narrative about the new, modern Saudi Arabia, flush with economic opportunity. For this reason among others, asylum seekers strain Saudi Arabia’s relationships with their host governments, who are all allies and partners of the regime in Riyadh.

THE RUNAWAYS

MBS has trained particular resources and attention on young Saudis, promoting artistic and entrepreneurial initiatives designed to open the economy and reward youth creativity and talent. He even started an initiative, the Misk Foundation, dedicated to empowering youth to participate in the Saudi economy. But the very demographic MBS courts produces the majority of asylum seekers leaving the country. These newer exiles join the many students who obtained government scholarships to study in Europe and the United States during King Abdullah’s reign from 2005 to 2015 and failed to return to build the “new Saudi Arabia” afterward. By the time MBS had consolidated his power and become the new face of Saudi Arabia in 2017, many of those students were inclined to be skeptical of the crown prince’s promises of creativity, opportunity, and prosperity. They feared repression if they returned to Saudi Arabia—especially if they had taken advantage of freedoms abroad to criticize the regime and expose its shortcomings.

Their fears were well-grounded, as the Saudi regime isn’t hard to provoke. A tweet, a WhatsApp message, or participation in an academic or policy event deemed hostile to the regime is all it might take to wind up on a suspect list in MBS’ Saudi Arabia. The regime maintains tight control over its citizens abroad, watching their every move with developed surveillance technology. The scandal of pervasive surveillance was exposed after the Khashoggi murder, when it became public knowledge that the regime had hacked the phone of a young activist, Omar al-Zahrani, in Canada and recorded his communication with the slain journalist.

Young, educated asylum seekers undermine Saudi propaganda about the new opportunities on offer in the kingdom. And exiled princes challenge the myth of solidarity and cohesion in the royal family. The latter image has eroded since the purge of November 2017, when MBS detained high-ranking princes, including Alwaleed bin Talal and Mutaib bin Abdullah, at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Riyadh. The flight of a handful of princes who have taken up residence in Europe underlines the fact that under the new crown prince, the regime has changed its strategy from buying off problematic princes to threatening them with humiliating detention.

Young, educated asylum seekers undermine Saudi propaganda about the new opportunities on offer in the kingdom.

Prince Khalid bin Farhan al-Saud is one example of a dissident prince who has eroded the regime’s power from afar. From exile in Germany, Prince Khalid announced his defection in 2013 and started a media campaign to undermine MBS. In interviews with the BBC and other news organizations that the regime considers hostile, Prince Khalid accused the royal family of hypocrisy for enjoying prohibited pleasures such as drinking alcohol and partying while denying them to ordinary citizens, and he characterized King Salman as a “Machiavellian monarch.” After the Khashoggi murder, Prince Khalid announced that he had escaped from a kidnapping attempt in Germany, allegedly ordered by the crown prince.

Exiled princes tend not to come from the core House of Saud lineage that has ruled the kingdom since 1933. But in a family dynasty in which the king is supposed to be primus inter pares, the first among equals, even the defection of a minor prince fractures the foundation of dynastic rule. Now that it is clear that MBS is willing to punish, kidnap, and humiliate defectors, exile has become the only solution for disgruntled princes. Prince Khalid was lucky. Other princes, such as Saif al-Islam al-Saud and Sultan ibn Turki al-Saud, were kidnapped from Europe and returned to Saudi Arabia and have not been seen since.

The newest emerging category of Saudi exiles are the so-called runaway girls. More than 1,000 girls between the ages of 18 and 25 have left Saudi Arabia under MBS, fleeing the strict control—and in some cases, physical and sexual abuse—their guardians impose on them. Their difficult journeys risk bringing even more restrictions and punishments upon them if they are forced to go back to Saudi Arabia.

A recent high-profile case has drawn international attention to the runaway girls. On January 5, 2019, 18-year-old Rahaf al-Qunun was detained at the Bangkok airport while on her way to seek asylum in Australia. Qunun spent several days in a hotel room at the airport before Canada granted her asylum. Without the support of many Saudi and non-Saudi activists, she might have shared the fate of other, less fortunate runaway girls: repatriation to the kingdom against her will. The regime now acknowledges this problem to the extent that it allowed the airing of debates on the issue in state-sponsored media after Qunun fled the country. Public discussion of the problem may imply that the government is starting to take it seriously; it may also be a way for the government to deflect the crisis and shift the blame to the girls’ parents or guardians.

A UNITED FRONT

Saudi exiles are extremely diverse in their political orientations but united in their grievances against the kingdom under MBS: restricted speech, corruption, the marginalization of women and minorities, and abuses of human rights. The latter concern dominated an opposition conference, hosted by the new forum Diwan London, in December 2018. Among the participants were the Washington-based activist Hala al-Dosari, now Jamal Khashoggi fellow at The Washington Post; the feminist activists Amani al-Ahmadi and Amani al-Issa; the newly exiled Islamists Sultan al-Abdali, Muhammad al-Omari, Ahmad bin Rashid al-Said, and Mohammed al-Qahtani; and the Shiite activist Fuad Ibrahim. They were joined by exiles who had fled the kingdom in the 1990s, such as the physics professor Muhammad al-Massari. All presented their visions for a different Saudi Arabia. Some advocated practical measures to stop repression and detentions; others called for the overthrow of the regime.

The regime’s worst nightmare is a critical mass of dissidents abroad—especially high-profile, articulate ones.

So far, neither Saudi Arabia nor the host governments have taken asylum seekers seriously as a political force. But as their numbers grow and they begin to form a united front, these exiles will become an increasing embarrassment to the regime and its allies. Many are now regular commentators for the global news media, analyzing Saudi affairs in ways that are bound to shift public opinion against the regime. For example, the detained Saudi activist Loujain al-Hathloul has a brother, Walid, in the United States and a sister, Alya, in Belgium, both of whom campaign for her release and regularly inform the news media about the abuse and torture to which she is subjected. Vigorous reporting by human rights organizations, UN agencies, and the global news media makes it harder for host countries to deny these Saudis asylum.

In the past, Saudi Arabia depended on its allies to deport its exiles. It considers granting them asylum an act of betrayal. Take Canada, for example, whose diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia suffered owing to its criticisms of the regime’s human rights abuses and its hosting of outspoken exiles such as Ensaf Haidar, the wife of Raif Badawi, who was sentenced to 1,000 lashes and several years in prison for setting up a liberal Internet forum. Zahrani is also in Canada, together with almost 200 other young asylum seekers. The regime fears that exiles who gain asylum will encourage others to flee. Its worst nightmare is a critical mass of dissidents abroad—especially high-profile, articulate ones. Khashoggi’s murder attests to the policy of zero tolerance for such critical voices abroad: they are treated not as nuisances but as national security threats. The more exiles arrive in the lands of the crown prince’s best allies and supporters, the more Riyadh will pressure the host governments to play down their numbers and deny them refuge.

Even after the global outrage following the murder of Khashoggi, Saudi repression remains fierce, and MBS continues to make enemies. He will not be able to buy off, intimidate, or eliminate all of them, and the diaspora will continue to grow. But he may try to stem the exodus, for example, by banning activists and dissidents from travel—keeping his friends close and his enemies closer.

Source: The New Saudi Diaspora

Filed under Immigration, Refugees Tagged with , , ,

OECD report says Canada does well recruiting immigrant workers, except in the trades

2019/08/15 Leave a comment

Useful review and suggested recommendations:

Canada should streamline its immigration system for skilled workers, let provinces create their own Temporary Foreign Worker programs and make it easier for people with international credentials to obtain Canadian equivalents, according to a new report from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Recruiting Immigrant Workers, the report published by the OECD Tuesday, gave Canada’s immigration system an overall positive review, praising its robust system for choosing which workers to admit, its prearrival supports and its ability to integrate and retain newcomers. It called Canada’s system a “benchmark” for other countries and noted Canada had the highest share of highly educated foreign-born people in the OECD.

Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen told reporters in Toronto Tuesday he was “honoured” by the positive feedback, and that he’d study the recommendations for improvement.

The report suggested merging the immigration categories in Canada’s Express Entry system. Created in 2015 by Stephen Harper’s Conservative government, it was designed to better manage immigration applications from people with relevant job skills.

Candidates who meet the minimum criteria form a pool where they are assigned points in categories such as education, age and language proficiency. Every couple of weeks, the government invites the highest-scoring people to apply for permanent residency.

Express Entry immigrants can be in one of three streams: Federal Skilled Workers, Federal Skilled Trades or Canadian Experience Class (people who have already worked in Canada for at least one year). These classes were created before Express Entry was brought in.

The OECD recommended merging the Federal Skilled Workers class with the Canadian Experience Class, and differentiating candidates by awarding more points for Canadian work experience.

The agency also recommended abolishing the Federal Skilled Trades class because the program didn’t reach the “desired group” of potential immigrants. In 2018, fewer than 400 applicants were admitted under this class, and many of them were cooks – an occupation that’s not in high demand nationwide, the report noted.

Instead, it proposed creating a single set of criteria for entry into the pool and one consistent entry pathway.

But that idea worries Roxanne McInnis Jessome, an immigration consultant and founder of Vancouver-based Join Canada Immigration Specialists. She says the current points system already puts skilled tradespeople at a disadvantage, because expertise gained on the job isn’t given the same weight as a postsecondary credential.

The result is that even though there’s a shortage of skilled workers in construction in B.C., skilled tradespeople often don’t get invited to apply for permanent residency.

“Don’t abolish the trades [stream], manage it differently,” she said.

Getting rid of the trades stream would mean “a very deep policy revision on how the Express Entry would work,” added Dory Jade, chief executive officer of the Canadian Association of Professional Immigration Consultants.

Canada should also let provinces and territories create their own Temporary Foreign Worker programs to target specific regional shortages, the OECD recommended.

It also took aim at the cumbersome process for immigrants to get their foreign credentials recognized in Canada. That’s often a provincial issue, Mr. Jade said, because licensing bodies often differ regionally.

The report recommended following the German model to set up a specific short-term visa for people to get the ball rolling on getting Canadian equivalents for their qualifications, since right now it’s not possible to start licensing for many occupations from outside of Canada.

Canadian employers also have to complete a document called a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) sometimes to show there’s a need for a foreign worker to fill a job. The OECD recommended abolishing LMIAs for permanent migration in favour of integrity checks to verify the working conditions and wages.

Mr. Hussen said he recognized “that we have to do better there,” and is working to set up a trusted employer program, so that those looking to hire foreign workers don’t need to submit paperwork over and over again.

Source: Canada largely successful in managing economic immigration, OECD study finds

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It’s the mainstream anti-immigration rhetoric, not the extreme, that’s shaping American politics

2019/08/15 Leave a comment

Hard not to agree, although the Trump effect on mainstream opinion should not be discounted:

In the aftermath of the mass shooting at an El Paso Walmart, in which the accused gunman allegedly targeted Hispanics, there’s been a great deal of focus on a short screed he appears to have posted online shortly before opening fire. In that document, the author claims that immigration across the U.S.-Mexico border is an “invasion” and that white American culture is at risk of being “replaced.”

In short order, observers noted that the rhetoric echoed President Trump’s own descriptions of the purported dangers of immigration. Trump has repeatedly spoken about immigrant invaders and has, on several occasions, warned Republicans that they were at risk of being swamped by immigrants coming into the United States to vote Democratic — even if they have to vote illegally. (There’s no evidence that this has happened more than a few times in recent years.)

The focus on the language used in that document, though, obscures the more important factor driving immigration politics in the United States: the mainstream rhetoric used to disparage or undercut immigration.

On Monday, the Trump administration announced plans to restrict access to green cards for immigrants by adding restrictions focusing on ensuring that new arrivals could immediately begin working and not need to use government resources. In an interview on NPR, the administration’s immigration chief, Ken Cuccinelli, offered a reworking of the poem that sits at the base of the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired and your poor who can stand on their own two feet and who will not become a public charge.”

It’s this sort of rhetoric that’s driving the administration’s policies and Republican attitudes toward immigration — and is mirrored by conservative media.

We noted on Monday that the effort to add new restrictions on immigration centered on the use of public-support systems was central to how many in the tea party viewed the issue of immigration. While Trump’s entry into national Republican politics is generally pegged to his aborted 2012 presidential run and his embrace of the false claim that President Barack Obama wasn’t born in the United States, Trump was also a supporter of the tea party movement.

The period from 2010 to 2014 was formative for Trump’s conservative politics (as it was for many Americans). From 2011 until he launched his presidential campaign in 2015, Trump had a weekly gig on Fox News’s “Fox and Friends,” contributing his thoughts on a number of issues in line with the show’s politics. He was tracking more conservative online outlets such as Breitbart, occasionally sharing stories published there. In 2013, he spoke with Breitbart’s Matt Boyle (who later became a publicly visible supporter of Trump’s), arguing that Republicans should oppose an immigration reform proposal, lest future Democrats flood across the border — rhetoric used in the screed published before the El Paso shooting.

In 2014, violence in Central America prompted a surge in the number of children arriving at the border seeking entry to the United States. Immigration as an issue quickly dominated Fox News, conservative outlets such as Breitbart and conservative radio. Former Virginia congressman Eric Cantor, then the House majority leader, lost a Republican primary that June in part because of a relentless focus by conservative media on his approach to immigration, which was perceived as overly generous.

This focus on immigration in the conservative media certainly contributed to Trump’s focus on the issue during his campaign launch in June 2015. Analysis of closed-captioning data from the major cable news networks and PBS compiled by the GDELT Project shows that Fox News talked about immigration in the context of illegality more than 2,000 times in 2014. In the first half of 2015, that plunged to about 500 — but after Trump jumped into the race and, more specifically, after blowback against his anti-immigration rhetoric elevated his national profile, the network talked about illegal immigration or undocumented immigrants nearly 1,800 times in the second half of the year.


(Philip Bump/The Washington Post)

Trump’s entry into the race similarly spurred more discussion of illegal immigration on the other networks, too.

Immigration has been a constant foil for Trump during his presidency, echoed and amplified on Fox News in particular. As the 2018 midterm approached, Trump highlighted caravans of immigrants approaching the border as an imminent threat, sending troops to border states to put up concertina wire. Fox News obliged, showing footage from the border and implying that the group was rife with criminals and potential terrorists. After the midterms, Trump was prepared to sign a budget deal until hard-liners in conservative media pressured him to try to get funding for a wall on the border. The longest government shutdown in history ensued, with Trump eventually conceding defeat.

Notice what’s happened during Trump’s presidency. When Pew asked in August 2016 — months into Trump’s political rhetoric — Republicans were 37 percentage points more likely to say that immigrants were hard-working than not and 10 points more likely to say they weren’t more prone to committing crime.

Now? Republicans are 12 percentage points more likely to say that immigrants are hard-working, a 25-point swing. Republicans are now more likely to say that immigrants commit crime at higher rates than citizens than to say that they don’t.


(Philip Bump/The Washington Post)

We can’t run an experiment to see what those numbers would look like without Trump in the White House. Would Fox News have been as fervent on the subject? Would some other Republican have made it as significant a priority?

One thing is clear. We’ve spent more than a week debating the extent to which Trump’s rhetoric influenced the El Paso shooter. There’s little question, though, that his rhetoric has shifted how Republicans broadly view immigrants to the United States leading to an administration official literally suggesting that the wording on the Statue of Liberty was too generous to those seeking to come to the United States.

That administration official, Cuccinelli, has ancestors who came to the United States from Italy and Ireland, like those of White House adviser Kellyanne Conway. Those two groups were targets of anti-immigrant rhetoric more than a century ago, seen as dangerous infiltrators aiming to steal American jobs.

Source: It’s the mainstream anti-immigration rhetoric, not the extreme, that’s shaping American politics

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Chinese immigration applications to Canada plunge since Meng Wanzhou arrest

2019/08/15 Leave a comment

Interesting. While to date we have not seen a decline in student visa applications, will see whether this apparent trend will start to extend to students:

Chinese applications for Canadian immigration and visitor visas both fell to their lowest levels in recent years after Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Vancouver and Beijing issued a travel warning to its citizens about “arbitrary detention” in Canada.

The explosive growth rate in Chinese tourism that had seen mainlander arrivals in Canada nearly quadruple since the start of the decade has also plummeted, official figures show, with potential losses of hundreds of millions of dollars in visitor spending.

There were 1,574 mainland Chinese immigration applications in June, the lowest monthly total since March 2015, according to the latest data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). And this February’s 1,754 applications had represented a 45-month low at the time.

Jean-Francois Harvey, a Hong Kong-based immigration lawyer, said three mainland Chinese immigration consultants had told him that Meng’s December 1 arrest and the resultant diplomatic chill had had an effect on business, although it was not necessarily a “deal breaker”.

Source: Chinese immigration applications to Canada plunge since Meng Wanzhou arrest

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CAQ’s immigration plan blasted for favouring European white francophones

2019/08/14 Leave a comment

I think this critique may be overblown if we look at the impact of the federal Express Entry system, where an offer from an employer is given considerable weighting: In 2008, immigration from Europe/UK was 17 percent of economic class, in 2017, it declined to 13.7 percent, from the USA, it declined from 3.1 percent to 2.4 percent:

Immigration hearings got off to a rocky start Monday when a group said the government is ignoring the issue of systemic racism faced by new arrivals even with a series of reforms that have been put in place.

And if you add into the mix the requirements of a Quebec values test and plans to give more power to employers to pick their own workers, the future is shaping up to mean most new arrivals will be white francophones from Europe, the group said.

The comments were made by representatives of the Table de concertation des organismes au service des personnes réfugiées et immigrantes (TCRI), which represents 150 groups across Quebec who aid immigrants and refugees.

Refugees and families from diverse countries will be overlooked because they are seen as a burden to society, while others with the right skills won’t stand a chance because of “unconscious ethnic profiling” by employers, they said.

With the Quebec business lobby exerting enormous pressure on the government to boost immigration levels to as high as 60,000 a year, the TCRI warned Quebec must not overlook the human side of the equation.

As it stands, the Coalition Avenir Québec government’s immigration plan is “simplistic and utilitarian,” light years from the dreams of diversity and so focused on plugging labour shortages it represents a “historic setback” for Quebec’s immigration policies, they said.

The TCRI representatives were presenting a brief on the opening day of legislature committee hearings into Quebec’s immigration plan for the next three years.

After slapping a reduction on the number of immigrants for the year 2019 at 40,000, Immigration, Diversity and Inclusiveness Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette shifted gears and is proposing to gradually increase it to 52,500 a year by 2022.

But he proposes to increase the percentage of qualified workers from 59 per cent to 65 per cent of the total to meet labour shortages, which has upset immigration groups. There are 120,000 vacant jobs in Quebec.

On his way into the hearings, Jolin-Barrette was cautious when asked whether he will boost the numbers as high as Quebec Inc. wants, saying he wants to listen to the views of everyone first.

But the TCRI gave the government an earful, saying cutting the number of refugees and candidates in the family unification category is wrong because they actually settle better into Quebec society while workers often move away.

“Immigration should not be instrumentalized to respond to economic needs,” Veronica Islas, a member of the group, told the committee.

“Immigration needs to be seen in a global sense. Yes, business plays a role. They need workers. But we need to avoid the privatization of immigration access.

“If we give business all the power, we could wind up with very homogeneous immigration. An employer could say it’s easier to integrate someone who is already like me.”

The group said they doubt Quebec’s much vaunted Arrima system — which matches immigrants with open jobs before they arrive — is the miracle solution, either.

It gives more power to employers to select workers, but there is no mention of how Quebec proposes to counter discrimination experienced by candidates with “non-Québécois”-sounding names.

That won’t disappear overnight with the new system, they said.

“Like it or not, there is a problem that can be qualified as systemic racism,” group member Dominique Lachance said during her testimony.

“It’s not so much intended by the employer, but there is a built-in discrimination in the system because people come from foreign countries, don’t know our system and don’t have the network of contacts others do to make their pitch (for work).”

The group said employers are completely unprepared to handle such powers.

“The TCRI fears that the net result is that we will observe a homogenization of permanent immigrant profiles to be more and more European white francophones,” it says in its brief.

“In partially leaving the power of selection of immigrants at the discretion of employers, and the bias of employers in this area is well documented, we can reasonably expect some candidates will never be approached despite their skills due to an unconscious ethnic profiling.”

Speaking to reporters later, group spokeswoman Eva Lopez said such discrimination hits the Maghrebian and black communities the most.

Some new arrivals even try to change their names to get around the problem of getting a job.

Speaking at the committee, Jolin-Barrette countered the comments, saying the Arrima system is based on skills and experience and “not the region of the world they come from,” so everyone has an equal chance of being admitted.

The immigration and refugee group is the first of 31 who will appear this week.

During the next few days, Jolin-Barrette will face an intense business lobby that will argue Quebec has to open the door to more immigrants than ever before.

The minister will present his final plan in November.

Source: CAQ’s immigration plan blasted for favouring European white francophones

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Le français est bafoué dans une communication du ministère de l’Immigration

2019/08/13 Leave a comment

Amusing (although I would not assume some of the written French of the federal government is above reproach):

Le ministère de l’Immigration ne prêche pas toujours par l’exemple dans son maniement de la langue française.

C’est ce qu’a pu récemment constater La Presse canadienne, à la lecture d’une communication écrite produite par un service du ministère de l’Immigration et rédigée dans un français très approximatif.

La courte missive d’une quarantaine de mots transmise à l’agence, document officiel affichant le logo du ministère dirigé par Simon Jolin-Barrette, était bourrée de fautes de français.

Pourtant, en cette matière, l’appareil gouvernemental n’a pas le choix : il doit donner l’exemple. La Politique gouvernementale relative à l’emploi et à la qualité du français dans l’administration, rédigée en 1996 et mise à jour en 2011, stipule clairement que les ministères doivent accorder « une attention constante à la qualité de la langue française ».

Dans ses communications écrites, l’appareil de l’État québécois doit utiliser en tout temps un français de qualité irréprochable, selon la politique en vigueur.

Or, le Service de l’accès à l’information et de la gestion des plaintes au ministère de l’Immigration a accompagné sa réponse à une demande d’accès d’une lettre de présentation visiblement rédigée par une employée de l’État maîtrisant mal la langue officielle du Québec.

La missive débutait par ces mots : « En lien avec vous demandes d’accès aux documents ».

« Veuillez, s’il vous plaît, trouvez ci-joint une copie des lettres décisions », écrit-on par la suite. On remarquera que le verbe « trouver » aurait dû être à l’infinitif, et que le style télégraphique des « lettres décisions » a de quoi surprendre le lecteur.

La fonctionnaire notait ensuite avec une ponctuation douteuse que « les lettres originales, sont également, envoyées par la poste » et elle concluait par une formule de politesse, « cordialemente ».

Fait cocasse, à la fin du message, le ministère responsable de la francisation des immigrants faisait la promotion de sa campagne « Apprendre le français, c’est gratuit et c’est gagnant ».

« Inacceptable »

Il n’a pas été possible de savoir si l’écart linguistique observé constituait un incident isolé ou non.

Impossible aussi de savoir dans quelle mesure le français créatif est toléré, voire s’il est devenu la norme dans les communications établies entre le ministère de l’Immigration et ses destinataires, clients ou autres.

Alerté au cours des derniers jours, le ministre Simon Jolin-Barrette a jugé la situation rapportée « inacceptable ». Par la voix de son porte-parole, il a affirmé avoir pris aussitôt les mesures nécessaires pour que les correctifs requis soient apportés, afin que ce genre de bavures ne se reproduise plus.

Source: Le français est bafoué dans une communication du ministère de l’Immigration

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Seuils d’immigration: autre affrontement à prévoir à Québec

2019/08/13 Leave a comment

The immigration levels debate in Quebec. One of the ironies is that reduced Quebec levels will further reduce the overall importance of Quebec, politically and economically, in Canada.

Not necessarily a valid reason to maintain high levels but a longer term impact that needs to be recognized. One can, of course, question Canadian high levels without being xenophobic or racist:

Un autre affrontement est à prévoir lundi entre la Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) et le Parti libéral du Québec (PLQ) sur l’immigration.

Plus tôt cette année, les deux partis avaient jeté les gants durant l’étude du projet de loi 9, qui visait à réformer le système d’immigration, jusqu’à ce que le gouvernement Legault finisse par adopter la loi sous bâillon.

Cette fois-ci, il sera question des seuils d’immigration, ou du nombre d’immigrants que le Québec admettra sur son territoire d’ici 2022. Déjà, le porte-parole du PLQ en matière d’immigration, Monsef Derraji, s’insurge contre un plan « incohérent », « illogique » et « électoraliste ».

Le Plan d’immigration du Québec, qui sera à l’étude dès lundi, prévoit l’admission en 2019 de 40 000 personnes immigrantes au Québec, ce qui constitue une diminution de plus de 20 % dans chacune des catégories d’immigration.

Le gouvernement dit s’allouer une pause cette année pour améliorer les services de francisation et d’intégration, après quoi il entend augmenter progressivement le nombre d’immigrants admis pour atteindre 49 500 à 52 500 personnes en 2022. Il souhaite alors que la proportion de personnes admises dans la catégorie de l’immigration économique soit de l’ordre de 65 %.

Pour M. Derraji, il ne fait aucun doute que ces seuils sont trop bas, surtout dans un contexte de pénurie de main-d’oeuvre « extrême ». Emploi-Québec estime que plus de 1,4 million d’emplois seront à pourvoir au Québec au cours de la période 2017-2026.

Son parti prône plutôt le retour immédiat aux seuils qui existaient avant l’élection de la CAQ, soit environ 52 000 immigrants admis par année. « Moi, je pense qu’il y a une mauvaise foi derrière ça, a-t-il déclaré en entrevue à La Presse canadienne dans un bureau du parlement. Je pense que ce gouvernement a de la misère, ou il n’est pas à l’aise avec l’immigration, moi c’est juste ça que je vois.

“Ce sont des PME en région qui vont refuser des contrats et parfois c’est du temps supplémentaire pour des employés qui ne vont pas avoir de vacances pour aller se reposer parce qu’ils doivent livrer la marchandise », s’est-il indigné.

La question des seuils d’immigration a toujours été émotive à Québec, les partis ayant tous leur petite idée sur ce dont la province a besoin pour se développer et s’épanouir en français.

Le débat qui s’amorce lundi en commission parlementaire, et qui s’étirera sur quatre jours, ne fera pas exception. Au total, 31 groupes ont été invités à y prendre part, dont le Conseil du patronat et le Haut Commissariat des Nations unies pour les réfugiés.

Lors des échanges, M. Derraji demandera entre autres au gouvernement de produire les études qui l’auraient mené à trancher pour 40 000 immigrants en 2019. Il soupçonne qu’il n’y en a guère.

« C’est un ” check ” d’une promesse électorale, on a dit aux gens qu’on va baisser les seuils à 40 000, mais il n’y a aucune assise logique ou économique qui démontre que le gouvernement avait raison de baisser les seuils. Moi je veux bien qu’il nous dévoile ça », a-t-il insisté.

« C’est de l’incohérence depuis le début. Je cherche encore de la cohérence, il n’y a aucune cohérence, a-t-il renchéri. La logique, c’est de revenir aux mêmes seuils qu’on avait, parce qu’on ne répond à aucun besoin des entreprises. »

QS outré

De son côté, Québec solidaire (QS) dit également s’attendre à un débat tendu la semaine prochaine. Son porte-parole Sol Zanetti blâme la CAQ de n’avoir rien fait depuis 10 mois pour enrayer les préjugés contre les immigrants.

Il précise que QS est également en faveur d’un retour immédiat à un seuil d’environ 52 000 immigrants admis chaque année.

« Quand la CAQ avait promis en campagne électorale de baisser les seuils d’immigration, on sentait qu’il voulait aller chercher un électorat qui sentait l’immigration comme étant un danger et potentiellement une menace, a-t-il déclaré en entrevue téléphonique vendredi. Là, on voit qu’ils ont réduit les seuils, mais que là, déjà, ils constatent que c’était peut-être quelque chose d’électoraliste et que ce n’était pas une bonne idée pour le Québec de le faire. »

En promettant de rehausser les seuils d’immigration dès l’an prochain, le gouvernement a fait « un aveu d’erreur », selon M. Zanetti.

Marc-André Gosselin, l’attaché de presse du ministre de l’Immigration Simon Jolin-Barrette, a envoyé par courriel une déclaration en fin de journée : « Nous allons écouter avec attention les différents arguments avancés lors de la consultation publique et nous déposerons ensuite un plan triennal d’ici le 1er novembre ».

Source: Seuils d’immigration: autre affrontement à prévoir à Québec

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Growing number of newcomers, refugees ending up homeless in Canada: studies

2019/08/12 Leave a comment

Given the tight housing market and prices in larger cities, not surprising:

A growing number of newcomers to Canada are ending up in shelters or are finding themselves homeless, newly released government figures show.

Two new reports released this week by Employment and Social Development Canada offer a glimpse into the extent of the homelessness problem across the country and reveal the populations that are most vulnerable.

The national shelter study, which looked at federal data on shelter users between 2005 and 2016, found an “observable increase” in refugees using shelters.

In 2016, there were 2,000 refugees sleeping in shelters, not counting those facilities designated specifically for refugees — an increase from 1,000 just two years earlier when the figures first began to be tracked.

Tim Richter, president of the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness, said he believes refugees are being forced to turn to homeless shelters because of a lack of housing capacity in areas where refugees are settling.

“Many of them are coming to Toronto in Ontario, and to Quebec, and in those communities, the rental market is just really tight and we just don’t have the capacity to house them,” Richter said.

“Homelessness is a function of housing affordability, availability and income. When you’re new to Canada, you generally won’t have the income to be able to buy a house, and there’s just not enough affordable housing options.”

Canada has been experiencing an influx of asylum seekers crossing into Canada “irregularly,” avoiding official checkpoints between the Canada-U.S. border in order to file for refugee protection without being turned away under Canada’s Safe Third Country Agreement with the U.S. Over 46,000 irregular border-crossers have been intercepted by RCMP since early 2017.

Many of them have been staying in Toronto and Montreal to await the outcome of their refugee claims, which has put pressure on temporary housing capacity in those cities.

The city of Toronto estimated in late 2018 that about 40 per cent of people using its shelters identified as refugees or asylum claimants. Other Ontario cities have been asked to help relocate refugees in order to ease the burden on Toronto’s shelter system.

Meanwhile, a second study released this week by Ottawa that offers a “point-in-time” snapshot of homelessness in 61 communities also noted a trend of homelessness among newcomers.

It found 14 per cent of people who identified as homeless in 2018 were newcomers to Canada. Of that total, eight per cent indicated they were immigrants, three per cent identified as refugees and four per cent as refugee claimants.

The point-in-time study captures not only those using shelters, but also people sleeping on the streets, in transitional houses or staying with others. The 2018 study expanded its counts from 32 communities in 2016 to 61 in 2018.

Both studies also found Canada’s Indigenous Peoples remain vastly over-represented among the country’s homeless population. Almost one-third of shelter users and those counted in the point-in-time report identified as Indigenous, despite making up only about five per cent of the national population.

It’s a consequence of multi-generational trauma endured by Indigenous populations in Canada, as outlined in the findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the recently concluded inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women, Richter said.

“This will require specific focus and specific investment if we’re going to help these folks.”

For those who do find themselves without a home, either for short periods or for those who are chronically homeless, their realities are stark and can be deadly.

A memorial dedicated to homeless individuals who have died on the streets of Toronto currently lists close to 1,000 names. Many are identified only as “John Doe” with the date they died.

But Richter said he is hopeful that things will improvements for Canada’s homeless.

He pointed to figures in the national shelter study showing an decrease of nearly 20 per cent in the overall number of people who accessed shelters between 2005 and 2016. Occupancy rates have increased over that period of time, however, due to a rise in the length of time people were staying in homeless shelters.

But many jurisdictions have been taking the issue seriously and making significant improvements, Richter said, pointing to a decrease in chronic homeless numbers in places like the southern Ontario communities of Chatham-Kent, Guelph, Kawartha and Haliburton.

“We’re seeing that it is possible, and we know how to do it, it’s just a matter of getting on with it,” he said. “I’m hopeful that we are going to see, now, consistent and focused trends going in the opposite direction.”

Source: Growing number of newcomers, refugees ending up homeless in Canada: studies

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History catches up with Komagata Maru villain — and it’s good riddance

2019/08/12 1 Comment

In general, oppose taking down statues and monuments, and prefer interpretative plaques and panels that educate and inform:

In recent years, various Canadian government bodies and institutions have “unerected” monuments and renamed buildings commemorating historical figures who contributed to the cultural genocide of Canada’s Indigenous Peoples.

John A. Macdonald, Hector-Louis Langevin, Edward Cornwallis, Joseph Trutch and Matthew Begbie — men who were proponents of odious anti-Indigenous institutions such as the residential school system — have all had their names scrubbed off plaques or statues mothballed into permanent storage.

Clearly these “complex” individuals, or “men of their times,” merited a historical reputational downgrade and/or some form of legacy asterisking. Whether they deserve further amendment, or even censure, however, is problematic.

But if there is any Canadian figure who merits historical erasure — as nearly impossible as that is to defend, thanks to George Orwell — it’s the latest and fully deserving figure to be added to the list above: H.H. Stevens.

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Brexit fallout: UK’s Johnson woos ‘best and brightest’ immigrants

2019/08/10 Leave a comment

But will they come?

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson unveiled plans on Thursday for a new fast-track visa to encourage the “best and brightest” of the world’s scientists to emigrate to Britain.

The announcement came as the impending Brexit — a cause championed by Johnson — will see much European Union research funding cut off and place the immigration status of many European researchers at risk.

“To ensure we continue to lead the way in the advancement of knowledge, we have to not only support the talent that we already have here, but also ensure our immigration system attracts the very best minds from around the world,” Johnson said.

The new fast-track immigration route would be targeted towards engineering, technology, and other sciences, the government said.

Research, business sectors support plan

New provisions would remove the requirement of having a job offer before arriving, and would allow an immigrant‘s dependents to access the UK labor market. It would also remove the limit on the number of applicants vying for the Tier 1 Exception Talent visa.

Business and universities hailed the move, as leading institutions such as Oxford and Cambridge have voiced concerns about the impact Brexit could have on their researchers and talent pool.

The 2018-2019 academic year saw a significant drop in applications to British universities from EU students.

Johnson, who has frequently expressed anti-immigrant views, is also seeking to introduce an Australian-style immigration system based on points awarded for higher education qualifications, language competency and other specialized skills.

Source: Brexit fallout: UK’s Johnson woos ‘best and brightest’ immigrants

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