Dual citizens given a break on new passport rules

2016/09/22 Leave a comment

Sensible response. But of course, some will still miss news about the extension, no matter how much communications:

In the wake of a public outcry, Ottawa has extended the grace period of its new travel requirement for Canadian dual citizens.

The federal government was to demand all air travellers who are citizens of Canada and another country be required to carry a Canadian passport as of Sept. 30.

However, many travellers complained they were blindsided by the new measures and would not be able to acquire a Canadian passport in time for their immediate travels.

On Tuesday, Immigration Minister John McCallum announced the implementation date would be postponed until Nov. 10.

“In consultation with airline partners, we’re taking further steps to minimize any travel disruption,” said McCallum. “We’re extending the leniency period and doing another major information blitz in Canada and abroad to encourage affected travellers to plan ahead and get the necessary travel documents before they book a flight to Canada.”

Currently, Canadians with dual citizenship can use the passport of the other country to enter Canada by air if they can provide proof of residency in Canada, such as a driver’s licence or a Canadian citizenship card.

Ottawa rolled out the electronic travel authorization, or eTA, system last year, requiring air passengers — including all applicants for study and work permits, as well as those from countries that currently do not require a visa to come to Canada — to submit their biographic, passport and other personal information through the immigration department website for prescreening or face being denied entry.

Travellers with both Canadian and U.S. citizenship, however, are allowed to return to Canada with their American passports.

Immigration officials said almost 2 million eTAs have been issued to travellers to Canada since August 2015.

Source: Dual citizens given a break on new passport rules | Toronto Star

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Leitch says Trudeau a ‘Canadian identity denier,’ but he’s pointed to ‘shared values, openness, respect’

2016/09/22 Leave a comment

Leitch continues to play hard on identity politics and mischaracterizing PM Trudeau’s comments on identity, just as her source, Candice Malcolm, has (see my review of her most recent book, A response to Candice Malcolm’s Losing True North – Policy Options):

A New York Times Magazine story about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last December that prompted Conservative leadership contender Kellie Leitch to accuse Mr. Trudeau of practising “dangerous” politics and being a “Canadian identity denier” also contains references by the newly elected prime minister to values Canadians share, including “openness, respect, [and] compassion.”

Ms. Leitch surprised a handful of journalists as she was entering the House of Commons on Monday, into the first sitting of the Commons following a 12-week parliamentary recess, and took several minutes to criticize Mr. Trudeau for allegedly denying Canadians have a national identity.

A journalist noted it had been a “very, very big summer” for Ms. Leitch, following a controversy she stirred at the beginning of September by floating the possibility Canada should screen would-be immigrants for “anti-Canadian values,” and asked the leadership hopeful what “tone” she was expecting in the Commons.

“Look, you know, I had a great time and a great campaign, but I do have a concern today and my concern is that our prime minister has denied that we have a core Canadian identity. He’s a Canadian identity denier,” Ms. Leitch replied.

“I’m looking forward to the discussions in our party, but also in the House, over the course of the next number of weeks and months, you know, I think focusing on Canadian values is extremely important,” said Ms. Leitch (Simcoe Grey, Ont.).

“We as a people do have a core identity, we have Canadian values. And I think we’re very proud of them,” Ms. Leitch, who several times described Mr. Trudeau’s position as dangerous.

Asked what she meant, Ms. Leitch replied: “The prime minister of Canada is playing a dangerous game. He denies that we have a core Canadian identity. He’s a Canadian identity denier. I think that is dangerous politics because we as Canadians share a common set of values, and that’s made our country extremely strong.”

The journalists present were later perplexed over the cause of Ms. Leitch’s complaint against Mr. Trudeau, and The Hill Times found a column published in the Toronto Sun that had expressed similar sentiment.

The columnist, Candice Malcolm, weighing in on the critical comments Ms. Leitch experienced in response to a Sept. 1 news report of a survey in which she asked prospective leadership supporters whether Canada should screen refugees and potential immigrants for Canadian values, criticized Mr. Trudeau and briefly quoted a portion of comments Mr. Trudeau made to The New York Times late last year.

“There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada,” Ms. Malcolm quoted Mr. Trudeau as saying in an interview with the newspaper, adding that Mr. Trudeau also said in the interview he sees Canada as “the first post-national state.” Ms. Malcolm was a press secretary to Conservative MP Jason Kenney (Calgary Midnapore, Alta.) when he was immigration minister.

A search on the New York Times newspaper website failed to find a report containing Mr. Trudeau’s comments, but the quotations appear in an article in the Dec. 13, 2015, edition of the weekly New York Times Magazine.

The Toronto Sun columnist, seemingly on whose description Ms. Leitch was depending, quoted only a small portion of the interview comments.

The journalist, who interviewed Mr. Trudeau following the election, in his lead-up to the contested comments noted how Mr. Trudeau and his party had campaigned on a promise to bring 25,000 Syrian refugees into Canada by the end of the year.

The journalist, Guy Lawson, also referred to the November 2015 terrorist attacks that had just rocked Paris.

“Trudeau said he wants Canada to be free from the politics of fear and division,” Mr. Lawson wrote.

“Countries with a strong national identity, linguistic, religious or cultural, are finding it a challenge to effectively integrate people from different backgrounds. In France, there is still a typical citizen and an atypical citizen. Canada doesn’t have that dynamic.”

Mr. Lawson described Mr. Trudeau’s “most radical argument” as his statement that “Canada is becoming a new kind of state, defined not by its European history but by the multiplicity of its identities from all over the world.”

Mr. Trudeau described a recent vandalism attack against a mosque in Cold Lake, Alta. and said “the entire town came out the next day to scrub the graffiti of the walls and help them fix the damage.”

‘‘Countries with a strong national identity—linguistic, religious, or cultural—are finding it a challenge to effectively integrate people from different backgrounds. In France, there is still a typical citizen and an atypical citizen. Canada doesn’t have that dynamic.’’ said Mr. Trudeau.

Mr. Lawson recalled how Mr. Trudeau’s father, former prime minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau, had argued against cultural and historical nationalism and its negative effect on Quebec prior to the 1960s social and political change in the province.

“There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada,” Mr. Lawson quoted Mr. Trudeau as saying.

‘‘There are shared values—openness, respect, compassion, willingness to work hard, to be there for each other, to search for equality and justice. Those qualities are what make us the first postnational state,” Mr. Trudeau said, in remarkable similarity even to some of the values Ms. Leitch has mentioned in response to her critics.

Source: The Hill Times

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Skilled immigrants wasting their talents in Canada

2016/09/21 Leave a comment

Ongoing issue with degrees of complexity that take time and effort to address. Their children, of course, will not face the same disadvantage as the chart below indicates, given born and educated in Canada:

“There’s a joke in Toronto that the best place to have a heart attack is in a cab because there’ll be a doctor driving that cab,” said Margaret Eaton, executive director of the Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council.

In reality, fewer than one per cent of immigrant doctors drove taxis, according to the 2011 National Household Survey. 

But almost half never get to practice medicine in Canada. 

Instead, they wind up as nurses, sonographers and care aides, among other related fields that don’t use their full skill set, even though they may have years of experience abroad.

This is a common experience for skilled immigrants.

Academic studies show that those who do find work in their field often end up working below their level of qualifications.

In Ontario, many foreign-born and educated engineers have ended up becoming IT managers, janitors and truck drivers, 2011 data shows. Top jobs for foreign-born and educated accountants outside of their field include bookkeeping, serving food and working as cashiers.

matching_jobs_pies

Part of the problem can be chalked up to the fact that, in recent years, immigrants have been more likely to come from countries like India, China and the Philippines, where the education system is different from the European countries, where immigrants flowed from in decades past. 

In many cases, they may also have a lower level of English skills. 

The cost of this mismatch is significant. 

In 2015, the Conference Board of Canada estimated that if Canadian employers and professional regulatory bodies did a better job of recognizing immigrants’ skills, they would earn an additional $10 billion to $12.7 billion annually and would pay more tax. 

Added to that is the huge emotional toll on these newcomers, especially when they wind up working survival jobs in cleaning, fast-food restaurants and retail, said Naghmeh Rezvani, a career practitioner at the Centre for Newcomers in Calgary.

 In January 2015, the Conservative government introduced a new system for selecting skilled immigrants called Express Entry that tries to tie permanent residency to the economy.

Those with a job offer backed by a labour market impact assessment, which proves they were selected because no Canadians were available for work, receive bonus points that help them get permanent residency more quickly.

Last year, cooks, food service supervisors and retail store supervisors were among the top 10 invited occupations because they had such jobs in hand. They made up almost one out of every five immigrants selected.

This outcome has critics concerned. They say immigrants employers hire are not necessarily the same as those who will boost Canada’s economy in the long run.

“All it is is their first job,” said David Cohen, a Montreal immigration lawyer. “A lot of candidates with excellent human capital are being squeezed out.”

The federal government is looking at doing away with the labour market assessment requirement but plans to increase the role of Express Entry in the future.

Having a job offer on arrival does have benefits. Immigrants who come without one struggle to find work because they lack Canadian experience, soft skills and social networks that would help them break into their field.

The Canadian labour market is “very parochial,” said Kelly Thomson, a  York University professor who studies foreign professionals.

“We have a tendency to compare them to Canadians and say, ‘Oh, they don’t speak as good English,’ instead of thinking, ‘Oh, they speak multiple languages. How is that an advantage for my business?’ or ‘They have a large international network.’”

Those in regulated professions face the biggest struggle. According to staff at the Centre for Newcomers in Calgary, it can take immigrants in many professions at least three years to transfer their qualifications, if they succeed at all. 

Source: Skilled immigrants wasting their talents in Canada | Calgary Herald

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Let’s Give Cities A Greater Role In Managing Migration | Harald Bauder

2016/09/19 Leave a comment

Worth reflecting upon:

National migration policies play an important part in ordering our society based on origin and status. Canadian temporary foreign workers and international mobility programs have resulted in more than 350,000 foreign workers living in Canada in 2014, often without the same economic rights and entitlements that Canadian citizens take for granted — including the right to stay.

Cities have a different approach to migration. They are not in the business of controlling who crosses and settles within their boundaries, or ordering their communities based on where residents are coming from. Rather, their role is to be inclusive and provide access to resources and services for all residents.

Granted, some city administrations are eager to enforce national migration policies and actively participate in the border regime. Research by my colleague at York University, Liette Gilbert, shows how smaller towns such as Hérouxville, Quebec, and Hazleton, Pennsylvania, have introduced measures that erode the rights of migrants and control their presence.

Many other cities, however, resist exclusionary national policies and border regimes. For example, by declaring themselves sanctuary cities, Toronto and Hamilton have recognized that the residents who are denied status by national policies are nevertheless members of their communities. In this way, dozens of sanctuary cities throughout North America are seeking to build inclusive urban communities in which all residents can equally participate — independent of the order which border regimes impose.

In a globalized world, nation states are increasingly failing to cope with the human need for security and desire to migrate.

Urban communities are also highly responsive to global developments and the need for people to migrate for work and opportunity, and to escape from war and oppression. Take Lifeline Syria as an example: this initiative was spearheaded by civic leaders of Greater Toronto to mobilize fellow residents to sponsor Syrian refugee families and help these families settle in their communities. While the federal government is an important partner in this initiative, it is the urban community that has demonstrated leadership.

Cities are demanding a greater role in managing migration and are asserting their independence from national migration policies that disenfranchise large portions of their residents.

In a globalized world, nation states are increasingly failing to cope with the human need for security and desire to migrate. As cities fill this void, they must maintain their inclusive approach and resist being absorbed into the deadly border regime.

Source: Let’s Give Cities A Greater Role In Managing Migration | Harald Bauder

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Canadians want to boost immigration, McCallum says after consultations

2016/09/15 Leave a comment

Will be interesting to see whether the Liberal government increases levels further or, as suggested in previous Globe article (Looming season of immigration politics puts Liberals, Tories on edge), shows more caution given possible public concern (IRCC’s public consultations may have drawn more from immigration advocates than those with concerns):

The Liberal government will announce Canada’s new immigration targets in November and the minister in charge said most people are telling him to boost the number of immigrants.

Speaking with reporters following a cabinet meeting on Parliament Hill, Immigration Minister John McCallum summarized the results of his recent cross-country consultations on Canadian immigration.

“I have been hearing a lot of input, and all the hundreds of people I’ve spoken to across the country, most of them, almost all of them, have advocated [for] more immigrants, whether for demographic reasons or for job-shortage reasons,” Mr. McCallum said. “But we as a government will not decide our proposal until November.”

 Canada’s 2016 immigration-levels plan aims to bring in about 300,000 permanent residents this year. That includes targets of 80,000 under family reunification, between 51,000 and 57,000 refugees and protected persons, and between 151,200 and 162,400 economic immigrants.

Canada’s immigration levels have been roughly constant over the past two decades. Between 1994 and 2014, the yearly immigration levels represented either 0.7 per cent or 0.8 per cent of the population.

In 2014, Canada accepted 260,404 immigrants, representing 0.7 per cent of the population.

Mr. McCallum said he has received a “huge amount of input” on the topic of immigration over the summer.

Mr. McCallum’s assessment of public opinion is at odds with the results of a recent Nanos Research survey conducted for The Globe and Mail that was released on Sept. 1.

That survey of 1,000 Canadians found that 39 per cent said the government should accept fewer immigrants in 2017 than the previous year. Thirty-seven per cent said Canada should accept the same amount in 2017, while only 16 per cent said the target should be increased.

Source: Canadians want to boost immigration, McCallum says after consultations – The Globe and Mail

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Integration and multiculturalism: Finding a new metaphor – Policy Options

2016/09/14 Leave a comment

Having never been comfortable with the “two-way street” metaphor for immigrant integration, I finally got around to articulating my reasons more formally, and proposing some alternatives and stimulating debate and discussion.

The following article in IRPP’s Policy Options is the result.

Some other alternatives that I have received to date include: Wittgensteinian sailing a boat while always renewing the planks, in economics, the supply and demand model in setting prices and achieving a new equilibrium, big river with little streams, and the Norwegian metaphor of samspill, or play together.

I welcome additional suggestions and comments:

When immigration officials and advocates talk about the integration process for new Canadians, often they reach for the metaphor of a “two-way street.” Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada notes that “the focus of the integration programs at CIC is on operationalizing the ‘two-way street approach’…through assisting individuals to become active, connected and productive citizens.” The Canadian Index on Immigration Integration talks about the “metaphorical meeting of the immigrant and the receiving population somewhere in the middle of the street.” Former Immigration minister Jason Kenney used the phrase in speeches, where he emphasized the duty of newcomers to adapt to their new home and the responsibility of Canadians to accommodate them.

But does a metaphor matter? It does, given Canada’s increasingly diverse population and the challenges of ensuring successful integration of immigrants and their children. Getting the metaphor right will convey expectations to newcomers and the host society alike regarding their respective roles in the integration process.

The “two-way street” is handy shorthand. With integration, immigrants and the host society both adapt to each other’s presence, instead of the assimilationist expectation that immigrants will completely adopt the values, attitudes, norms and lifestyles of the host. The aim of integration is for immigrants and their children to obey Canadian laws and eventually and voluntarily to adopt Canadian values, attitudes, norms and lifestyles, most notably gender equality and acceptance of other groups. The ultimate goal is that they eventually enjoy economic, social, health and political outcomes that are broadly comparable with those of “old-stock” Canadians. Accommodation by the host society aims at facilitating that integration process.

While diversions from this norm exist; for example, voluntary exclusion as in the cases of Mennonites or other religious communities, or involuntary exclusion because of racism and discrimination (separation or segregation, to use psychology scholar John Berry’s terms), the overall emphasis is on this integration process.

However, in order for metaphors to be successful, they have to speak to the broader population, not just the specialists, and they have to resonate in a visceral way. They have to be simple and easy to grasp, but they also have to avoid being simplistic. The “two-way-street” metaphor is unsuccessful for a number of reasons.

Streets are for cars, not people. Cars do not meet on a two-way street, they drive past each other (and if they do meet, usually it is in a crash!). Integration is about mingling, interacting and adapting.

The integration process is asymmetric: it is more important for immigrants and new Canadians to adapt to Canadian laws, norms and values than it is for the host society to adjust to them. The meeting point is not “somewhere in the middle” between the host society and the newcomers, but much closer to the host society (80/20 percent, in my view).

And integration is dynamic and ever changing, not linear. What is deemed acceptable evolves through the democratic, legal and political processes, as newcomers assert their identities and their rights and the host society responds. What was originally considered unacceptable (e.g., turban-wearing Mounties) becomes normal; what might initially be considered acceptable (e.g., sharia family law in Ontario) is deemed unacceptable following public discussion and debate.

It also must be noted that the values of the host society are dynamic and change over time; for example, attitudes toward gender equality, homosexuality and same sex marriage have undergone a sea change in Canada and elsewhere over the past generation. Immigrants and new Canadians are expected eventually to follow suit.

The metaphor also fails to capture the diversity and multilayered identities in Canadians, and how these can change with contexts and individual preferences. Ethnicity, religion, gender, age, generation, and lived experiences all play a part at the individual and group levels.

So, what are better phrases that describe this process and dynamic, and how do these capture the roles of newcomers and the host society?

Similar to the multiculturalism dynamic, the integration/accommodation dynamic captures the fact that newcomers integrate into the host society while the host society accommodates and adjusts to newcomer needs and identities. A combination of push and pull between newcomers and the host society, mediated through political, judicial and everyday socio-cultural processes, finds an equilibrium point, which evolves over time. Individuals and groups provide the push that forces the host society to respond. And, of course, as the host society itself becomes more diverse and its values evolve, this mediation happens between not only the “old stock” Canadians of the host society but also the more established and more recent groups of immigrants.

A more sophisticated version of this characterization can be seen in Harald Bauder’s description of integration as a process of Hegelian dialectic: thesis, antithesis, synthesis, or the host society (thesis) being challenged by newcomers (antithesis), resulting in a new balance and accommodation (synthesis), hence reducing the difference between the “newcomer ‘other’ and the Canadian ‘self’.”

Another concept used by some academics and policy-makers in a multiculturalism context, is that of harmony/jazz. Harmony is provided by the legal and constitutional framework that applies to all Canadians — it is the underlying melody. Jazz reflects improvisation in dealing with accommodation requests within that overall context. Again, the underlying harmony predominates. This approach has the advantage of being more flexible in dealing with accommodation pressures.

So what best describes integration and multiculturalism? Passing each other on a two-way street or “making music together?” My preference is the latter, as it describes the dynamic, complex and varied nature of how we, in our ever more diverse society, continue to search for a new and hopefully improved equilibrium.  Perhaps just as every jazz band interprets a musical composition in new and unanticipated ways, so does a healthy, diverse multicultural society.

—

I would like to thank Michael Adams and Harald Bauder for their helpful comments and suggestions on integration definitions and metaphors.

Source: Integration and multiculturalism: Finding a new metaphor – Policy Options

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ICYMI: Fact check on Kellie Leitch’s ‘values check’

2016/09/14 Leave a comment

Good analysis by Joan Bryden of the complications in assessing values:

Conservative leadership contender Kellie Leitch has sparked a fire storm with her suggestion that prospective immigrants should be vetted for “anti-Canadian values.”

Among the values she says should be unwelcome are “intolerance towards other religions, cultures and sexual orientations, violent and/or misogynist behaviour and/or a lack of acceptance of our Canadian tradition of personal and economic freedoms.”

Leitch has not spelled out how her proposed screening process would work but she has dismissed the concerns of leadership rivals and others who have argued the scheme is unacceptable, unnecessary and unworkable. She has said it’s akin to conducting security checks and just a matter of asking would-be newcomers some “simple questions.”

But immigration experts say merely asking simple questions would be meaningless; prospective immigrants would quickly learn to give the “correct” answers but not necessarily honest ones.

To attempt to do such screening seriously would cost a fortune and require hiring thousands of professional interviewers trained to detect applicants who weren’t being truthful about their real values, experts warn. And even that, they say, would probably be ineffective.

…

The Facts

Currently, prospective immigrants undergo security and criminal checks. There are numerous reasons a person may be found inadmissible, including if the individual:

  • is considered a security risk. That includes involvement in espionage, violence or terrorism, attempts to overthrow a government and membership in an organization that is involved in any of those things.
  • has committed human or international rights violations, including committing war crimes or having been a senior official in a government that has engaged in gross human rights violations.
  • has been convicted of a crime or committed an act that would be a crime in Canada.
  • has ties to organized crime.
  • has a serious health or financial problem.
  • lied on the application form or in an interview with an immigration officer.

The Experts

So how could Canada go about weeding out would-be immigrants who hold “anti-Canadian values?”

Contrary to Leitch’s assertion, it couldn’t be a matter of asking individuals a series of simple questions — like “Do you support gender equality?” — says Monica Boyd, Canada Research Chair in Immigration, Inequality and Public Policy at the University of Toronto.

Asking such questions, to which the socially acceptable answer is evident, “is going to get you what I call the motherhood responses,” she says.

…A serious attempt to explore a person’s values would have to take a more sophisticated approach, asking multiple, subtle questions that can be analysed by professionals to elicit a truer picture of an individual’s real attitudes. And that, Boyd says, “moves us into a set of screening that no nation state has adopted because it’s so bloody expensive you can’t even get near it.”

Bellissimo says any serious attempt to detect who is telling the truth about their values would require hiring thousands of highly-trained interviewers.

“I couldn’t imagine the cost, the training, what would be involved and, again, to what end?”

Even were Canada prepared to foot the bill, Boyd predicts schools would pop up abroad to teach would-be migrants how to pass the Canadian values test.

“In any kind of these values tests, if the incentive is strong enough, people learn to lie,” she says.

And even were it possible to verify the truthfulness of a person’s answers, Vancouver immigration lawyer Zool Suleman says that ignores the fact that values evolve over time, rendering the whole exercise meaningless.

“Values are not a water-tight container,” he says. “They evolve and, in fact, one would hope that by being in Canada people’s values would lean towards what we would call the mean or the centre in Canada, which embraces our Constitution, embraces our engagement with law enforcement and also societal norms.”

The Verdict

Leitch’s claim that screening prospective immigrants for anti-Canadian values would be akin to security screening and a matter of asking some simple questions doesn’t hold up. There is no way to document or check with international authorities about peoples’ values and simply asking them won’t produce useful answers. For this reason, her claim is “full of baloney.”

Source: Fact check on Kellie Leitch’s ‘values check’ – Macleans.ca

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Liberal MPs set up 11 issue-based caucuses, four regionally based immigration caucuses

2016/09/13 Leave a comment

The focus on immigration is not surprising given the Liberals strong showing in ridings with large numbers of new Canadians and the nature of constituent complaints:

Liberal MPs told The Hill Times that immigration is the “No. 1” issue in major urban centres across the country. The four regional caucuses on immigration are: the Western and Northern Immigration Caucus, chaired by Liberal MP Jati Sidhu (Mission-Matsqui-Fraser-Canyon, B.C.); the Ontario Immigration Caucus, co-chaired by Liberal MPs Julie Dzerowicz (Davenport, Ont.) and Peter Fonseca (Mississauga East-Cooksville, Ont.); the Quebec Immigration Caucus, chaired by Liberal MP Steven MacKinnon (Gatineau, Que.); and the Atlantic Immigration Caucus, chaired by Liberal MP Alaina Lockhart (Fundy Royal, N.B.).

Liberal MPs told The Hill Times that MPs have to get approval from Chief Government Whip Andrew Leslie (Orléans, Ont.) and Mr. Scarpaleggia to set up the caucuses and that any Liberal MP who is interested in a specific subject can attend. After studying a specific issue and listening to experts, members of issue-based caucuses can provide input to cabinet ministers, but it is not binding on the government to follow this advice, Mr. Scarpaleggia said.

“It’s a way of focusing attention on an issue as part of a process of learning more about an issue,” said Mr. Scarpaleggia. “Sometimes, it’s to develop further policy on an issue. It’s an opportunity to develop ideas and provide input to the government.”

… Meanwhile, the chairs of the regional immigration caucuses told The Hill Times in June that immigration-related issues are top of mind for their constituents and make up a majority of their staffers’ constituency office work in major urban centres.

Liberal MPs said at that time that some of the most common complaints coming from their constituents about immigration issues are related to long delays in the processing times of applications for family reunification, refugees, spousal sponsorship, temporary foreign workers, visitor visas, and Canadian citizenship applications.

“People who put me in here, they come to my office and they’re banging on my doors [asking], ‘What are you doing different from the previous government,’” Liberal MP Jati Sidhu (Mission-Matsqui-Fraser-Canyon, B.C.), chair of the Liberals’ Western and Northern Immigration Caucus, told The Hill Times in June. “So, we’re trying to reform with the help of the immigration minister with the feedback from Members of Parliament to see what can we do together. It’s making his job easier because he can’t see 20 MPs every time.”

Source: The Hill Times

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Jason Kenney dismisses Kellie Leitch’s immigrant-screening proposal, Candice Malcolm former Kenney staffer endorses Leitch’s proposal

2016/09/12 Leave a comment

Sharp contrast between former CIC Minister Kenney and one of his former staffers, Candice Malcolm. Starting with Kenney:

Federal Conservative leadership candidate Kellie Leitch hasn’t thought through her controversial position on screening immigrants for “anti-Canadian values,” former Tory immigration minister Jason Kenney says.

Following a speech in downtown Calgary on Friday, Mr. Kenney, who is seeking the Alberta Progressive Conservative leadership, said he believes Dr. Leitch is pursuing an “improvised position” without understanding the negative impact of her words.

“I don’t take her position seriously. She’s never articulated it before,” Mr. Kenney said.

 “She’s never said a word about this in Parliament, caucus or cabinet. I don’t think she understands the nuance around these issues. You have to be very careful in the way you articulate questions about integration.”

Dr. Leitch, a Conservative MP from Ontario, e-mailed a survey last week to supporters that included a question about whether the federal government should screen potential immigrants and refugees for “anti-Canadian values.”

She later said she is protecting Canadian values from people who believe that women are property and can be beaten or that gays and lesbians should be stoned.

Despite widespread criticism including unflattering comparisons to U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump, Dr. Leitch has defended her position that screening is needed without saying how immigration officials would actually vet new Canadians.

Source: Jason Kenney dismisses Kellie Leitch’s immigrant-screening proposal – The Globe and Mail

And Malcolm’s defence of Leitch:

To most Canadians, this is a perfectly reasonable suggestion. In fact, back in 2011 the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation commissioned a report through Dalhousie University that asked very similar questions.

In that survey, 97% of Canadians agreed that values such as “gender equality”and “tolerance of others” must be embraced by newcomers. Likewise, 96% of immigrant Canadians agreed with embracing Canadian values.

According to a Globe and Mail report at the time,the survey demonstrated “a solid consensus around the notion that immigrants should accept certain values as a precondition for joining Canadian society.”

A “pre-condition” – meaning potential immigrants should accept these values before coming to Canada.

The survey also found that nine in 10 Canadians believed that Canadian laws should take precedence over religious laws and that newcomers should learn about Canada’s history and culture. Eight in 10 Canadians supported the idea that immigrants should “raise their children as Canadians.”

The overwhelmingly majority of Canadians believed that newcomers should accept our values. And the media hardly raised an eyebrow.

That was then, and this is now.

Five years ago, we all agreed that Canadian values were cherished and worth protecting. We were confident in ourselves and proud of our country. We celebrated our Canadian values, and weren’t afraid to promote our way of life to newcomers. But things have changed.

In 2016, any suggestion that our values are important leads to name-calling and hysteria. Leitch has received a fury of condemnation from media elites, Liberals and even many of her fellow Conservative caucus members.

They’ve accused her of “xenophobia,” “racism,”“dog-whistle politics,” and compared her to Donald Trump. The comparison is silly.

Trump has been successful in the U.S. for lashing out at the establishment, brazenly opposing political correctness and making shocking comments about various minority groups. He irresponsibly called for a ban on all Muslims entering the U.S., categorized Mexican immigrants as “rapists” and initially failed to denounce a former KKK leader.

Trump has built his candidacy around emotional appeals to American greatness,while not-so-subtly winking at racists and white supremacists.

Leitch, by stark contrast, made a simple suggestion about standing up for Canadian values, and followed up with a thoughtful explanation.

But elites in Canada are paranoid. The rise of Trump in the U.S, alongside the resurgence of nationalism and anti-immigration parties in Europe, has made many nervous. Wary of a similar movement in Canada, many are determined to nip discussions of integration and immigration reform in the bud before they grow.

This shows a lack of confidence in Canadian commonsense. Not every conservative is aDonald Trump in waiting. Not every proposal surrounding immigrant and integration is tantamount to Trumpian racism.

Kellie Leitch is no Donald Trump

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Canadians favour screening would-be immigrants for ‘anti-Canadian’ values, poll shows

2016/09/12 Leave a comment

Not surprising. Similar levels of support for a ban on niqabs at citizenship ceremonies but in the end, not a deciding issues for the vast majority of voters:

Two-thirds of Canadians want prospective immigrants to be screened for “anti-Canadian” values, a new poll reveals, lending support to an idea that is stirring controversy in political circles.

Conservative MP Kellie Leitch, a candidate in her party’s leadership contest, has floated the idea of screening newcomers for their attitudes on intolerance toward other religions, cultures and sexual orientations and reluctance to embrace Canadian freedoms.

A new Forum Research Inc. poll for the Star shows that Leitch may be tapping into an idea that Canadians favour with 67 per cent saying immigrants should indeed be screened for “anti-Canadian values.”

More importantly for Leitch, the poll shows that the idea is especially popular among Conservative supporters with 87 per cent backing the idea and just 8 per cent opposed compared to 57 per cent support among Liberals and 59 per cent for New Democrat voters.

That’s certain to be the reason that Leitch (Simcoe-Grey) proposed the idea — and has stuck by it in the face of criticism, said Lorne Bozinoff, president of Forum Research.

“If you’re going after the base, this is like red meat for them. They’re going to love this,” he said Friday. “This is hitting the nail right on the head.”

When asked to choose the values respondents believe are important, equality came out on top (27 per cent), followed by patriotism (15 per cent), fairness (12 per cent) and tolerance (11 per cent).

Conservative backers put patriotism at the top their list of important values. Liberals and New Democrats ranked equality as their first choice.

Just one-quarter of respondents disagreed with the idea of screening for values and nine per cent had no opinion.

The idea finds most support among those ages 45 to 64 (73 per cent); more men (70 per cent) than women (64 per cent); living in Quebec (71 per cent) and Ontario (70 per cent) than those in the Atlantic provinces (56 per cent).

Leitch raised the idea of screening would-be immigrants in a survey sent out by her campaign seeking input on issues.

Source: Canadians favour screening would-be immigrants for ‘anti-Canadian’ values, poll shows | Toronto Star

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