Indian officer’s denial at Canadian border a mistake, federal government says

2017/06/09 Leave a comment

Mistakes happen. Recognition and correction depends in part about level of person affected and nature of representation:

The federal government is admitting border officials made a mistake when a retired anti-insurgency officer from India was deemed inadmissible to Canada and denied entry.

Days later, after an outcry from Indian officials, the officer was suddenly reissued a visa and flown back to Toronto.

In a statement in May, Canada’s High Commissioner to India, Nadir Patel, expressed “regret” about the incident but would not reveal the rejected visitor’s identity citing privacy protection. Immigration officials subsequently confirmed the person as Tejinder Singh Dhillon.

Dhillon, a retired senior officer with the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), India’s largest paramilitary force under the home affairs ministry, was refused admission in May at the Vancouver airport on the way to his niece’s wedding in Toronto.

Canada border officials explained the refusal by indicating on a form letter that the 67-year-old had served a government that engages or has engaged in terrorism, human rights violations, crime against humanity or genocide.

The incident immediately caused diplomatic ripples between New Delhi and Ottawa, prompting Canadian officials to issue not just a new multiple-entry visa to Dhillon but a plane ticket for his return.

“Such a characterization of a reputed force like the CRPF is completely unacceptable.  We have taken up the matter with the Government of Canada,” a foreign ministry official told Indian media.

Patel said the refusal was a mistake on Ottawa’s part.

“Over the past year, over 300,000 Indian nationals have applied to visit Canada. From time to time, with such a large number of applications, oversights on visa applications can happen which is regrettable,” Patel wrote in a statement.

“Form letters in use by the Government of Canada include generic language taken from Canada’s legislation. In this case, the language does not reflect the Government of Canada’s policy toward India or any particular organization. . . The Central Reserve Police Force plays an important role in upholding law and order in India.”

Anirudh Bhattacharyya, who interviewed Dhillon and reported the story from Toronto for the Hindustan Times, said Dhillon complained Canadian officials treated him in an “unreasonable and indecent manner, accusing him of having either participated or having knowledge of CRPF’s human rights violations.

“It is very upsetting. I have seen many crises, but this is very difficult to bear,” Dhillon told Bhattacharyya in an interview.

Source: Indian officer’s denial at Canadian border a mistake, federal government says | Toronto Star

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To escape abusive marriages, many Christians in Pakistan convert to Islam | Religion News Service

2017/06/09 Leave a comment

Interesting:

For a Pakistani Christian like Shameela Masih, divorcing her abusive husband meant two choices — both nearly as bad as staying in the marriage.

“I have to prove adultery allegations against him,” said Masih, a 34-year-old mother of two. “The other option I have is to convert to Islam.”

Masih recently filed for divorce from a husband she said “frequently beats me up” and a mother-in-law who she said burned her leg with coal.

But under the majority-Muslim country’s laws, she must produce a witness who would testify to committing adultery with her husband. As a result, she’s now reluctantly planning to renounce her faith.

“Converting is the easiest way out,” she said. “My family tells me that they will disown me as a Muslim, but I don’t have a choice.”

Now Pakistani officials are considering revising the law to make it easier for couples to part ways.

“There are so many things in the existing 19th-century Christian Marriage Act that need to be revised and updated to stop the exploitation of people and protect the human rights,” said Kamran Michael, the federal minister for human rights who is spearheading the drive for the legislation.

The law grants divorces to Christian couples on four grounds: adultery, conversion, marriage to another or cruelty. But proving adultery or cruelty is tough, especially in Pakistan, where adultery is a crime, and the stigma against domestic violence is weak in many parts of the country. Christians comprise less than 2 percent of Pakistan’s population of 189 million.

Muslims, on the other hand, can easily obtain a divorce for a variety of reasons, including irreconcilable differences.

Formerly, Pakistan’s laws on divorce mirrored those in Britain. But in the early 1980s, then-military dictator Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq restored older laws from the colonial period that applied to Christians divorcing. For Muslims, he left revised laws from the 1960s intact.

“The current law on Christian divorce undermines the dignity of women,” said Fauzia Viqar, who chairs the Punjab Commission on the Status of Women. “Many Christian women are left in marriages where they are suffering cruelty by husbands without any relief from the state.”

Source: To escape abusive marriages, many Christians in Pakistan convert to Islam | Religion News Service

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Budget bill will increase service fees with less accountability, say critics

2017/06/08 1 Comment

More on the government’s plans to repeal the User Fees Act and replaced it with the streamlined Service Fees Act (no changes or amendments made by the House FINA committee). The critique by Roy Cullen, the author of the User Fees Act, is revealing:

As the Liberal Member of Parliament for the federal Ontario riding of Etobicoke North from 1996 to 2008, Roy Cullen had the relatively rare accomplishment of having a private member’s bill pass with strong support in both the House of Commons and the Senate.

In 2004, Bill C-212, An Act respecting user fees, received royal assent. The bill was intended to increase accountability, oversight, and transparency for the way in which the federal government sets fees for various services, from providing Canadians with passports to giving them access to national parks.

But the government’s current omnibus budget Bill C-44 proposes to replace the User Fees Act with a Service Fees Act that would come into force next April and which would, Mr. Cullen argues, reduce public-service obligations to justify raising prices to Parliament.

His bill required federal departments and agencies to clearly explain how user fees are determined, and identify their cost and revenue elements, as well as create standards comparable to those in other countries where comparisons are relevant and “against which the performance of the regulating authority can be measured.”

The Service Fees Act is silent on those two points. It also seeks to automatically raise fees every fiscal year by the percentage change in the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which concerns Mr. Cullen.

“Some of these user fees have never been justified in a way my bill required them to be justified,” he explained in an interview this week from Victoria, where he now resides. “They’ve never undergone benchmarking to determine whether they met the performance standards identified in the legislation.”

He recalled that when he was developing the User Fees Act, several departments and agencies sought exemptions on the basis their user fees were “unique” and could not be compared against those charged in other jurisdictions. “In some cases, there was some validity to their arguments, in others, it was just a cop out,” Mr. Cullen said.

However, a 2016 internal Treasury Board document, obtained by CBC News earlier this year under the Access to Information Act, stated that 84 per cent of user fees have not been revised since the User Fees Act was passed. A subsection of the act that would reduce a user fee if it failed to meet its performance standard has resulted in a “disincentive to amend fees,” said the memo to Treasury Board President Scott Brison (Kings-Hants, N.S.), which also noted the “significant time and effort…required to prepare proposals to amend or create fees” under the User Fees Act.

“While fees have not increased over time, costs have. This resulted in an increase in the rate of taxpayer subsidies for government services that benefit private interests.”

Roger Ermuth, assistant comptroller general in the Treasury Board Secretariat, who wrote the memo obtained by the CBC, told the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance last month that based on information from the latest available departmental performance reports, the federal government collected [in 2014-15] $1.9-billion in user fees, but the associated costs to deliver services were around $3.4-billion.

But he indicated that the goal isn’t necessarily to increase fees by $1.5-billion to close the gap.

Former federal official Andrew Griffith, who served as director general of citizenship and multiculturalism in what is now Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada until his retirement in 2011, believes there has to be a consideration of the public interest in setting and hiking government fees beyond recovering the costs of providing services, as there was with the User Fees Act.

In a brief he presented to both the House and Senate finance committees, Mr. Griffith also recommended that any proposed fee increase in the proposed Service Fees Act that exceeds the annual CPI adjustment and which affects the general public, such as citizenship or passport application fees, should be referred to the relevant Parliamentary committee for review, “rather than the after-the-fact reporting required in the proposed Act.”

He said while the “User Fees Act consultation process and justification requirements may have been too onerous, the Service Fees Act goes too far by removing all meaningful transparency and consultations,” and Mr. Griffith argues that the proposed legislation could have a further impact on citizenship applications whose numbers have decreased from 198,000 in 2014 to 92,000 last year, in part, because of increasing fees, according to his analysis.

In 2014, the citizenship-application processing fee jumped from $100—a price that had remained unchanged for 20 years—to $300 and then $530 later that year after the federal Immigration Department obtained an exemption from the User Fees Act. The first increase was announced in February 2014 when the former Conservative government unveiled Bill C-24, The Strengthening of Canadian Citizenship Act, and was subject to Parliamentary review. The second hike was revealed in a Canada Gazette post just before the Christmas break in December 2014, “all but guaranteeing no one would notice at the time, and resulting in no debate,” Mr. Griffith wrote in his brief.

He added that had automatic consumer price indexing been allowed, the citizenship application fee would have only grown to $150 in 2016. Instead, an immigrant couple must pay $1,060 (plus an additional $100 right-of-citizenship fee each), and $200 for every child, to apply for citizenship.

“Over time, there will be a larger percentage of the population that will remain permanent residents unable to afford citizenship,” Mr. Griffith said in an interview.

“From a policy perspective, Canada has always had the model that we don’t just select immigrants, we try to select future citizens to fully integrate and participate in Canadian society.”

He would like to see the Service Fees Act distinguish between “public benefits,” such as for citizenship applications where the government could split the cost to provide the service with applicants, and “personal benefits,” such as for passport applications where the government could take a full cost-recovery approach in providing Canadians with the travel document.

Source: Budget bill will increase service fees with less accountability, say critics – The Hill Times – The Hill Times

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New Orleans mayor delivered the reality check America needs: Gary Mason

2017/06/08 Leave a comment

Mason on Mitch Landrieu, the mayor of New Orleans, and his political courage in arguing for and  taking down Confederate statues:

While far from a household name in the United States, I remember thinking at the time Mr. Landrieu was someone whose political horizon could one day stretch all the way to Washington – although he poo-pooed having any grander ambitions than the job he had.

Recently, however, the New Orleans’s mayor may have unwittingly (or wittingly) launched the journey that could one day take him to the White House. In a stunningly eloquent speech defending the city’s decision to remove four statues honouring Confederate generals and soldiers, Mr. Landrieu reminded Americans why words continue to matter.

It was the kind of soaring oratory that became the foundation of Barack Obama’s historic rise to power. And against the backdrop of the current administration, and the monosyllabic shallowness of President Donald Trump, it stood out even more.

In one memorable line, Mr. Landrieu undermined the notion that statues such as the one glorifying the racist Civil War general Robert E. Lee were necessary to recognize the country’s history. Said Mr. Landrieu: “There are no slave-ship monuments, no prominent markers on public land to remember the lynchings or the slave blocks. …”

He went on: “These statues are not just stone and metal. They are not just innocent remembrances of benign history. These monuments purposefully celebrate a fictional, sanitized Confederacy; ignoring the death, ignoring enslavement and the terror that it actually stood for.”

Taking these statues down was not an easy thing to do in a southern city such as New Orleans, where racism remains entrenched. Many residents thought the mayor needed to be worrying more about murder and less about monuments. But he felt it was time the South confronted a deeply painful issue. He thought about what a black mother would tell a young daughter who asked about the metal sculptures and what these men had done to be exalted in this manner.

“Can you look into that young girl’s eyes and convince her that Robert E. Lee is there to encourage her?” he said in his speech. “Do you think she will feel inspired and hopeful by that story?”

It was brilliant.

In the last month, Mr. Landrieu was mentioned in The New York Times as a possible contender for the Democratic presidential nomination for 2020 – along with the names of many others. But even if this speech doesn’t take him any further than the mayor’s office, it was important.

It was important because it was an exemplary example of a politician taking on a tough issue, knowing the solution will create upset and anguish. But also, elegantly explaining the rationale behind his decision.

Source: New Orleans mayor delivered the reality check America needs – The Globe and Mail

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Chu Lai fought against anti-Chinese discrimination and won

2017/06/08 Leave a comment

One of the early Chinese Canadian pioneers in the struggle against discrimination and racism:

After he died while asleep at home at age 59, the Chinese community in Victoria turned out in huge numbers to say goodbye to one of the country’s pioneers. Chu Lai is not much remembered today, but in his day in the late 19th and early 20th century, he was known for fighting against racism toward Chinese immigrants at a time when it wasn’t popular. He was one of the wealthiest Chinese merchants in B.C., with a net worth estimated at $500,000.

On Wednesday, June 6, 1906, the Victoria Times Colonist reported about preparations for his public funeral.

The story said ceremonies included building a temporary altar for a Taoist priest to perform last rites in front of where Lai died. Everything was arranged by the Chinese Empire Reform Association, a political party started by the Chinese reformer and exile Kang Youwei in Victoria in 1899 to establish a constitutional monarchy in China. Chu was vice-president of the Victoria chapter when he died.

“Professional mourners who will be clad in sackcloth have been engaged to weep as they walk in a funeral procession,” the story said. “Every carriage in the city has been engaged, as also the services of a local brass band.”

Chu came Canada in the 1860s. A member of the Hakka minority in Guangdong in southern China, he made his fortune trading during the Cariboo Gold Rush. By 1876, he was successful enough to open the Wing Chong Company in Victoria.

In 1885, Chu was a participant in a historic court case. A year before, the provincial legislature had passed the Chinese Regulation Act which put an annual tax of $10 on all Chinese residents over the age of 14.

Chu and another Chinese immigrant were charged and convicted of failing to pay the tax. Chu posted a bond of $250 and challenged the law in B.C. Supreme Court, according to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography.

In the precedent-setting case, the court ruled that the act was “ultra vires” — beyond the power of the provincial legislature.

Source: Chu Lai fought against anti-Chinese discrimination and won | Vancouver Sun

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Chris Selley: If the Brits can handle terrorism properly, surely we sheltered Canadians can too

2017/06/08 Leave a comment

Selley takes down Sun columnists on their alarmist calls for internment and other measures:

Brits are reacting to the latest terrorist attacks on their soil more or less as usual, though Thursday’s election adds an extra bit of urgency and drama. Conservatives, including Prime Minister Theresa May, are calling for ramped up anti-terror measures: more surveillance, more punishment, more online censorship. “Enough is enough,” May said Sunday.

A few unreconstructed lefties still bang on about Western civilization’s just desserts, but as Terry Glavin observed in the National Post after last month’s attack in Manchester, that species of urban sophisticate is less welcome at parties than ever. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn used to be very much of the “Terrorist? Or freedom fighter?” set. With Labour shockingly competitive in the polls, he now accuses May of cheaping out on policing and supports a “shoot to kill” policy that he used to oppose.

Some are calling for much stronger measures indeed. Tarique Ghaffur, a former assistant commissioner for London’s Metropolitan Police, argues “special centres” should be set up where some 3,000 known Islamic extremists could be forcibly de-radicalized — i.e., internment camps. Professionally hysterical Daily Mail columnist Katie Hopkins, who is very un-British-ly proud of being frightened to death, is foursquare behind the idea (though she has apologized for her post-Manchester demand for a “final solution”).

“We face an unprecedented terrorist threat in Britain,” Ghaffur wrote in the Mail on Sunday. There are “way too many (potential threats) for the security services and police to monitor (otherwise).” Ghaffur conceded the precedent was not entirely compelling: the internment of nearly 2,000 Irish nationalists between 1971 and 1975 “led to hunger strikes,” he noted. “But the centres I’m proposing would be different as they would have backing from Muslim leaders.”

One rather suspects they would not. And the problem in Ireland was quite a bit larger than hunger strikes. Setting aside civil liberties and other such malarkey, it didn’t work: 1972 was the deadliest year of the Troubles. With all those suspected threats locked up, the IRA blew up pubs, hotels and army barracks across the U.K.

That took gumption and significant resources. Nowadays, it would take very little effort at all for ISIL to leverage internment as powerful inspiration for amateur jihadists who see glorious carnage to be made with a white van and kitchen knives.

Internment is a God-awful idea, but it’s at least understandable in the British context. Terrorism is hardly an existential or an unprecedented one: 2005 was the deadliest year for terrorism in the U.K. since the Troubles, and it pales by comparison. But when cars and kitchen knives become threats, the cowardly have all the more reason to hide under their beds and demand martial law so they can be comfortable going to the theatre again.

It’s quite ridiculous to see this nonsense crop up here in Canada, however, where the domestic death toll from Islamic terrorism stands at three people, all of them soldiers. “All people (who are) on terror watch list in Canada or are in terrorist rehab programs should be detained and in some cases deported,” Toronto Sun columnist Joe Warmington tweeted. His colleague Anthony Furey followed suit: “Get the RCMP to arrest the dozens of known jihadists now walking around freely on Canadian soil. Just do it.” Furey’s demand was all the stranger considering he wrote a column explaining how implausible it would be to build a legal case against someone for his activities in ISIL-controlled Iraq or Syria.

Sheltered as Canadians have been from these threats, there is a streak of performative unseriousness that runs through our anti-terrorism discussion. “Let ‘em go,” some chortled when Canadians were found to be heading abroad to fight for ISIL. And when they come back, what then? “Lock ‘em up,” they’ll say — but of course we can’t, or not while respecting the rule of law.

Our relative unfamiliarity with terrorism might make it understandable that we would overreact to whatever threat there is. But it’s all the more disreputable for that reason — especially considering police keep foiling plans that do exist. “Go out as you planned and enjoy yourselves,” senior U.K. anti-terrorism officer Mark Rowley advised Brits heading into last weekend — not because they had everything totally under control after Manchester, you understand, but because MI5 believed “an attack is no longer imminent.”

The Brits, by and large, went out as they planned. Overwhelmingly, Canadians seem to be doing likewise — and rightly so. The rest of us should get with the program.

Source: Chris Selley: If the Brits can handle terrorism properly, surely we sheltered Canadians can too | National Post

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Celine Cooper: The future role of indigenous languages

2017/06/08 Leave a comment

The challenges are real given the diversity of languages and the population sizes:

At a speech to the Assembly of First Nations Special Chiefs Assembly back in December, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that the federal government would be proposing a Canadian Indigenous Languages Act. While  they announced an allocation of around $90 million over the next three years to support communities seeking to revitalize indigenous languages in the 2017 budget, no actual legislation has been introduced as of yet.

Of course, there’s no denying that such legislation would be a logistical challenge. In Canada, there are more than 60 aboriginal languages, grouped into 12 distinct language families. About 20 per cent of those in Canada who report having an aboriginal mother tongue live in Quebec.

Would this mean Canada having 60 (or more) official languages? And if so, how would that mesh with existing policies and practices around French and English as Canada’s official languages? The reality is that different First Nations groups have been thinking about this for decades. One example can be found in a 2005 report titled Towards a New Beginning delivered to the minister of Canadian Heritage by the Task Force on Aboriginal Languages and Cultures. The authors concluded that while recognition of indigenous languages would be national, implementation could be regional.

Marc Miller’s Kanyen’kéha language speech to the House of Commons was a powerful symbolic gesture on behalf of the Liberal government. But keeping its promises to Canada’s indigenous peoples is going to take much more than words.

Source: Celine Cooper: The future role of indigenous languages

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Address by Minister Freeland on Canada’s foreign policy priorities: Diversity and inclusion aspects

2017/06/07 Leave a comment

Given the efforts by Global Affairs Canada and others to define an international agenda for the promotion of diversity and Inclusion, these excerpts from Minister Freeland’s speech yesterday are of interest:

Likewise, by embracing multiculturalism and diversity, Canadians are embodying a way of life that works. We can say this in all humility, but also without any false self-effacement: Canadians know about living side-by side with people of diverse origins and beliefs, whose ancestors hail from the far corners of the globe, in harmony and peace. We’re good at it. Watch how we do it.

We say this in the full knowledge that we also have problems of our own to overcome—most egregiously the injustices suffered by Indigenous people in Canada. We must never flinch from acknowledging this great failure, even as we do the hard work of seeking restoration and reconciliation.

Now, it is clearly not our role to impose our values around the world, Mr. Speaker. No one appointed us the world’s policeman. But it is our role to clearly stand for these rights both in Canada and abroad.

…For we are safer and more prosperous, Mr. Speaker, when more of the world shares Canadian values.

Those values include feminism, and the promotion of the rights of women and girls.

It is important, and historic, that we have a prime minister and a government proud to proclaim ourselves feminists. Women’s rights are human rights. That includes sexual reproductive rights and the right to safe and accessible abortions. These rights are at the core of our foreign policy.

To that end, in the coming days, my colleague the Minister of International Development and La Francophonie will unveil Canada’s first feminist international assistance policy, which will target women’s rights and gender equality. We will put Canada at the forefront of this global effort.

This is a matter of basic justice and also basic economics. We know that empowering women, overseas and here at home, makes families and countries more prosperous. Canada’s values are informed by our historical duality of French and English; by our cooperative brand of federalism; by our multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and multi-linguistic citizenry; and by our geography—bridging Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic. Our values are informed by the traditions and aspirations of the Indigenous people in Canada. And our values include an unshakeable commitment to pluralism, human rights and the rule of law.

Source: Address by Minister Freeland on Canada’s foreign policy priorities – Canada.ca

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Countering extremism requires political honesty from Theresa May: Shaista Aziz

2017/06/07 Leave a comment

A valid critique of May who, after all, was Home Secretary for six years before becoming PM:

And what of the woman who wants to be elected Prime Minister when the U.K. goes to the polls in three days time?

Theresa May has shown that she is not interested in looking for real and meaningful solutions to deal with the new reality that terrorism poses to the lives of British people. Instead, she has hit repeat, saying there is “too much tolerance of extremism” in the U.K. – implying that British Muslims have turned a blind eye to individuals pledging allegiance to the Islamic State, trotting out the tired-out trope that British Muslims are the only ones who can stop the terrorists.

Such a claim disregards that the Manchester bomber, Salman Abeidi, was flagged to the authorities at least five times as an individual who was showing signs of radicalization. The same pattern is being repeated (so far) following the London attack, with reports that locals contacted the police two years ago to report the individual believed to be the terrorist ring leader.

After the London attack, Ms. May responded by saying “enough is enough,” and I couldn’t agree with her more: enough is enough, Ms. May.

Enough of the police cuts that have removed 20,000 officers from our streets, including community police officers. We need a properly funded police service to deal with the terrorism threats to our country.

Enough of the narrative that there is an us and them when it comes to tackling terrorism – there is only we.

The U.K. is deeply polarized, and there is a growing trust deficit between many of our politicians and the people. Empty sound bites will do nothing to heal these divisions.

Nobody in this country tolerates extremists, other than extremists.

And enough is enough of Britain’s blind support for the likes of the Saudi Arabian government, responsible for promoting extremism and its sectarian agenda around the world.

If Theresa May is serious about tackling extremism, she will ensure the long-delayed inquiry report into foreign funding and support of jihadi groups in the U.K. will be released immediately.

We are judged by the company we keep and by our actions. It is time for Ms. May to walk the walk and not just talk the talk on countering extremism.

Source: Countering extremism requires political honesty from Theresa May – The Globe and Mail

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Citizenship consultants file defamation claim | Caribbean News Now

2017/06/07 Leave a comment

Dispute among the citizenship-by-investment promoters:

On May 28, 2017, global citizenship consultants Arton Capital initiated legal proceedings for alleged defamation in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) against the Investment Migration Council (IMC) and its UAE representative office CI Businessman Services (which operates under the name Citizenship Invest).

Arton Capital has partnered with the governments of Antigua and Barbuda, St Kitts and Nevis and Saint Lucia, along with other countries around the world, in relation to their citizenship by investment programmes, as well as advising more than 5,000 investors on investment programmes that empower global citizenship.

In December 2016, IMC, Transparency International (Hungary) and Dr Boldizsár Nagy published a report entitled “In whose interests? Shadows over the Hungarian Residency Bond Program”, which is, in Arton Capital’s view, defamatory, contains false information and has caused serious reputational damage to the firm’s business.

Arton Capital contends that the spread of this false information forms part of a broader smear campaign that it believes is intended to damage its reputation within the industry.

Arton Capital said it has spent more than a decade building a reputation of trust with governments around the world, as well as building the investment migration community.

“Arton Capital takes its reputation extremely seriously and will take all necessary steps to correct falsehoods and protect its hard-won reputation for trust and diligence. The founders of the company are committed to driving forward the highest standards of best practice, regulation, and governance for the industry,” the firm said in a press release on Monday.

IMC is a Geneva-based self-proclaimed oversight association for investor migration and citizenship-by-investment prominently backed by Henley & Partners, another consultancy firm active in the Eastern Caribbean economic citizenship programmes.

Earlier this year, Henley & Partners came under fire for its perceived involvement in a controversial “60 Minutes” investigative programme aired by the US television network CBS on January 1, which focused on the citizenship by investment programmes (CIP) operated by three out of the five Caribbean islands that offer such programmes.

It was alleged that Henley, whose chairman Christian Kalin appeared prominently in the broadcast, was behind the production of the programme in the first place, although the firm later denounced the broadcast as “one-sided”.

However, according to one industry insider, Henley & Partners apparently forgot that they invited the 60 Minutes producers to one of their citizenship conferences in Dubai in order to initiate the report.

A number of resignations earlier this year from IMC’s advisory committee were, according to one resigning member, prompted by, amongst other things, the controversial 60 Minutes report in January that was a “PR disaster” and made the citizenship industry look ridiculous.

Furthermore, Kalin is one of the five-strong governing board of IMC and his critics now say that he is using the organisation to attack his commercial rivals. Members of the advisory committee apparently decided that they did not want to be a party to any potential lawsuits, with its involvement in attacking residency programmes such as Hungary’s going beyond its stated mission.

“The IMC is no more than a mouthpiece of Henley & Partners,” said an industry source.

IMC was established in October 2014 with the stated aim of bringing together stakeholders within the immigration and citizenship by investment industry and to give the industry a voice and, for reasons best known to itself, said it will soon be opening a representative office in Barbados.

Source: Citizenship consultants file defamation claim | Caribbean News Now

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