Why Is Canada’s Refugee Board relying on Francesca Albanese?: Randolph Hahn for Inside Policy

2026/07/06 Leave a comment

Reasonable question that deserves an answer. Difference between her official reports and activism? Institutional capture?

Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) decides who receives refugee protection — and for many successful claimants, a pathway to permanent residence and citizenship. Those decisions depend in part on country information the IRB makes available to its decision-makers as authoritative background material.

That is why one name appearing in the IRB’s National Documentation Packages should alarm anyone who expects Canada’s refugee system to rely on balanced and credible sources: the highly controversial Francesca Albanese, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Albanese has become one of the world’s most polarizing UN officials. She has been sanctioned by the United States, condemned by several democratic governments, and publicly rebuked by Canada itself. In 2024, Canada’s Permanent Mission in Geneva described her remarks as “unacceptable and incompatible with her duty of impartiality” and added that “antisemitism has no place anywhere.”

Yet, while the Canadian government has distanced itself from Albanese, the IRB continues to include her in reports in its official country documentation for Israel and for what it characterizes as the Occupied Palestinian Territories. After experienced Canadian immigration lawyers formally challenged the decision, the Board reviewed the matter — and chose to keep her reports in place….

Source: Why Is Canada’s Refugee Board relying on Francesca Albanese?: Randolph Hahn for Inside Policy

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Al-A’sar: Finding connection as an immigrant in the lonely city

2026/07/06 Leave a comment

Interesting account, a likely common experience for many communities:

..In that part of the world, cities often have many physical social hubs where people with shared interests tend to gather, and where encounters happen repeatedly and spontaneously, so that relationships can develop naturally. In Beirut, for instance, the coffee shops and bars along Hamra Street have a cultural and social function, too. The same used to be true of downtown Cairo, though things have changed over time because the regime fears any form of social gathering in civic spaces. Back then, if ever I felt bored, I would just head downtown without any plans and wander through city streets, confident that I would run into someone, perhaps at a coffee shop along the way – no itinerary, no prior arrangement, no online-calendar invite needed.

Here in Canada, I find myself needing to schedule a meeting with new friends a week or two in advance just to spend an hour together. I don’t blame them; this is what big cities often do to human relationships. Under the weight of necessity and social pressure, people can turn into rigorously scheduled machines. After all, everyone has daily obligations to fulfill, including work commitments to cover the growing cost of living and household responsibilities – not to mention what is often significant commute times. In this context, free time feels like it’s a privilege. …

Mostafa Al-A’sar is a Toronto-based journalist, writer and human rights defender.

Source: Finding connection as an immigrant in the lonely city

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Expatriate Voting and Citizenship 

2026/07/06 2 Comments

My analysis of expatriate votes in the 2025 election, broken down by province and country, and 13 ridings in which the percentage of expatriate votes is within one percent of the winning margin.

The impact of C-3 (citizenship by descent) is expected to be limited given Elections Canada requires expatriates to have resided in Canada in order to qualify for a special ballot, less likely in the case of second and earlier generations. But we shall see once we have full 2026 data on the overall numbers, ideally broken down by generation.

Expatriate Voting and CitizenshipDownload

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Canada’s shifting rules keep Iranian families apart, permit holders say

2026/07/03 Leave a comment

Of note:

…Immigration lawyers, consultants and affected families say thousands of Iranians made major life decisions based on a humanitarian program that offered temporary protection but no dedicated path to permanent residence or family reunification.

According to records obtained through an access-to-information request by immigration consultant Rami Mamar, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) issued 86,255 permits and extensions for Iranian nationals under the special measures between February 2023 and Jan. 31, 2025. Most — 73,012 — were work-permit extensions.

CBC obtained IRCC data showing 15 spousal open-work-permit applications for Iranian nationals were approved in 2024, 10 in 2025 and that 10 were awaiting decisions in 2026. The department did not provide the number of refusals.

“There are quite a few of them and these people are really suffering,” said Yalda Ghani, an immigration consultant in Toronto. 

Since early 2025, Canada has narrowed eligibility under the broader spousal open work permit program. Foreign workers seeking open work permits for their spouses must now have at least 16 months remaining on their own permits. Eligibility is also limited to highly skilled workers or those in management, professional and certain designated occupations. 

“We are seeing refusals everywhere,” Ghani said. 

Source: Canada’s shifting rules keep Iranian families apart, permit holders say

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ICYMI – Jack Jedwab: Antisemitism flies in the face of Canadian multiculturalism

2026/07/03 Leave a comment

Agreed:

…“Outside Israel, Canada has one of the highest proportions of Holocaust survivors in the world — part of a community that has made a profound mark on this country. When that history is treated as expendable, Jewish belonging becomes easier to question as well. For that reason, Canadian Multiculturalism Day should be an occasion not only to celebrate diversity, but also to recognize the challenges multiculturalism faces when prejudice is rationalized, historical memory is minimized, or minority communities are made vulnerable by conflicts beyond Canada’s borders.

That is why it is important to guard against those who would appropriate Canadian Multiculturalism Day in support of political agendas. A day meant to celebrate pluralism and strengthen mutual respect should not be turned into an occasion for advancing political narratives that decontextualize history or invite Canadians to view one community through the grievances of another. Multiculturalism is not served by selective memory, nor by historical accounts that intensify suspicion and fuel resentment. Ideally its objective should be to reduce intercultural tension, not to exacerbate it.”

Source: Jack Jedwab: Antisemitism flies in the face of Canadian multiculturalism

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ICYMI Atique – Shattered dreams on Canada Day: Broken immigration promises are based on false narratives

2026/07/03 Leave a comment

Classic example of academics in denial about the impact of excessively high levels and their impact on housing, healthcare and infrastructure, and all too quick to label corrections as xenophobic:

Restricting immigration will not fix Canada’s systemic social and economic problems.

Temporary migrants like international students, who are members of our communities, are facing greater barriers, inequalities and uncertainty due to Canada’s abrupt policy changes.

The question remains as to whether Canada will pursue increasingly restrictive immigration policies or tackle divisive xenophobia? As Canadians mark Canada day, it’s worth reflecting on Canada’s past and how to build a more equitable and just future for all

Source: Shattered dreams on Canada Day: Broken immigration promises are based on false narratives

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ICYMI – Douglas Todd: The brain drain from B.C. — and Canada — is worsening

2026/07/03 Leave a comment

The more skilled, the more mobile and higher expectations:

…The best way to measure individuals’ standard of living is through overall gross domestic product, or GDP, per person. And on that score Williams has a disturbing message: “Canada had the second-weakest GDP per capita growth” out of the 38 well-off countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development in the period since 2014.

Western University economist Mike Moffat, a founder of the Missing Middle Initiative, is also concerned. Last year, Moffat says, a record-setting 120,000 Canadians moved out of the country, with 50 per cent of them between the ages of 25 and 45. The OECD estimates roughly half move to the U.S, followed by Britain and Australia.

These figures understate the exit phenomenon, Moffat said, because they exclude recent immigrants who leave, as well as “shadow emigration.” By that he’s referring to Canadians who typically keep filing Canadian tax returns and holding Canadian bank accounts while living elsewhere for years.

The worst thing is that the largest cohort leaving B.C. and Canada, according to Williams and Moffat, are educated and talented. They’re engineers, scientists, business specialists, health professionals and high-tech experts.

“One of the challenges for Canada is having a post-secondary education system subsidized by taxpayers and parents, only to see some of the best young people graduate and leave soon after for other countries,” Williams said.

“The loss of young, highly educated workers — often called the brain drain — is concerning because they tend to be net contributors to the tax base. That is, they pay more in taxes than they consume in public services.”

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that many are leaving Canada for the U.S., says Williams. He points to remarkable differences in Seattle, a global tech hub a three-hour drive south of Vancouver.

A highly skilled, recent graduate who aspires to earn a top salary will be heavily taxed in B.C., Williams said. “Once they earn above $261,000 Canadian, they will lose 53 per cent of every extra dollar in personal income tax. B.C. has the fourth-highest combined top personal income tax rate among the 60 U.S. states and Canadian provinces.”…

Source: Douglas Todd: The brain drain from B.C. — and Canada — is worsening

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MPI: From Last Resort to Intimidating Enforcement Tool: Denaturalization in the Trump Era

2026/07/03 Leave a comment

Of note:

The Trump administration has embarked on a robust campaign to strip a record number of immigrants of their U.S. citizenship, shifting resources within the government to achieve the quotas it has imposed on federal prosecutors. While the process of denaturalization is as old as naturalization itself, albeit historically rarely invoked, the administration is seeking to use its authority in greater and different ways. Once reserved largely for Nazis, communists, and security threats, denaturalization now could be used by the Trump administration for a broad set of criminal acts and cases deemed “sufficiently important to pursue,” which some fear could mean naturalized citizens accused of engaging in disfavored speech or political activity.

The administration’s ability to meet its ambitions is uncertain, given the legal protections related to citizenship that have evolved over the years. When Congress brought naturalization under exclusive federal authority in 1906, it saw denaturalization as a measure of last resort. Although hundreds of immigrants were stripped of their U.S. citizenship annually on average in subsequent decades—many of them perceived enemies of the state, anarchists, or nationals of wartime adversaries—the Supreme Court sharply curtailed use of denaturalization after 1967. Between 1990 and 2017, an average of 11 denaturalization cases were filed per year.

The Trump administration tried to buck the trend during its first term, setting a lofty goal of 1,600 denaturalization referrals for the long-running Operation Janus, which was investigating fingerprint records that had not been digitized. But its results fell far short; the average of about 25 civil cases filed per year was a significant increase from the past, though far below rates of the pre-1967 era and well below the goal. (Given that denaturalization is a lengthy and deliberative process, it is unclear how many of these cases ended in individuals being stripped of U.S. citizenship). So far during the second Trump term, the administration had reportedly identified 384 potential denaturalization cases as of April 2026. As of this writing, it had filed charges against at least 39 individuals in 2026.

Whether the latest campaign leads to denaturalization numbers on par with those of a century ago or not, it will likely have the effect of stoking fear among immigrants—even those who had assumed that becoming a U.S. citizen was the final and irreversible act of integration into U.S. society. The administration’s rhetoric and actions have injected doubt in that long-held assumption for some, potentially permanently altering perceptions about the value of acquiring U.S. citizenship.

Source: From Last Resort to Intimidating Enforcement Tool: Denaturalization in the Trump Era

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Canada’s mosaic is holding strong

2026/07/02 Leave a comment

Encouraging:

…Perhaps the most reassuring finding – appropriate as we mark Canada Day – is that most Canadians, regardless of their race or religion, identify with and feel a sense of belonging to the country. Certainly, some facets of identity are more important to some than to others. Race is more likely to be very important to the sense of identity of Black Canadians, religion to Muslim Canadians, and language to francophones. But these tend to co-exist with, and not compete with, a common sense of being Canadian. Only a handful of Canadians cherish an aspect of their heritage – such as their race or religion – without also identifying with Canada. 

Let’s be clear: No one is suggesting we all agree. There’s plenty for Canadians to argue about, from energy policy, to foreign policy, to challenging moral issues like assisted dying. And thank goodness for that: the whole point of living in a free and democratic society is that we get to shout our dissent from the rooftops. It’s not uniform thinking we’re after at all, but a willingness to work together to find compromises durable enough to get us from today to tomorrow. 

Our disagreements, however, are typically about our opinions, and not who we are: we do not say “yea” or “nay” just by looking at where someone was born, what they look like, or whether they pray every day or, like many Canadians, only during the Stanley Cup playoffs. Our disagreements are within communities, not between them. There are conservatives and liberals among new immigrants, among Quebeckers whose families have been here since the days of New France, and among Albertans working in the oil fields. That’s all part of the mosaic too. 

The beauty is in the arrangement, not the blending. Happy Canada Day.

Source: Canada’s mosaic is holding strong

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John Ivison: Diab’s ‘lost Canadians’ debacle raises doubt anyone’s in charge at the Immigration Department

2026/07/02 Leave a comment

Not pulling any punches. Almost a death watch:

….It is unclear why the minister didn’t say much of this a lot sooner, even if it involved admitting that the process was badly designed and deeply flawed.

This, remember, is the same department that granted travel documents to Mehdi Taj, an Iranian soccer official who a quick Google search would have revealed had ties to the banned Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

It is the same department that was berated by the auditor general for its handling of the International Students Program, under which 33,660 ex-students were presumed to have left the country but may not have done.

It’s not so much that the Immigration Department seems to be in a state of semi-organized chaos. Diab inherited many of the problems, including the dramatic surge in temporary workers and foreign students that contributed to the housing crisis.

It’s more that she seems completely at sea when it comes to fixing things. Her parliamentary colleagues answer on her behalf in the House of Commons; her deputy minister assumed the same role when she appeared at committee.

As the prime minister weighs his options for the fall session, it would seem inevitable that Diab is demoted in any summer cabinet shuffle.

She seems to be a very nice person.

But she is like a one-legged man auditioning for the job of Tarzan, “a role for which two legs would seem to be the minimum requirement.” In political terms, like Peter Cook’s aspiring Tarzan in a celebrated comedy sketch, Diab has one leg too few.

Source: John Ivison: Diab’s ‘lost Canadians’ debacle raises doubt anyone’s in charge at the Immigration Department

Background: Immigration department blames ‘unclear’ guidance for citizenship document recalls

The immigration department says unclear department guidance for both immigration officers and applicants on how to apply for citizenship-by-descent may have led to people being issued proofs of citizenship without sufficient evidence.

The department said Tuesday that 100 people were told to surrender their citizenship certificates after a “routine review” found documents issued under Bill C-3 had “potentially insufficient supporting documentation.”

The department issued this explanation — and confirmation of the number of people who were told to turn over their citizenship certificates — a full 17 days after the initial emails demanding the surrender of citizenship certificates were sent out….

Source: Immigration department blames ‘unclear’ guidance for citizenship document recalls

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