Douglas Todd: Is B.C. immigration program a back door for millionaire house buyers?

2019/03/04 Leave a comment

Interesting questions regarding a possible backdoor.

A question I find also interesting is looking at reported income through tax returns to get a sense of how well these immigrants are doing and whether their capital that allows them to purchase a house is matched by an ongoing income stream (rhetorical question – see Todd: Tax avoidance behind Metro’s disconnect between housing, income where the data suggests it is not):

How did it come to pass that thousands of people who came to Metro Vancouver through a provincial immigration scheme bought pricey houses?

A Statistics Canada report shows 2,370 people who recently arrived in B.C. through a provincial immigration program have bought single-family houses worth an average of $2.38 million in Metro Vancouver, which is $800,000 above the norm for Canadian-born house buyers.

It’s a startling figure, in part because politicians often trumpet how the relatively small provincial immigration programs were created primarily to fine-tune Ottawa’s bulkier immigration policy by pinpointing the right skilled workers for each local labour market.

Given that the emphasis of so-called “provincial nominee programs” is supposed to be on newcomers looking for a job, how have thousands since 2009 been able to quickly buy pricey Metro Vancouver real estate? It’s difficult to get an answer from officialdom. So we’re left to our own devices to figure out this irregular access.

I’m not alone in suggesting one of the last things most young people need in Metro Vancouver’s unaffordable housing market is to be squeezed out by another stream of foreign capital. The B.C. NDP government is among those trying to crack down on this price-inflating phenomenon associated with “satellite families” who buy stately homes.

But the revealing data is there in the particulars of a January Statistics Canada report. Its charts point to the way many families are coming to Metro Vancouver with large amounts of wealth, which they’ve been funnelling into housing.

Chart shows value of Metro Vancouver detached homes bought by recent newcomers under the Provincial Nominee Program and other immigration investor schemes. (Source: Statistics Canada report titled Immigrant Ownership of Residential Properties in Toronto and Vancouver.)

And it’s not only Metro Vancouver’s housing market that has been hit by millionaire migrants entering through provincial immigration programs. So has Greater Toronto’s. The average price of a Toronto house bought by a recent provincial nominee is $1.06 million, according to the StatsCan report, while the average price of a detached house of Canadian-born owners in Toronto is significantly less, $849,000.

And just as in Metro Vancouver, it is the recent newcomers to Toronto from China who have had the most cash to spend on property. Mainland Chinese make up about two of three of the home buyers in each city who arrived through the nominee program.

The StatsCan report, titled Immigrant Ownership of Residential Properties in Toronto and Vancouver, offers only a snapshot of this provincial nominee mansion phenomenon, however. It doesn’t capture the program’s link to condominiums. And it leaves open speculation about causes.

Therefore, many questions remain outstanding about what is going on with provincial nominee programs, questions which are typically paid little heed.

B.C.’s provincial nominee program brought 6,500 newcomers to the province in 2018, a large jump from the 2,600 it  welcomed a decade earlier.

But it is a puzzle how 2,370 provincial nominees since 2009 were able to quickly buy costly houses in Metro Vancouver, especially when the vast majority of such nominees were classified as “workers.”

Only about one per cent of provincial nominees to B.C. — an average of about 80 a year — arrive under the “entrepreneur” category. They are the ones who are worth more than $600,000 and required to invest $200,000 in a B.C. business. It’s common sense to expect many in this tiny group of entrepreneur/investors to arrive in B.C. with capital and to pump part or most of it into real estate.

That is exactly what happened with the federal government’s investor program, which the Conservatives killed in 2014 because so many rich immigrants were snapping up Canadian property but not operating businesses or paying significant income taxes.

Despite such unintended consequences, a large entrepreneur program continues to be run by Quebec. It cynically takes millions from thousands of rich would-be immigrants each year, even while most hastily move to Vancouver or Toronto.

Indeed, the January StatsCan report shows the average value of a detached house bought by more than 4,400 millionaire immigrants who came to Metro Vancouver in the past decade under Ottawa’s investor program, and the one operated by Quebec, is $3.2 million. That’s unfortunate enough in regards to fuelling high-end prices, with its trickle-down effect to all housing.

But how is it that the much smaller provincial nominee programs of B.C. and perhaps other provinces are also bringing in thousands of wealthy home buyers headed for Vancouver and Toronto?

A spokeswoman for B.C. Ministry of Jobs, Trade and Technology, which oversees the provincial nominee program, wouldn’t venture a guess. “It is good to see newcomers coming to Canada and being able to invest in their own business and homes,” she said. “We are unable to speculate on the amount of foreign capital they bring into Canada.”

The minister of jobs, trade and technology, Bruce Ralston, also declined to comment until he had a look at the Statistics Canada report. “It’s an area where I’d have to have the facts.”

In the meantime here are a few questions that need to be answered.

Is it possible many of the buyers of Metro Vancouver mansions are coming in not only from B.C.’s nominee program, but from other provincial programs, such as that in Prince Edward Island, which was cancelled last year. It was riddled with fraud and hundreds of would-be immigrants used fake addresses to pretend they lived in P.E.I.

Another question is whether people buying expensive Metro Vancouver properties are coming in through a camouflaged nominee category, such as “skilled worker.”

The top occupations of those coming in the past two years under the B.C. provincial nominee’s “skilled worker” category were restaurant and food service employees, including cooks and kitchen helpers, as well truck drivers and retail managers.

While Ralston said he needs to gather more information before commenting on whether immigrants who buy expensive houses in Metro Vancouver are coming in as truck drivers, food workers or another irregular category, he justifiably noted Attorney General David Eby and Finance Minister Carole James are trying to tackle a related aspect of the housing crisis.

The two major aims of the ministers’ new speculation and vacancy tax are to increase housing supply by reducing the number of empty dwellings and by targeting satellite families, who often buy and live in expensive properties but pay little or no income tax in Canada.

Since thousands of millionaire migrants appear to have found backdoor ways to enter Metro Vancouver’s over-priced housing market through the Provincial Nominee Program, it looks as if this scheme is part of the problem. As such it needs far more scrutiny.

Source: Douglas Todd: Is B.C. immigration program a back door for millionaire house buyers?

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TVO’s The Agenda: Directed Immigration Across Ontario

2019/03/01 Leave a comment

Good discussion this past Wednesday of some of the issues with respect to encouraging immigration to rural and remote areas with Charles Cirtwill of @NorthernPolicy, Maggie Matear of @TimminsEDC, Effat Ghassemi of @NCPTweets.

Similar issues and discussion elsewhere in Canada where the Provincial Nominee Program, The Atlantic Immigration Pilot, the recently announced federal Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot.

The record of the longest running program, Official Language Minority Communities (francophone) has never met its target of 4 percent of the total number of immigrants.

Every year, the Greater Golden Horseshoe adds thousands of newcomers, while other parts of the province struggle just to keep the residents they currently have. Already, such outflows for those communities mean labour shortages and stagnating local economies. The Agenda discusses what it would take to even out which parts of Ontario attract immigrants.

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Jason Kenney announces UCP immigration policy

2019/02/26 Leave a comment

Kenney does know the immigration file and focus on rural Alberta reflects ongoing concerns in rural communities across Canada and the focus on the Provincial Nominee Program makes sense.

One of the interesting apparent paradoxes is that rural Canadians tend to have more reservations about general immigration levels (particularly family and refugee class) and multiculturalism but yet recognize their demographic needs require more immigrants:

Kenney said the UCP plan would aim to bring approximately 10,000 newcomers in total to rural Alberta every year.

Kenney, who served as federal immigration minister from 2008 to 2013, said the plan is meant to address population decline in rural Alberta and reinvigorate the provincial economy.

It mirrors a recent move by the federal government aimed at placing more immigrants in rural communities across Canada.

While immigration is largely seen as a federal responsibility, it is shared between the provinces and Ottawa.

Each province and territory negotiates its own agreement, but that falls within a broader immigration policy set by the federal government.

Alberta immigration policy

In Alberta, there is both a comprehensive immigration agreement and an immigrant nominee program that allows the province to target would-be Albertans based on labour needs.

The federal government assigns a quota of approximately 5,000 positions for the Alberta nominee program.

Kenney says for each one of those positions, typically four people — family members of the nominee — settle in the province.

“I truly believe we have not been as proactive or energetic as we should be in this program,” said Kenney, as he outlined the UCP’s plan if it forms the next provincial government in an election that has not been called yet by Rachel Notley’s governing NDP.

Under Alberta legislation, the election must take place between March 1 and May 31, 2019, with a 28-day campaign.

Kenney’s plan calls for partnerships with rural communities, where referrals from those communities can help place immigrants into the provincial nomination process.

He estimates these changes could bring 8,000 newcomers to smaller communities each year.

Kenney says the plan is based on Manitoba’s system, where 20 per cent of newcomers now settle in rural areas.

Entrepreneur program could add 2,000 people to rural areas

The UCP would also create what it’s calling a rural entrepreneur stream.

It would set aside 500 position for immigration to the province for those who meet minimum income and investment thresholds and are willing to invest in businesses in rural communities.

Kenney says those immigrants would have to be active majority owners of those businesses.

He says the UCP estimates the entrepreneur program could mean an additional 2,000 people coming to rural communities each year.

That system is based on one in British Columbia.

Kenney said there are details that would have to be worked out before the immigration policy was established, based on what he said would be extensive consultations with immigrants, agencies, municipalities and more.

He also said Alberta under the UCP would push for a larger share of immigrants outside of the provincial policy.

“My goal would be to get a larger share of the federally selected immigrants by getting our economy back to work,” said Kenney.

Source: Jason Kenney announces UCP immigration policy

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A lot is riding on how we manage asylum seekers

2019/02/23 Leave a comment

Good overview of the challenges regarding to the increased number of asylum seekers with an almost wistful plea for increased federal-Ontario-Quebec cooperation.

No real discussion of what “workable solutions” to address the flow would entail or what form a greater formal provincial role in asylum seekers would entail apart from a “considerable injection of cash” (beyond what already provided in the Budget):

The next federal election is just eight months away. Immigration, and particularly asylum seekers and irregular border crossers coming from the US, is sure to be a thorny issue for the current federal government. These crossings, following on the heels of large numbers of Syrians seeking asylum in Europe, have stoked fears among many Canadians that the country is facing its own refugee “crisis.” Opponents have been quick to criticize the federal government, saying it is not doing enough to stem the flow of irregular border crossings. The Prime Minister’s rivals have repeatedly pointed to his January 2017 tweet saying that Canada will welcome those seeking refuge as the instigator of this increase in asylum claims. The Prime Minister faces stiff opposition from both his federal rivals and his provincial counterparts.

If Canada is to weather the inevitable ratcheting up of political rhetoric and the rise of anti-immigrant sentiment in the Western world, the federal and provincial governments will need to work together to manage asylum seekers. It is a tall order to ask politicians to take the high road and to find common ground on such a tricky file. It is even harder when immigration politics mixes with intergovernmental relations and fiscal federalism. But the survival of Canada’s immigration system may very well depend on it, and this election presents an opportunity for political leadership.

In 2018, 19,419 persons crossed the border between Canada and the United States outside of regular ports of entry. A majority did so with the hope of claiming refugee status in Canada. These movements are a reflection of the increasingly inhospitable global climate toward refugee resettlement and of the anti-immigration policies of U.S. President Donald Trump.

These border crossings are considered “irregular” because of Canada’s Safe Third Country Agreement with the United States, signed as part of a bigger package of reforms to coordinate border management policies after 9/11. Under the agreement, both countries are designated “safe third countries” because they allow and process refugee protection claims according to international standards and obligations. The core principle of the agreement is that persons should seek protection and asylum in the first safe country they arrive in. So, migrants who land first in the United States cannot claim asylum at a regular port of entry in Canada, and vice-versa. Significantly, the agreement does not apply outside of designated ports of entry. People crossing at locations that are not regular ports of entry, such as the now famous Roxham Road in Quebec, may therefore make asylum claims.

The well-publicized increase in total asylum claims over the past two years is not unprecedented in Canada: similar spikes occurred in the recent past. For example, there were 44,640 claims in 2001. But the numbers in the last two years are extraordinary: 50,390 claims in 2017 and 55,020 in 2018, a sharp rise from the recent low of 10,365 in 2013. The surge in crossings at non-designated ports has driven the increase: there were over 20,593 such crossings in 2017 and 19,419 in 2018. Arrivals are not distributed evenly across provinces; Quebec received more than 90 percent of “irregular” arrivals in 2017 and 2018, and Ontario is the destination of a large share of these individuals and families while they await status determination. In August 2017 alone, over 5,500 people crossed the border into Quebec. By 2018, though, the number of border crossers seemed to have levelled off to a more consistent flow of around 1,500 people a month.

The combination of drivers behind these arrivals means that there are no easy solutions to dealing with this new normal. Proposals range from making the entire border a port of entryto cancelling the Safe Third Country Agreement. Canada needs to find workable solutions that humanely manage the flow of asylum seekers crossing the Canada-US border without actively encouraging it.

While the focus is often on Ottawa’s response to asylum seekers, all three orders of government play critical roles. In addition to border security, the federal government is responsible for the initial intake and screening of asylum seekers, along with funding and managing their claims for refugee status. The provinces are responsible for providing housing and social services while people wait to hear if the Immigration and Refugee Board will approve their claims. Cities, particularly Toronto, face the significant challenge of having to find shelter space and provide on-the-ground services. For the system to work, the federal government has to take leadership and quickly process the claims to help resolve people’s status in Canada, while the provinces and municipalities provide the necessary support that allows them to settle into their new life and thrive in their communities. The sharp increase in asylum seekers in the past two years has exposed the weak points in the system and led to considerable federal-provincial conflict.

Conflict between the three main players — Ottawa, Quebec and Ontario — has largely defined the federal-provincial relationship in responding to the asylum issue. Quebec has been vocal in calling for support from Ottawa to help it deal with the costs associated with being the main point where the crossings are happening. Ontario — where a large portion of the asylum seekers are landing, particularly in the Greater Toronto Area — has repeatedly asked the federal government to help cover the cost of housing and social services for these individuals. Ottawa has dedicated approximately $150 million to help provinces and municipalities with the costs of resettlement, in addition to the estimated $1 billion it plans to spend over the next three years on processing asylum claims. It is also taking steps like reopening a previously closed Immigration and Refugee Board office to speed up processing. But these first moves have not gone far enough to resolve the tensions. The spat got so heated that Ontario pulled out of discussions on how to deal with the entire issue, a move that also signals the provincial government’s lack of desire to fully engage to find a mutually agreeable solution. The lack of engagement has led mayors from Toronto and other big cities to make their case directly with Ottawa.

This period of conflict is unusual. As our past research shows, immigration is an area where the federal and provincial governments have increasingly cooperated to develop policy. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, the provinces expanded their role in selecting and settling migrants. And, in recent years, federal-provincial-territorial collaboration has been a defining feature of immigration policy. So, what is the difference when it comes to dealing with asylum seekers?

In the past, the provinces and the federal government largely agreed on the basic objectives of the immigration program. Expanding the provincial role in selecting migrants helped achieve a shared goal of streaming migrants away from settling mainly in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. It also helped ensure that the skills of migrants matched labour market needs. In short, there was a measure of consensus that the provinces needed to play a role in the program to ensure that the benefits of immigration were shared equally across the country and for migrants to succeed in their new lives. This consensus generated cooperation.

No such consensus on how to manage asylum seekers seems to have emerged yet. The lack of consensus reflects the traditional lack of provincial engagement in asylum policy, where the federal government has long taken the lead. Quebec, Ontario and Ottawa also have competing interests at the moment. Quebec is on the front line, and is understandably concerned with stopping irregular border crossings into its territory. Ontario — Toronto in particular — is facing a major challenge housing the influx of people. Ottawa is focused on dealing with the mounting backlog of refugee claims while ensuring the process remains rigorous and fair.

Politics, of course, is also playing into the conflict. Doug Ford wants to score points battling the federal Liberals. François Legault’s newly elected government is requesting that Ottawa support its plan to lower immigration levels and is asking for more powers under the 1991 Canada-Quebec immigration agreement. Justin Trudeau has built his brand on the value of pluralism and support for immigration, something that the Liberal Party has traditionally proposed must be achieved through centralization. These are difficult positions to reconcile. But political differences can be overcome to find workable solutions: the height of federal-provincial cooperation on immigration came when there was a Conservative federal government and Liberal governments in Ontario and Quebec.

The federal and provincial governments must work together once again. Their shared goal should be a balance between protecting the integrity of our immigration system and treating asylum seekers with compassion. Strong federal leadership is necessary to achieve this goal, along with a clear recognition of the interdependence of all three orders of government in successfully managing the file. The federal government needs to inject considerable cash into the entire system, chiefly focusing on speeding up the processing of asylum claims. Ottawa controls the principal levers, direct and indirect, to manage the influx of migrants — and so it needs to work with the provinces to find common ground on how it should wield these tools.

A federal-provincial agreement on the broader policy approach, as well as on funding the resettlement of claimants, would help establish this common ground. But this agreement needs to be more than a blank cheque from the federal government. The provinces must accept that they have a role and responsibility in supporting asylum seekers. If the benefits of economic migration are to be shared by all — as the provinces have fought hard for over the years — then the responsibility to assist humanitarian migration also needs to be shared by all.

Canada’s enviable immigration system relies on the public’s support. This backing is not the result of some unique Canadian openness to multiculturalism and pluralism — though these are important parts of our national identity. The public largely supports immigration because it is seen to be in the interests of the entire community. It is mainly a controlled process, bringing in skilled workers and family members.

Canada’s geopolitical position, with vast oceans on three sides and a relatively stable democracy to the south, means that the country has not been subjected to massive flows of asylum seekers. But this is a fragile situation. If the current and next governments don’t handle the new normal of consistent flows of asylum seekers properly, public support could erode, and the legitimacy of the entire Canadian immigration system could be put in jeopardy.

Source: A lot is riding on how we manage asylum seekers

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Hearings on Quebec’s immigration bill stall as politicians hurl mud

2019/02/23 Leave a comment

Sigh. Should be possible to have agreement on witnesses with a range of views:

The province’s largest employer group says the government has bungled its immigration reform by failing to manage the thousands of applicants already in the hopper who hope to live and work in Quebec.

Without overtly criticizing the government for deciding to shred the files of 18,000 immigration applicants, the normally cautious Conseil du patronat du Québec said Thursday it “deplored” the lack of a transition plan to help people left on the sidelines in Quebec’s zeal to reform the system.

As it is, the Coalition Avenir Québec government has created a climate of uncertainty at a time when the province desperately needs workers and there are 118,000 employment vacancies.

Rather than being seen as an opportunity, the reforms are seen as a threat, the Conseil said in a brief presented to a committee of the legislature studying the CAQ’s immigration reform legislation, Bill 9.

“This undermines Quebec’s credibility on the international stage and reinforces cynicism towards our immigration system,” the Conseil said in its brief.

“The impact for employers has been major,” Conseil president Yves-Thomas Dorval told the committee later. “In reality, we need lots of people.”

Asked by an opposition party MNA if Quebec should have held off on plans to shred the files, Dorval was curt: “Ask the government that question.”

The Conseil’s blast was the least of Immigration, Diversity and Inclusiveness Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette’s troubles Thursday, as hearings into the bill — required by law — almost didn’t get off the ground.

In fact, the committee room was vacant for most of the day as an epic procedural battle — including choice mudslinging — unfolded between the CAQ and the opposition Liberals.

At issue officially was the list of people to be heard by the committee, but the background theme was pent-up mistrust between the two parties that resulted in the legislature being paralyzed for several hours.

Jolin-Barrette lashed out at the same time as saying the government is not trying to muzzle the ample opposition to the bill, which will be before the courts Friday as immigration lawyers seek an injunction to block it.

“The Liberals do not seem to have understood the message sent by the population: put an end to your arrogant ways,” Jolin-Barrette told reporters. “Quebecers sent them to the opposition benches to reflect, so it’s time they sat there and started reflecting.

“They refuse to put a bit of water in their wine to ensure the legislature works.”

Not so fast, responded Liberal interim leader Pierre Arcand, accusing the government of wanting to rig the sessions to avoid hearing from people opposed to the bill.

“We are now embarking into a judicial imbroglio (on the immigration issue), which is harming Quebec’s international image,” Arcand said. “The government can’t act in good faith on this issue because its ideology prevents it.

“It wants to hear from groups saying its bill is good.”

And so the war continued, leading Québec solidaire house leader Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois to say they were “fighting like cats and dogs.”

“Ludicrous,” added interim Parti Québécois leader Pascal Bérubé.

The list of witnesses had been in flux for days, with clerks handing out update after update all week.

The city of Quebec was supposed to address the committee Thursday morning, only to cancel, saying it did not have time to prepare.

At the last minute, the government tried to replace it with an appearance by the Barreau du Québec, which answered that with 24 hours’ notice they did not have enough time to prepare a brief either.

At 11 a.m. Thursday the two sides were still squabbling — even over when to break for lunch. When Jolin-Barrette proposed a delay to his opening remarks because there were no groups available to appear after him, the Liberals refused.

The committee finally got rolling at 3 p.m., hearing from veteran economist Pierre Fortin, who waded into the issue of how many immigrants Quebec welcomes a year.

He said a massive increase of immigrants will not solve Quebec’s labour shortages, but a more selective process — matching people with jobs in advance — makes sense. The CAQ is proposing just that.

A big influx could be more harmful because it would exceed Quebec’s ability to socially and culturally integrate them, Fortin said: “If we push too far, we fan the flames of intolerance.”

He said a bigger question for companies in Canada is how to put an end to the rampant discrimination when it comes to hiring immigrants.

As if to prove Jolin-Barrette’s point on not muzzling the opposition, the first group appearing before the committee next week is Quebec’s association of immigration lawyers, which is leading the legal challenge to the bill.

Source: Hearings on Quebec’s immigration bill stall as politicians hurl mud

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PEI’s immigration record in spotlight after family caught in crackdown left picking up pieces of their lives

2019/02/22 Leave a comment

Good long read. Reminder of the weaknesses on investor immigrant programs, potential for and actual fraud and abuse and how some persons may be exploited in the process:

Three years ago, Ping Zhong and her brother were accused of being major players in a fraudulent scheme to skirt residency rules in the province. Now, the Premier says the case ‘probably should have been thrown out.’ What happened?

The day started out as an ordinary Wednesday. Ping Zhong was doing the breakfast dishes. Her daughter, about to leave for work, opened the front door. What awaited on the other side shocked Ms. Zhong.

The step was crowded with armed, dark-clothed officers. They wanted in.

Panic began pounding so hard in her ears that Ms. Zhong, then 58, could hardly hear the explanation for why she was being arrested. “I do have good English, but I really did not understand their words – ‘abetting’ and ‘inducing,’ ” said Ms. Zhong, who has lived in Charlottetown for nearly 30 years. “A lady showed me the paper. I was so shocked and confused and terrified.”

The paper was a judge-issued warrant giving federal officers permission to arrest Ms. Zhong and search her home, vehicles and the Sherwood Inn and Motel, which her family runs for secondary income. Officers led Ms. Zhong to an unmarked car and she buried her hands in her winter coat, hoping to hide her handcuffs from the neighbours.

Ms. Zhong said her 2016 arrest was a bewildering experience.

On that day in February, 2016, federal border-security investigators believed they had uncovered the biggest immigration fraud scheme in Prince Edward Island’s history. More than 500 immigrants who applied for permanent residency had used street addresses traced to Ms. Zhong and her hotel on their government immigration forms. The reason for doing so was to create “the illusion they are living in Canada” while actually living elsewhere, according to allegations outlined in the warrant.

Ms. Zhong and her brother, Yi, appeared to be “integral players” who made “a business” out of helping pull off the hoax, investigator Lana Hicks wrote.

Criminal charges were filed against the Zhongs; when their case became public last spring, its revelations exposed the province’s vulnerability to immigration abuse. Specifically spotlighted was an arm of PEI’s immigration program that allowed qualifying immigrants permanent-residency cards before they actually moved to the island. It also raised questions about whether locals – including the Zhongs – were cashing in by helping permanent-resident immigrants skirt provincial rules that required them to live in PEI, rather than elsewhere in Canada.

The Zhongs pleaded not guilty. PEI nonetheless shuttered the suspect arm of its immigration program. It was the third time in a decade the province closed an immigration stream subject to allegations of abuse.

Then, four days into the Zhongs’ December trial, a federal prosecutor unexpectedly asked for a stay of proceedings. The Crown has the rest of this year to decide whether to pursue its charges. However, PEI Premier Wade MacLauchlan said the case, which has raised concerns about the treatment of immigrants on the island, “probably should have been thrown out.”

“It was like the Crown didn’t want to admit that they can’t win,” said Lee Cohen, Ms. Zhong’s Halifax-based human-rights lawyer. Meanwhile, he said, “Ping and Yi are left holding the tatters of their lives.

While PEI recently boasted the country’s top immigration rate, the province has historically struggled to retain immigrants who are attracted to the opportunities and diversity in more populated regions.

In 2012, to combat the drain, the province created a new immigration stream for higher-net-worth immigrants that would grow to be its most popular means of entry. Called the “100% Ownership Stream,” the program granted its nomination for residency to immigrants who paid a $200,000 escrow deposit. The nomination is technically made to the federal government, which has final say on immigration approvals.

PEI’s program was then unique in Canada. Other provinces commonly require immigrants to work via a permit for one year before granting a permanent-residency nomination. PEI’s program allowed immigrant investors to get that status early and without proving they had moved to the island.

The caveat was this: Immigrants in the Ownership stream could only get back their $200,000 deposit if, after two years, they could prove they resided on the island and had opened a business.

Results were mediocre.

Between 2014, when the province began issuing refunds, and 2018, when the program was shuttered, more deposits were forfeited by newcomers than refunded, according to data provided to The Globe and Mail by Island Investment Development Inc. (IIDC), the Crown corporation that manages immigration on PEI.

“Some of those defaults were for people that were not residing here, unfortunately,” said Jamie Aiken, executive director of the IIDC.

The upside, though, was a $40-million boon to provincial coffers.

But Mr. Aiken said that the revenue gains pale in comparison with the positive effect that having more immigrants stay long term would achieve. The reason the province shuttered the program last fall, he said, was that a program review deemed its high default rate ineffective. The new program that replaced it only awards permanent-residency status after immigrants have spent a year on PEI.

The province made this change not long after the Zhongs were charged with defrauding the system. However, Mr. Aiken said the Zhong case did not affect the province’s decision, dismissing the timing as coincidence.

Nevertheless, the timing raised suspicions on the island. Perceptions of PEI’s immigration program have been darkened by long-standing accusations of improprieties that have stretched over more than a decade.

“The waters are really muddy on PEI because people can’t get past what happened 10 years ago,” said Andrew Sprague, a senior communications official with PEI’s Department of Economic Development and Tourism.

Then, PEI was offering provincial nominations for residency to a different stream of entrepreneurial immigrants who agreed to invest roughly $200,000 in an island business – one they did not own or have any part in choosing – and live in the province for one year.

The program was criticized as a cash grab that lacked transparency (the province never disclosed which Islanders’ businesses received immigrant money). Many immigrants who came through the program left the island when their one-year pledge expired.

In response to the criticism, Ottawa announced plans to tighten the program’s rules. PEI approved a plan to rush through a final set of 2,000 applications, flooding businesses with $400-million in foreign cash. Provincial legislators refused to release a list of which Island businesses benefited. But in a 2009 report, the province’s auditor-general expressed concerns many of the companies that did have ties to elected provincial officials, deputy ministers or their families.

Whistle-blowers and the federal government called for an inquiry, leading both the RCMP and the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) to launch investigations. But in 2012, both agencies announced there was insufficient evidence to lay charges.

The province shuttered the suspect program that year. In its place, they brought in the escrow deposit system.

Having what law enforcement calls an “address of convenience” is “an essential element” of any provincial nominee’s scheme to commit residency fraud.

Lana Hicks, a 20-year investigator with the CBSA, explains this in an application filed last year in PEI for a search warrant to raid one such suspect address. She also sets out how she uncovered what appeared to be the biggest cases of immigration and residency fraud in PEI’s history.

She stumbled onto it by accident. In 2015, in the midst of an investigation into a suspected watch smuggling, Ms. Hicks dialled a phone number linked to a PEI address that a pair of Chinese immigrants had given border-security agents.

Ms. Hicks assumed she was dialling the residential address of her person of interest.

“A male answered the phone: ‘Sherwood Inn,’ ” Ms. Hicks reported.

Her curiosity piqued, Ms. Hicks went on to discover that 566 immigrants who had applied for permanent residency on PEI had given border-security agents the same two street addresses as their places of residence. Ms. Hicks traced one of the addresses to the Sherwood Inn and Motel and the other to Ms. Zhong – one of the motel’s co-owners.

The sheer volume of people who used the addresses was “extremely high and suspect,” Ms. Hicks wrote in her application for a warrant to search for more clues. “Based on my experience, the numbers go well beyond assisting a couple of friends,” she wrote, adding that her findings appeared to indicate “a very well-established, organized fraud.”

An advertisement for the hotel on a Chinese-language website Ms. Hicks found offered “pick-ups, bank procedures, medical care” as well as help with schooling, housing contacts and more. In her warrant, Ms. Hicks raised this as a red flag, because it “advertises services outside the scope of what is ordinarily seen for a motel.”

To collect information for the warrant, Ms. Hicks had placed surveillance on the Sherwood, Ms. Zhong and her brother, also a part-owner.

Covert investigators followed Mr. Zhong as he picked immigrants up at the airport, chauffeured them around Charlottetown, delivered them to the provincial immigration offices, to Service Canada for driver’s licensing, to banks and schools. Mr. Zhong routinely stopped his van to allow guests to get out and take pictures, including in front of Holland College, where immigrants take English language courses, and other landmarks.

Mr. Zhong sometimes took guests to other hotels instead of the one he owned, an act that raised surprise and suspicion in Ms. Hicks, who questioned Mr. Zhong’s motivation given “it doesn’t even appear that the owners are benefiting from permanent residents staying at their motel.”

When he took one family that was not staying at the Sherwood Inn for a short visit to his hotel on their way back to the airport, it was another red flag to investigators. They believed, Ms. Hicks wrote, that those short stops – which involved some immigrants who had already gained permanent-residency status – were for the purpose of allowing the permanent residents to arrange to have their mail forwarded to the hotel – an “address of convenience” – while they actually went to live elsewhere.

Bolstering this hunch was the fact that investigators’ garbage grabs had found discarded envelopes addressed to a range of individuals.

“I believe that the Sherwood Motel and the owners have made a business of providing this service,” Ms. Hicks wrote, describing her theory. That included the belief that Mr. Zhong’s downtown tours with immigrants – and the photo stops he repeated with so many families – were to help those who had permanent residency, but planned to live elsewhere, collect “some photos in case they were questioned as proof of residency.”

With her search warrant granted, Ms. Hicks had part of her team arrest Ms. Zhong at her home on the morning of February 17, 2016, while others went in search of her brother, who lived at the Sherwood Motel. After breaking down one of the hotel doors, the officers would learn that Mr. Zhong was in China for an annual visit.

What they did find in the motel’s office, though, were a few documents they later submitted as evidence to bolster their theory that immigrants were coming to the hotel for more than rooms to stay in.

Written in Chinese, applications for “Basic Settlement Services” were found printed with names of some former guests and branded by a Vancouver-based immigration consultancy called “Can-Achieve.” While the forms did not actually list the Sherwood Inn or the Zhongs, telephone numbers printed beside the heading “Prince Edward Island Hot Line for Meeting Plane” belonged to the Sherwood and to Ms. Zhong’s husband, Cheng Dong.

More than two years after the February raids, the siblings were charged with helping seven permanent residents and their families commit residency fraud between 2010 and 2013.

That number was far fewer than the 500 or so investigators suspected the Zhongs of helping in their initial search warrant. Still, the evidence underpinning the charges, filed as part of the trial proceedings last December, numbers in the thousands of pages.

Most of those documents are permanent-residency applications that belong to families the Zhongs are alleged to have assisted. They are partly redacted to protect the privacy of some of those applicants. However, they shed light on the wide spread of “immigration intermediaries,” agents and consultants that immigrants hire to help with various points of their journey to become permanent residents in Canada. Ms. Hicks noted in her warrant application that “there are many opportunities in the process where misrepresentation or fraud can occur.”

What the file does not contain, despite its heft, are any documents that show contracts or formal agreements between the Zhongs and the families they stand accused of helping. No documents show a deal between the Zhongs and the immigration consultancies listed in the files, nor do they show evidence that the Zhongs ever received money from anyone for anything other than the rental of their hotel rooms.

The siblings’ trial lasted just four days before Crown prosecutor Caroline Lirette asked the judge to stay proceedings. Ms. Lirette said in an e-mail that her office “does not provide reasons” for requesting a stay.

But to Mr. Cohen, the Zhongs’ lawyer, the explanation is simple. “The reason is there are no dots they can connect that would get a conviction,” he said. “They can’t prove it because there is no evidence. It does not exist. They simply relied on the optics.”

If she’d had the chance to testify in court, Ms. Zhong would have told the story of what it was like when she came to Canada.

There were very few Chinese people in Charlottetown when Ms. Zhong arrived as a temporary teacher in 1989. She loved the island, though, and three years later, her husband, a university professor, and their young daughter left the eastern Chinese city of Zhenjiang to join her. A dozen or so members of her extended family trickled out afterward.

Ms. Zhong worked then (and does now) as a teaching assistant with special-needs students; her friendship with another teacher led to a joint purchase of the Sherwood Inn and Motel. Ms. Zhong said she is proud that it made her the first Chinese immigrant to own a hotel on the island.

Through the hotel, Ms. Zhong said her family was determined to show newcomers the same sort of kindness that they once received. Some even asked the Zhongs to pick them up at the airport, but deliver them to competing hotels – nicer properties than the bare-bones Sherwood – and to translate for them, which the Zhongs did, usually for free.

Ms. Zhong said her family never refused a request and never charged anything extra for their services beyond the cost of their hotel rooms.

“We appreciated the help we got when we arrived on the island. We thought this was something we could do to make newcomers feel welcome … to make their lives easier,” she said.

When newcomers began to ask if they could use the hotel’s address to receive mail, including citizenship documents and permanent-residency cards, while they were in other parts of Canada or out of the country, Ms. Zhong agreed. Ms. Zhong even allowed the use of her personal home mailing address to some immigrants who felt concerned about having their mail sent to the hotel.

“You know, [I] didn’t think much of it,” Ms. Zhong told Ms. Hicks during their initial, 2016 interview. “We trust people so much.”

The opportunity to make a little bit of extra money from helping needy newcomers arose when a man Ms. Zhong described as Taiwanese showed up at the Sherwood some time in the late 2000s. Ms. Zhong cannot recall the man’s name, but said he told her he was affiliated with an immigration agency called Can-Achieve, based in Vancouver, which had a stream of clients moving from China to Charlottetown and who needed settlement help. (An e-mailed request for comment to Can-Achieve was not met with a response.)

“He said, ‘Maybe we can send you some people,’” Ms. Zhong said, recalling the man said he could pay her $100 to $150 a family. It was a handshake deal; nothing was written down.

“I didn’t see any problems,” Ms. Zhong said. “I was already doing this for people for free.”

The agreement with Can-Achieve turned out to be poor and short-lived.

Ms. Zhong, who manages the hotel’s account book, only recouped some of the money from her brother’s efforts ferrying around the newcomer clients that came via the company (she said she does not have a record of exactly how much). Her final call to Can-Achieve was some time in the late 2000s, a follow-up on hundreds of dollars’ worth of unpaid tabs.

“They refused to pay us. The woman on the phone said they changed ownership,” Ms. Zhong said, adding that she has no record of whom she spoke with or when the call took place.

This, too, she would have liked the chance to explain in court.

She also would have said that when newcomers’ mail was coming to her house and the hotel, she never considered that the people who asked her to forward their mail might be committing residency fraud.

“I was too naive,” she told The Globe. “I should not have let them use our address. There are always some bad apples that will take advantage, but we did not know.”

Ms. Zhong will have to wait out the year to see whether the Crown will make another attempt to test her in court. Business has suffered as word of the case spread to China; plans to expand the Sherwood are on hold. Memories of the raids come back to Ms. Zhong in nightmares, she said. Her brother, too, struggles with sleep.

Mr. Cohen, the lawyer, said the case is a reminder that appearances are not always what they seem.

“Looking suspicious is not the standard of proof,” he said. “But for the fact that their motel address was used – and there are easy explanations for that – there is no evidence whatsoever connecting Ping or Yi to any kind of collaboration.”

His clients were “mischaracterized,” he said, adding: “What they have done is absolutely legal and generous and noble.”

Led by Ms. Hicks, the CBSA conducted more raids last summer in Charlottetown on a pair of homes owned by a Chinese immigrant and business person. The warrant application contains similar allegations to those made against the Zhongs, including the suggestion that the individual provided a “homestay” and addresses of convenience for more than 400 new immigrants.

More than six months later, no charges have been filed (for this reason, The Globe has chosen not to name the individual, who declined to be interviewed), and it is not clear if they will be. In a statement, the CBSA told The Globe the agency does not discuss its investigations.

Source: PEI’s immigration record in spotlight after family caught in crackdown left picking up pieces of their lives

Filed under citizenship-by-investment, Immigration Tagged with ,

Thirteen years later, pizza-shop owner deported after fabricating allegations against Liberal MP is back in Canada

2019/02/21 1 Comment

Odd. Would not some of this history come up during the review of the application and raised some flags?

For 13 years Harjit Singh had tried to avoid deportation, but it was his final, desperate bid to stay in Canada that made him the leading man in a bizarre political drama.

Levelling allegations he later admitted were fabricated, Singh brought down a federal cabinet minister — Judy Sgro — and caused weeks of heartburn for Paul Martin’s Liberal government of the early 2000s. It was to no avail.

The Brampton, Ont., pizza shop owner had also been found liable for credit card fraud, was suspected of people smuggling and accused by police of threatening the relatives of witnesses in his fraud case.

On Feb. 2, 2005, Canadian border officials put Singh on a plane back to his native India, seemingly for good. “Public interest in the integrity of the immigration system clearly favours his removal at the earliest opportunity,” said a judge hearing the last of his many legal appeals.

But 13 years later, the unlikely headline-maker is back in Canada, allowed in under a new Liberal government, his visa request aided by a “routine” letter from another MP immersed in controversy, Raj Grewal.

Parminder Singh, Harjit’s son, confirmed in a short telephone exchange that his father is living in Canada between trips to India.

“Harjit is in India, you can call him when he’s back,” he said. “He comes back and forth.”

Singh urged the National Post not to write about his father, saying “it happened a decade and a half ago. You’re trying to revive something.”

Spokesmen for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) and for the minister, Ahmed Hussen, said they could not comment on the case because of privacy rules.

But Mathieu Genest, Hussen’s press secretary, said deportees are sometimes re-admitted “if they are able to provide compelling reasons to come to Canada and satisfy IRCC that they do not pose a risk to Canadians.”

Grewal, the Brampton, Ont., MP kicked out of the Liberal caucus after racking up millions in gambling debt, does not know Singh personally, but his staff issued a standard letter requesting “fair and equal assessment” for him at the behest of a relative living here, said Richard An, a spokesman for the MP.

“Ultimately, visitor visa decisions are made independently by immigration officers,” An said.

Singh became an overnight political-news sensation when he alleged that Sgro had agreed to solve his immigration troubles in exchange for providing free pizza and volunteers to her 2004 election-campaign office. The minister denied the charges but promptly resigned, only for her accuser to later admit he had made up the odd tale.

Joe Volpe, the former cabinet minister who took over the immigration portfolio when Sgro quit in 2005, said he was shocked when told Singh was back, given how difficult it is to return to Canada after being deported.

“It’s about, what, 15 years later and he’s here? Wow,” said Volpe. “Somebody must have made a significant representation if in fact Harjit Singh is here.”

It’s unclear if Hussen was personally aware of Singh’s case, but Volpe suggested that when he was minister, he would have been extremely leery of such a visa application.

People who have been deported can apply for an “authorization to return to Canada,” known in the immigration world as an ARC, but the permits are “hell on earth” to obtain, said lawyer Richard Boraks.

“This would require ministerial intervention to bring him back under the circumstances,” argued Boraks, who is suing the government over an unrelated matter. “A deportation order, the circumstances of the deportation order: red flags everywhere. It would have to be a decision at the highest level.”

Sergio Karas, another Toronto immigration lawyer, said it’s actually “not that difficult” to obtain an ARC, so long as several years have passed and the behaviour leading to the deportation was not overly egregious.

The approval is typically made by visa officers, unless the situation is particularly sensitive, he said.

“In many heavy-duty cases, the matter goes to the minister’s desk,” said Karas. “So one is left to wonder how this (Singh) case unfolded.”

Singh came to Canada in 1988 on a visitor visa, overstayed and then asked for refugee status. He was denied — though his three children were later admitted as refugees — and ordered deported, triggering more than a decade of legal battles.

At one point he was granted permanent resident status on “humanitarian and compassionate” grounds, until it emerged that he had been convicted in India of passport fraud in 1996, caught by police there trying to take a child out of the country on a false passport.

Singh and his three children were charged with credit card fraud in Canada, though the charges were stayed against the father after relatives of prosecution witnesses in India received death threats, according to police.

Three Canadian banks, represented by lawyer Lincoln Caylor, went ahead with a civil lawsuit over the same acts, and the four family members were found liable in 2004. Harjit Singh, said Justice John Macdonald, was the “guiding force” behind the scheme in 2000, which the banks said netted $1 million by “skimming” the data from credit card magnetic stripes.

In jail after failing to attend a pre-removal hearing, Singh filed an affidavit accusing Sgro of making the pizza deal, then reneging on it, arguing she had exerted improper influence on his case. Justice Michael Phelan rejected the argument, saying his story “does not make common sense.”

Sgro agreed to withdraw a $750,000 libel suit against Singh after he wrote to say the tale had been made up. But the MP — cleared at the same time of wrongdoing around the immigration status of an ex-stripper who worked on her campaign — has never returned to cabinet, either in the short-lived Martin government, or more recently under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Sgro could not be reached for comment; a spokesman said she was out of the country.

Source: Thirteen years later, pizza-shop owner deported after fabricating allegations against Liberal MP is back in Canada

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Working knowledge: Quebec expands on-the-job French lessons for newcomers

2019/02/19 Leave a comment

Interesting approach and focus on individual training to small business owners:

Wang Weidong’s shop in Chinatown offers the typical bounty of the Montreal dépanneur − lottery tickets, toothpaste, fireworks, an entire wall of snacks and, of course, beer and wine. One recent morning, the store also featured novel fare: French lessons.

“Huit dollars,” Mr. Wang said, struggling to pronounce “eight dollars” in French.

“Est-ce que je peux avoir un reçu?” said his teacher, Félix Pigeon, asking for a receipt as he stood before Mr. Wang at the counter.

Mr. Wang was a willing pupil in the expanding frontier of French-language learning in Quebec. As the province seeks to ensure newcomers can work and function in French, it’s increasing funding by $450,000 for on-the-job lessons offered at neighbourhood businesses across Montreal.

In Mr. Wang’s case, that means turning the ubiquitous Montreal dépanneur into a classroom. For two hours a week, Mr. Pigeon, a master’s student in literature, exchanges with Mr. Wang at the counter or between store shelves, doling out French phrases as easily as Mr. Wang dispenses ramen soup and chocolate bars. Customers come and go as Mr. Wang works the cash and gamely tries to grasp the intricacies of French grammar and verb conjugation.

“French is important here. I know that if I want to make my business better, I have to speak French,” said Mr. Wang, 51, who came to Montreal from Beijing two years ago with his wife and now 8-year-old son.

“But I don’t have time to go to school. I have to work.”

Mr. Wang’s views underscore a fundamental reality for many immigrants to Quebec: Learning French is essential to building their new lives, but, like Mr. Wang, they’re unlikely to find time to visit a classroom after long hours on the job.

The on-the-job courses have become a success story within Quebec’s vast undertaking known as “la francisation” – the province’s multimillion-dollar efforts to turn immigrants into French speakers.

The new Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government announced funding this month to expand the workplace program in the city, which is run by the Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan Montreal. The initiative began in 2016 with just 30 immigrant merchants; more than 500 are expected to take part this year.

The “students” include an Egyptian immigrant who owns a driving school, a Ukrainian-born waitress at a Greek restaurant, and a woman from Grenada who runs a beauty salon in Montreal’s multicultural Côte-des-Neiges neighbourhood.

“For an entrepreneur – someone operating a dépanneur or a travel agency – going to a French class means closing their business,” said Céline Huot, a vice-president at the chamber of commerce. “So we had the idea of bringing the French class to them.”

As part of the $1.5-million program, participants such as Mr. Wang sport a button saying “J’apprends le français, encouragez-moi,” (I’m learning French, encourage me). The message addresses a basic truth in Montreal: Most people are bilingual and tend to switch to English if they sense that a newcomer is struggling in French. It’s part of the daily interplay of language in a city that typically seeks common linguistic ground.

The message on Mr. Wang’s button turns his personal language effort into a shared goal with his customers.

“It becomes a question of pride for the merchants,” Ms. Huot said. “It’s not, ‘I don’t speak French well, and so I feel a certain embarrassment.’ It becomes extremely positive. The whole campaign shows a positive image of immigrants who are making efforts to integrate.”

At a time when Quebec’s “francisation” programs have come under criticism as inefficient, these free courses have brought measurable results: 80 per cent of immigrants who took part progressed at least one level of French after their three-month session.

And for university students such as Mr. Pigeon, 28, the exchanges deliver their own rewards.

“I’ve travelled a lot and everywhere I go, I’m well-received. Canadians have the reputation to be a welcoming people, so I wanted to be part of that,” Mr. Pigeon said. “I wanted to give back.”

Ensuring newcomers speak French has long been a cornerstone of immigration policy in Quebec, where language is seen as central to the province’s identity and survival. The theme has been heavily promoted by the CAQ government of Premier François Legault, which argues that its 20-per-cent cut to immigration this year is necessary to better integrate immigrants and teach them French. The party has even raised the prospect of expelling immigrants after three years if they failed a French and values test.

Yet despite the “rhetoric” of immigrants posing a threat to the French majority, newcomers in fact overwhelmingly want to learn the language, and 95 per cent of all Quebeckers have a knowledge of French, says Richard Bourhis, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Quebec at Montreal who has studied immigrant integration.

Immigrants might not have time to study French while they’re struggling to pay the rent and put food on the table, he said, but the will is there. “They all want to give themselves as many tools as possible to make their immigration project successful,” Prof. Bourhis said. “If you’re just patient with them, either the first or second generation do learn French. They want to.”

That is certainly the case for Mr. Wang. When a francophone customer comes in asking for fortune cookies, Mr. Wang struggles to understand what she’s saying. Mr. Pigeon coaches him, then Mr. Wang rushes over to a shelf full of cookie bags.

Mr. Wang says he now wants to become proficient enough to go beyond what he calls “dépanneur French,” and has his sights set on a bigger goal: His son’s hockey games.

“When the kids play their games, we have to shout,” Mr. Wang says of his son’s matches with the Jeunes Sportifs d’Hochelaga in Montreal. “I can’t figure out what to say.”

He may not find the answer among the lychee jelly snacks and cans of pop in his dépanneur. But he feels the goal is within reach.

Source: Montreal program

Filed under Immigration, Integration Tagged with , ,

Immigration policy requires a rethink

2019/02/16 Leave a comment

Thoughtful discussion of some of the big picture immigration issues by Mohammad Qadeer:

Immigration has evolved into a defining issue of national politics in most western countries, dividing liberals from populists and globalists from nationalists. Policy in this area is increasingly intertwined with border security, foreign relations, economics, trade and social integration. Governments can no longer simply tweak the criteria for the number, type and national origins of the persons they intend to admit as immigrants.

Today immigration must be seen in an international context, and nations must aim to balance the interests of both sending and receiving countries. Policies governing the two streams of immigration — refugees and voluntary immigrants — need re-examination.

Recent refugee crises have already shifted the parameters of immigration policy, notably in response to the global trends and international events of the past decades. The long wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East, the turmoil and climatic catastrophes of Central and Western Africa, the crime and oppression of Honduras, Guatemala and recently Venezuela have displaced millions. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that the number of forcibly displaced persons in 2017 was 68.5 million. This number is increasing year by year.

Though most refugees seek shelter in neighbouring countries, the dramatic arrival of boatloads of asylum seekers on European shores and the “caravans” of Central Americans heading to the US southern border have triggered populist reactions in these countries, arousing anti-immigration sentiments and roiling national politics. Canada has not been immune from these sentiments, despite its reputation as an immigrant-welcoming country. The Conservative Party is demanding that asylum seekers who cross the border outside the official points of entry be barred.

Countries have moral, legal and international obligations to fairly adjudicate asylum claims in order to protect persecuted and endangered people whose life or security is in jeopardy. There is also a humanitarian imperative to take in persons in extraordinary distress. Yet these obligations have political underpinnings. Usually liberal and socialist groups favour accommodating refugees, and some even advocate for open borders, whereas nationalists and right-wing conservatives demand secure borders and limits on asylum seekers.

These political divisions have sharpened in recent years, and the political parties opposing refugees have made major gains in most countries. Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, has paid for her acceptance of a million refugees by her party’s losses in state elections. Italy has elected a government that has barred rescue ships from entering ports. President Trump is adamant about building a wall on the southern border.

Neither barring nor opening up entry into Western countries can solve the overall problem of asylum seekers. It has to be addressed at the source. Many countries are riven by rebellions, terrorism, ethnic and religious violence, poor governance, climatic disasters and poverty. On top of these internal disorders, foreign interventions and invasions (as in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia) are turning millions into refugees. These events that cause people to leave their homes have to be dealt with by the concerted but non-military efforts of major powers in the interest of global order.

A consensus is emerging that refugees should be protected in and near their homelands. The recently negotiated Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, while holding refugees and migrants to be entitled to universal human rights, commits its signatories to create conducive conditions “for people to lead, peaceful, productive and sustainable lives in their own country” (objective 2, paragraph 18).

A UN body should be ready to temporarily administer a part or the whole of a country where the government fails to protect its people. For this purpose, the Trusteeship Council, initially formed to administer territories in transition from colonialism to independence, could be revived in a new role. It may set up international rule temporarily to establish order and safety and help people stay in their homeland or nearby.

But a stable social order in a Southern country should not be disturbed even if its government is less than democratic, except if it is carrying out ethnic or religious genocide. The lesson of the Western military interventions in the Middle East and Africa is that they tend to turn into unending wars, producing refugees.

The second stream of immigrants is of those selected by Western countries for their skills, professional talents and entrepreneurship. The US admits about 1.1 to 1.3 million permanent residents per year. Canada, with a population less than one-tenth as large, takes in more than 300,000 immigrants and another 300,000 or so temporary workers per year. The UN’s Population Division estimates that in 2017, 258 million persons were international migrants, apart from millions of expatriate workers. In 2017, Gallup estimated that worldwide 700 million would like to migrate. Obviously not everybody is packed to move, but potentially there are millions aspiring to migrate.

Legal immigration has its own policy challenges. It creates a brain and talent drain in sending countries; in the short run, remittances bring a financial infusion and benefit individual migrants, but in the long run, out-migration takes away people who could have contributed to the prosperity and stability of those societies. The vicious cycle of the brain drain is that as the more qualified and enterprising people leave, more aspire to follow them, draining away prospective nation builders. A stable world order in which all countries may prosper requires that the development needs of the sending countries should be balanced against the demand for immigration in the receiving countries.

Within Western countries, the aging and potentially shrinking population is driving the demand for migrant workers. The economic and demographic interests of these countries are the pull factor for immigration, but the resulting dilution of their social, cultural and ethnic composition of nations arouses resistance. Canada, for example, may be a more prosperous country with a majority of its population foreign-born, but it will be a different country. A new entrant in Canadian politics, the People’s Party of Canada, led by Maxime Bernier, demands that immigration should not “forcibly change the cultural character and social fabric of Canada.” Balancing the conflicting demands is a political challenge that will not go away.

Advancing technologies are introducing a new consideration. Automation and artificial intelligence are expected to make 40 percent of jobs free of human labour. Is it desirable for countries to bring large numbers of immigrants into a volatile job market, where job security may be scarce and human labour not in high demand?

In a world of global trade, the movement of people cannot be restricted. What may become necessary are new forms of citizenship and different sets of residents’ rights. In the policies of the near future, immigration may no longer be viewed as the transfer of a population stock from one country to another; the new model may be one of migrants circulating among countries, with associated rights of settlement and movement. Such an approach to immigration may change the idea of nationhood itself.

Source: Immigration policy requires a rethink

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Swiss immigration rises again as ties with EU face test

2019/02/16 Leave a comment

The ongoing tension in Switzerland over immigration and sovereignty, even if the bulk is from European countries:

Immigration into Switzerland rose again last year, taking the foreign population further above 2 million as the wealthy country’s open-door policy for Europeans faces a right-wing challenge.

Neutral Switzerland allows free movement of people from the European Union and EFTA members Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway in return for enhanced access to the EU’s single market. Far-right activists complain this has swamped Switzerland with foreigners who now make up a quarter of the population.

The Swiss People’s Party and anti-EU AUNS group are readying a binding referendum under the Swiss system of direct democracy that would cancel the free-movement accord with the EU if talks to end the practice do not bear fruit within a year.

The Swiss government opposes this, calling instead to preserve free movement as an essential part of ties with the EU, Switzerland’s biggest trading partner and lifeblood for its export-reliant economy.

No date for a vote has been set yet.

Statistics released on Friday showed net immigration of EU/EFTA citizens rose by nearly 31,000 people in 2018, marginally more than in 2017.

Overall immigration – which is steered by quotas for other foreigners and temporary limits on some Balkan members of the EU – increased 2.9 percent to nearly 55,000 people.

That meant nearly 2.1 million foreigners – more than two-thirds of them from the EU and EFTA countries – lived in Switzerland at the end of last year.

Switzerland is wrestling with its approach to EU ties. Brussels wants a new treaty that would have the Swiss routinely adopt single-market rules and give EU citizens the same benefits that they get when living in EU member countries.

The Swiss government has launched domestic consultations to try to forge consensus on its response, but opposition from the right wing and normally pro-Europe left concerned about sacrificing Swiss sovereignty have left the outcome in doubt.

Source: Swiss immigration rises again as ties with EU face test

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