Immigration minister reveals Ontario’s drop in incoming international students. It’s not as steep as expected

2024/04/08 Leave a comment

The numbers:

Ontario will see the largest drop in study permits issued in Canada — down to just 141,000 this year from 239,753 in 2023 — under the federal government’s new cap on international students, according to official data revealed on Friday.

More than two months after announcing a plan to rein in the country’s out-of-control international enrolment growth, Immigration Minister Marc Miller released a statement detailing the finalized numbers of incoming post-secondary students each province and territory is projected to receive in 2024, as well as the formula behind the allocations.

“These results will help me make decisions on allocations for 2025,” Miller said in a statement. “We will continue to work collaboratively with provinces and territories to strengthen the International Student Program and to provide international students with the supports they need to succeed in Canada.”

Across Canada, 291,914 new study permits are expected to be issued this year, representing a 28 per cent decline from 404,668 in 2023. The numbers exclude those to be granted to students enrolled in primary and secondary schools, as well as graduate programs, exempted from the cap.

The overall cut is not as deep as anticipated when Miller in January announced plans to reduce the number of new study permits issued by 35 per cent from 2023’s level, to 364,000. 

However, Ontario remains the single biggest loser and will see a whopping 41 per cent drop in new study permits issued under the cap, followed by British Columbia, which is set to receive 18 per cent fewer international students, going to 49,800 from 60,864 in 2023. 

Spike in international students mostly from Ontario schools, data reveals

Federal study permit documents obtained by CBC News reveal a handful of Ontario colleges and universities account for the greatest share of Canada’s steep growth in international students — not private colleges. And now those same institutions have the most to lose from a new cap on study permits.

Four other provinces will see a 10 per cent decline: Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.

Meanwhile, other provinces will now have more spots available if they wish. Alberta, Newfoundland and Labrador, Quebec and Saskatchewan can see a growth of 10 per cent in intake while Nunavut, Yukon and the Northwest Territories will have room to grow as they all received fewer than 100 study permits last year.

“We are protecting the integrity of our province’s postsecondary education system by attracting the best and brightest international students to Ontario to study in areas that are critical to our economy,” Jill Dunlop, Ontario’s minister of colleges and universities, said in a statement.

“We have been working with postsecondary institutions to ensure international students are enrolled in the programs to support a pipeline of graduates for in-demand jobs.” 

Based on what he called a “net zero growth” formula, Miller said the national cap is based on the volume of expiring study permits this year. This means that the number of international students coming to Canada in 2024 equals the number of students whose permits expire this year. 

Miller initially suggested that the study permit allocations would be based on each province’s relative population size. Ontario would have seen its international student intake in 2024 dropped by 62 per cent under that model.

On Friday, he said other factors were considered before the numbers were finalized.

“For provinces that would receive more international students in 2024 than in 2023 based on population share, we adjusted their allocation to limit growth to 10 per cent compared to 2023,” he said. 

“For provinces that would receive fewer international students in 2024 than in 2023, we adjusted their allocation to lessen the negative impact in the first year and support broader regional immigration goals.”

Factoring in that 60 per cent of study permit applications are approved, the Immigration Department will process a total of 552,095 applications to reach the 291,914 target. Given study permit approval rates vary across provinces, Miller said he also topped up allocations for those with below-average approval rates.

As a result, Ontario’s public post-secondary institutions can take in as many as 235,000 applications in 2024, given that the province has decided to give almost all its allocated spots to the 24 colleges and 23 universities that are funded by taxpayers.

Miller warned that there are still other factors that may influence the actual number of international students arriving this year that are beyond the department’s control. For instance, provinces and territories with room to grow may not end up using all spots, while approval rates may fluctuate.

Critics say the government’s adjustments were welcomed as finalized numbers help provide much-needed clarity for international students considering studying in Canada.

“The government has acknowledged that approval rates have historically been inconsistent across provinces and has buffered those numbers accordingly through one-time allocation top-ups to provinces like Saskatchewan,” said Meti Basiri, CEO of ApplyBoard, a Kitchener-based online marketplace for learning institutions and international students.

“It has raised the allocations for provinces that would otherwise have seen the most significant restrictions. The impact on Ontario in particular will still be significant, but the adjusted allocations will ease the transition.” 

Source: Immigration minister reveals Ontario’s drop in incoming international students. It’s not as steep as expected

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For his Canadian citizenship, Quebec resident had to pass a Parisian French test. He wonders why

2024/04/08 Leave a comment

Of all the issues facing immigration and citizenship policy, this has to be one of the least important. And of course, Canadian citizenship French testing is for all of Canada, not just Quebec:

When Rev. Christian Schreiner first looked into taking a mandatory French language test to obtain his Canadian citizenship, he was shocked to find out his exam would be sent to France for final evaluation.

Schreiner, dean of the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in Quebec City, started his application when he heard that his country of birth, Germany, had approved legislation to end a ban on holding dual citizenship.

The longtime permanent resident of Canada had been waiting for this moment for 16 years.

When Schreiner logged onto Immigration, Refugees Citizenship Canada to start the process of pursuing a language exam and clicked on the link for the Test d’évaluation de français, TEF Canada, he was brought to a website run by a Parisian organization, the Paris Île-de-France Regional Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

“I thought I had maybe clicked on the wrong link, so I went back but everything checks out. So that is the one that is authorized,” said Schreiner.

Schreiner completed his French exam on March 15 at Edu-inter — a French immersion school in Quebec City — where an employee informed him during the oral evaluation section that he wouldn’t be the one evaluating Schreiner’s performance.

“He had an iPad and he recorded the whole thing,” said Schreiner.

“I asked him: ‘what is that for?’ He said … ‘I’m only doing the test with you, but I’m not evaluating anything. I can only send this in and then basically it gets sent to Paris and they decide whether or not your French is sufficient.'”

Although Schreiner passed the exam, completing one of several steps toward gaining his citizenship, he’s now speaking out about how the exam is based on French from France and he is questioning why Canada has to outsource evaluations abroad.

“I think this is still kind of a leftover, like a colonial leftover,” said Schreiner.

“If I want to become a Canadian citizen, it’s France that decides whether or not I’m good enough. There’s something wrong there.”

Meeting French or English language requirement

CCI Paris Île-de-France (CCIP-IDF), the organization with the Paris office, says it represents the interests of more than 840,000 French companies.

According to its website, the TEF was officially certified by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) in 2004 as the “only test officially approved by Canadian authorities.”

The location of the evaluation does not have any impact on the applicant, said the Ministry of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, in an emailed statement.

“All language proficiency assessment tests approved for Canadian immigration purposes are administered by third-party organizations independent of IRCC,” read the statement.

“Organizations must demonstrate that they meet the criteria … including matching test results to the Canadian language benchmarks.”

Developing test for ‘Quebec context’

In its statement, the department said the TEF test was put in place by the Quebec government for new French-speakers moving or immigrating to the province. They said while the TEF is not a federal requirement for citizenship, it is one of several “acceptable proofs” that can be submitted to the government to apply for citizenship and meet the language requirement — as immigrants need to prove their abilities in either English or French.

Besides French diplomas previously submitted for immigration purposes, the ministry says on its website that it won’t accept any other third-party test results other than those listed for citizenship, even if they’re similar to the approved exams.

The office of Christine Fréchette, minister of immigration, francisation and integration, said she addressed this issue when the Opposition raised it in 2023 and “work is underway to develop a test adapted to the Quebec context.”

Rethinking the language test

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the outsourcing of the test,” said Taylor Ireland, president and owner of ACA-Formation Linguistique, a French language school in Quebec City.

“But there’s more than enough organizations in Canada that could develop a test.”

He says while there are benefits to having private organizations test candidates because of accessibility, it is feasible to develop other options.

“It would take some time to do … There’s always a tendency to go back to a test that’s already known,” said Ireland.

“But we have more than enough capacity and knowledge in order to have our own Canadian-made test.”

Ireland says generally, there are not going to be huge differences between an international French or French from France compared to the French spoken in Quebec, but there might be slight “regionalisms.”

The Quebec government says it wants 80 per cent of non-Quebec university students to learn French. But how feasible is that?

He says this is not the first time questions relating to the French exam have been raised.

“To have the test itself be designed and then corrected by a company in France is somewhat confusing,” said Ireland.

Following his exam in March, Schreiner says he looked into the English testing options to see if the evaluation was similar to the French equivalent.

“I wanted to know, had I done the English test, would they send it to London, England? No, they don’t. They send it to the offices in Toronto,” said Schreiner. “Why can’t Canada evaluate whether or not people speak French?”

Prometric, a test administration company headquartered in the U.S., develops and delivers along with other organizations the Canadian English Language Proficiency Index Program (CELPIP) Test, one of three options used for immigration and citizenship. The CELPIP offices are located in Toronto, according to its website.

Test from France had its challenges, says Schreiner

Schreiner says the test itself had its challenges. In one part, he had to listen to 40 different sound bites.

The audio, which was in a French-from-France accent, became more and more challenging near the end of the exam, said Schreiner. He said the topic of the radio interview he had to listen was climate change and the extinction of species.

“It was really more vocabulary. There were words that I did not know and quite a few of them, which is something that doesn’t happen that often to me here in Quebec,” said Schreiner.

Schreiner, whose father was a French teacher, speaks French at home with his kids and wife — who is Québécoise.

Although he passed the exam, he says he should be considered an “ideal guinea pig” — someone who shouldn’t really struggle with an exam that is meant to test “basic competence.”

Christophe Fernandez, director general of the Edu-Inter language school where Schreiner took his test, confirmed in a statement that the centre is one of several in the province officially allowed to offer the test.

He confirmed the team does not give the final scores but does do some evaluations. Fernandez says the Paris office collects and double-checks the examinations to give a final grade.

Source: For his Canadian citizenship, Quebec resident had to pass a Parisian French test. He wonders why

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Urback: According to Justin Trudeau, Justin Trudeau is fear-mongering on immigration,

2024/04/06 Leave a comment

Keller: The Trudeau government’s housing promises can’t fix a crisis of its own making

Good use of pointed satire to highlight the hypocrisy or wilful (?) blindness:

Someone, somewhere, appears to have taken a blowtorch to Canada’s immigration system. It’s a mess. We have too many people, and not enough homes, not enough transit, not enough health care infrastructure. International students are lining up at food banks and homeless shelters. Canadians’ attitudes on immigration are becoming more negative.

Who set fire to our once-enviable immigration system? Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is on a mission to find out. Just as soon as he gets all of this soot out of his hair.

Speaking at a press conference Tuesday, Mr. Trudeau laid out the facts. “Over the past few years we’ve seen a massive spike in temporary immigration … that has grown at a rate far beyond what Canada has been able to absorb,” he said. He gave an example: in 2017, two per cent of Canada’s population was made up of temporary immigrants; today, it’s 7.5 per cent. “That’s something we need to get back under control,” he said, adding that temporary immigration has “caused so much pressure in our communities.”

A few years ago, someone named Justin Trudeau would have accused Mr. Trudeau of fear-mongering for making these sorts of remarks about immigration. In fact, he saidexactly that when, for example, Conservative MP Steven Blaney asked about the massive backlog in immigration applications amid a wave of asylum seekers in 2018. “It is completely irresponsible of the Conservatives to arouse fears and concerns about our immigration system and refugees,” Mr. Trudeau said at the time.

“The reason for the delays is that the Harper Conservatives spent 10 years cutting our immigration services and getting rid of the employees who process applications,” he continued. “They did not manage our immigration system responsibly.”…

Source: Opinion: According to Justin Trudeau, Justin Trudeau is fear-mongering on immigration

Less clever, but equally pointed:

 

The only way to bring housing supply and demand back into a more equitable balance, at least in the next few years, is to lower demand. And the only way to do that is for the Trudeau government to retrace its hasty steps on temporary foreign residents. That is what the government has promised. That is what it has to do.

Source: The Trudeau government’s housing promises can’t fix a crisis of its own making

My reflections on this change of direction by the PM, and the related push on housing, is that it feels like fin de régime flailing around and desperation.

The change brings to mind, one of my favourite scenes from one of my favourite movies, Casablanca:

  • Rick: How can you close me up? On what grounds? [Vote me out?]
  • Captain Renault: I’m shocked! Shocked to find that gambling is going on in here. [immigration has grown too fast]
  • [a croupier hands Renault a pile of money]
  • Croupier: Your winnings, sir. [poll numbers]
  • Captain Renault: [sotto voce] Oh, thank you very much. [someone, somewhere else, broke immigration]
  • [aloud]
  • Captain Renault: Everybody out at once….

 

 

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Birth Outcomes Differ Across Canadian Immigration Categories

2024/04/06 Leave a comment

Significant difference for refugees, understandable given more arduous immigration journeys, well discussed in the article:

Adverse birth outcomes, such as preterm birth and stillbirth, are more likely to occur among refugees in Canada than among economic-class immigrants, according to a new study.

Overall, babies born to Canadian immigrant parents face increased risks for preterm birth, stillbirth, and small size for gestational age (SGA), but these risks vary according to the life experiences of different immigrant groups, the study authors wrote.

“Immigrants are often considered a single, homogeneous group. Scientific research also often focuses on health differences in immigrants versus native-born people,” lead author Seungmi Yang, PhD, associate professor of epidemiology, biostatistics, and occupational health at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, told Medscape Medical News.

“However, immigrants differ in their lived experiences before immigration, their motivations or reasons for immigrating, and their postimmigration environment,” she said. “Since Canada formally accepts immigrants by admission categories with distinct criteria, we thought the admission category would be a meaningful characteristic [by which] to separate immigrants into different groups. And if any important differences were observed, it may help in our creation and provision of healthcare and support programs for immigrants by tailoring to specific subgroups.”

The study was published online on April 2 in CMAJ.

Stillbirths Among Refugees

The investigators conducted a population-based retrospective study, analyzing Statistics Canada data for nearly 8 million Canadian births during the 25 years from 1993 to 2017. The research team looked at the differences in adverse birth and postnatal outcomes for immigrants in the following three categories: Economic-class immigrants (ie, those selected for their skills), family-class immigrants (those who reunified with their families), and refugees. They compared outcomes in these groups with the outcomes of Canadian-born parents. They focused on preterm births, SGA births, large-for-gestational-age (LGA) births, stillbirths, neonatal death within the first month, and overall infant death within the first year.

Among nearly 8 million births, more than 1.7 million (21.5%) were to immigrant mothers. Of the latter births, 50% were to family-class immigrants, 37% to economic-class immigrants, and 13% to refugees.

At the time of birth, immigrants were more frequently married than Canadian-born parents, although refugees were more often unmarried than other immigrants. Refugees were also more likely to have more children, while economic-class immigrants were more likely to be ages 35 years or older at delivery.

Compared with infants of Canadian-born parents, babies in the immigrant groups had higher risks for preterm birth, SGA birth, and stillbirth. They had a lower risk for LGA birth and neonatal death, however.

Compared with infants of economic-class immigrants, babies of refugees had higher risks for preterm birth and LGA birth but lower risk for SGA. On the other hand, infants of family-class immigrants had a higher risk for SGA birth. These trends were most significant for first births among immigrants.

After adjusting for several sociodemographic characteristics, the researchers found that the risks for stillbirth, neonatal death, and overall infant death did not differ significantly among the immigrant groups, although stillbirths were generally higher among refugees. The findings appear to support previous studies that indicate that refugees remain a vulnerable subgroup of immigrants, likely for several reasons, the study authors wrote.

“Differential risks of adverse outcomes between admission categories vary also across outcomes,” Yang said. “Other outcome-specific patterns of differential risks among immigrant subgroups would need to be further examined to better understand the heterogeneity in health experiences among immigrants and potentially reasons for differences.”

Additional factors may contribute to the differential risks for adverse birth outcomes, including socioeconomic challenges, systematic racism, or immigration experiences that have been linked to birth and postnatal outcomes, the study authors wrote.

Immigrants are typically considered healthier than native-born people in their receiving country and tend to be healthier than nonmigrants in their country of origin. This discrepancy is often called the “healthy immigrant effect.” However, information about birth outcomes among immigrants may change this belief and approach to healthcare policy.

‘Arduous Economic Conditions’

Commenting on the study for Medscape Medical News, Marcelo Urquia, PhD, associate professor of community health sciences at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada, said, “Immigrants have been shown to possess a health advantage yet are also more likely to reside in arduous economic conditions.”

Urquia, who wasn’t involved with this study, has researched adverse birth outcomes among immigrants, as well as refugee maternal and perinatal health. He and his colleagues found that refugee mothers had higher maternal health risks and more adverse birth outcomes.

“Further research into stressors that refugee mothers experience in their countries of origin, in transition countries, and in countries of resettlement may help support the development of preconception and pregnancy stress prevention and management strategies,” he said. “To help facilitate international comparisons, refugee health researchers may find it useful to state if and how immigration policies shape the health of refugees, relative to other immigrants within their borders.”

Source: Birth Outcomes Differ Across Canadian Immigration Categories

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Un programme de résidence permanente «bouée de sauvetage» qui aide très peu d’Ukrainiens

2024/04/06 Leave a comment

Of note:

Le programme permettant aux Ukrainiens d’obtenir la résidence permanente s’ils ont un membre de leur famille au Canada n’a pas le succès escompté. Près de six mois après son lancement, à peine 2000 personnes ont soumis leur candidature, alors qu’ils sont près de 300 000 à se trouver au pays avec un statut temporaire.

Ouvert le 23 octobre 2023 pour une durée d’un an, ce programme fédéral qualifié de « bouée de sauvetage » par le ministre de l’Immigration de l’époque, Sean Fraser, avait suscité l’espoir, mais laissé perplexes tous ceux n’ayant pas de famille ici. « Très peu de gens vont pouvoir avoir leur résidence permanente en vertu de ce programme », a affirmé Randall Baran-Chong, directeur général de Pathfinders for Ukraine.

Selon son organisme, qui a sondé l’été dernier près de 36 000 détenteurs de l’Autorisation de voyage d’urgence Canada-Ukraine (AVUCU), à peine 7 % des répondants s’estimaient admissibles à ce programme de réunification familiale élargie. « Et si on regarde ceux qui ont le plus besoin d’aide, ce ne sont pas nécessairement des gens qui ont de la famille ici », a-t-il fait valoir.

Présentée il y a tout juste un mois par le député libéral ontarien Ali Ehsassi, une pétition demande à Justin Trudeau d’offrir aux ressortissants ukrainiens une voie simplifiée vers la résidence permanente « qui s’adresserait à ceux qui ne bénéficient pas du parcours de regroupement familial annoncé le 23 octobre 2023 ».

Arrivée avec son mari et ses trois enfants en mai 2022, Helena Lobiak n’a aucune famille ici. « J’avais rencontré sur Facebook un homme de Québec et il m’a convaincu de venir, qu’on serait en sécurité », a-t-elle raconté. « Le Canada est très loin de l’Europe, mais c’est ce qu’on voulait. De toute façon, je n’ai pas de parents en Ukraine et les parents de mon mari ne veulent pas quitter leur maison. »

Arrivés au Québec au même moment, Tatiana Banchenko, son mari et l’un de ses deux fils — l’aîné termine ses études en Pologne — n’ont pas non plus de famille au Canada. Depuis le Donbass, région gravement touchée par le conflit, ils ont choisi d’aller à Gatineau, pour y retrouver de vieux amis qu’ils connaissaient depuis 20 ans. « Nous n’avons pas étudié les programmes d’immigration, nous voulions simplement nous éloigner le plus possible de la guerre et nous envoler vers un endroit où nous aurions des amis et du soutien », explique-t-elle par écrit au Devoir.

Aucune voie « facile »

Comme les permis de travail ouverts que leur confère l’AVUCU viennent à échéance dans un an, les deux femmes, qui souhaitent refaire leur vie ici, sont inquiètes. Le permis de Tatiana Banchenko est valide jusqu’en avril 2025. « En février de cette année, j’ai déposé une demande de prolongation, mais aucune décision n’a encore été prise », dit-elle.

D’après la consultante en immigration Marina Negrivoda, si on n’a pas de parenté au Canada, plusieurs chemins mènent à la résidence permanente. Mais aucun d’entre eux n’est « facile ».

« On me demande souvent quelle est la province, ou le programme, qui permet d’avoir facilement et rapidement la résidence. Certains sont prêts à aller n’importe où, relève-t-elle. Moi, je ne vais pas conseiller aux gens de changer de province. Il faut analyser leur profil. »

Elle dit avoir eu des clients qui avaient des difficultés en français et qui ont pris la décision d’aller au Nouveau-Brunswick. « Là-bas, l’anglais est accepté, et il n’est pas nécessaire d’avoir un travail qualifié. » Ailleurs au Canada, des voies « économiques » vers la résidence permanente comportent moins d’exigences, notamment sur le plan linguistique.

Car le principal défi pour les Ukrainiens qui veulent rester au Québec, c’est la langue, avance-t-elle. « Certains pensent que suivre des cours de francisation les rendra admissibles à la résidence permanente, mais ce n’est pas suffisant. »

Pour être admissible au volet « travailleurs » du Programme de l’expérience québécoise, par exemple, il faut avoir occupé pendant 24 mois un emploi qualifié, en plus de réussir le niveau 7 (B2). Le Programme régulier des travailleurs qualifiés, dont une réforme a récemment été annoncée, exige désormais un certain niveau de français, et il n’est pas ouvert à toutes les professions.

Incertitudes

Après un an et demi de francisation, Tatiana Banchenko a terminé le niveau 7 en français et vient de commencer un cours de secrétariat. Mais elle n’a pas occupé d’emploi qualifié, pas plus que son mari, qui travaille dans la construction et comme livreur de pizza les fins de semaine. « Mon mari a un travail, mais pas de français, et moi, j’ai un peu de français, mais pas de travail », résume-t-elle. Dans ces conditions, il est difficile pour le moment de se qualifier pour un quelconque programme de résidence permanente pour rester au Québec.

Pourtant, son « rêve » est de vivre ici, où les gens « sont merveilleux » et la nature, « magnifique ». Son fils cadet, qui parle parfaitement français et qui possède tout un réseau d’amis, est troublé à l’idée de peut-être devoir partir, dit Mme Banchenko. « Nous n’avons nulle part où retourner en Ukraine. »

Helena Lobiak se demande aussi comment elle pourra obtenir un statut permanent. Après avoir suivi des cours de francisation à temps complet et obtenu un niveau 4, celle qui était enseignante en Ukraine travaille maintenant dans une garderie. « Je ne peux pas accéder à la résidence permanente ici parce que je n’ai pas encore assez d’expérience [dans ce] travail qualifié, déplore-t-elle. J’espère que mon permis de travail va être prolongé, comme ça, je pourrais améliorer encore mon français. » « Je ne vois pas de fin à cette guerre, donc j’ai besoin de savoir ce qui va arriver avec nous », conclut-elle.

Source: Un programme de résidence permanente «bouée de sauvetage» qui aide très peu d’Ukrainiens

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Is there a better place to put refugees than hotels? The push for a national asylum plan

2024/04/06 Leave a comment

Part of a national asylum plan, not mentioned by refugee advocates, has to include reviewing visa and related policies to reduce the numbers (e.g., reversing the loosening of visa restrictions regarding demonstrating adequate funds or demonstrate they will leave the country when their visas expire, exit controls to ensure solid data on visa overstays, already announced measures to cap the number of international students will have an impact):

Asylum seekers are sleeping on the pavement in downtown Toronto. An encampment spreads outside a homeless shelter in Mississauga. A church in Vaughan is building tiny homes on its Greenbelt property.

These are some of the messy consequences of the surging number of asylum seekers who are coming to Canada and landing in the GTA. And it reflects what happens when all levels of governments lack a co-ordinated game plan and fail to invest in existing infrastructure to accommodate a surging displaced population around the world, advocates for refugees warn.

The Canadian Council for Refugees (CCR) is urging the federal government to address critical gaps in the reception and support of asylum seekers by establishing a national system that replicates the one that currently supports resettled refugees such as those from Ukraine.

“We know in today’s global context that Canada will continue to receive people who are seeking protection from persecution,” Gauri Sreenivasan, the council’s co-executive director, told a news conference in Ottawa on Thursday.

“Canadians are expecting a plan, not stopgap measures, and it is long past time to put in place a comprehensive, co-ordinated, cost-effective system that treats refugee claimants with dignity and fairness.”

Canada received 137,947 new asylum claims in 2023 — up from 60,158 the year before — and many have been caught up in the country’s affordable housing crisis, despite efforts by the federal government to redirect new arrivals from big cities to smaller communities. Ottawa has also invested another $362 million to house asylum seekers this year, in addition to $212 million announced last summer.

“We will continue to be there to support vulnerable people and the communities that provide them shelter,” Immigration Minister Marc Miller told reporters in January when announcing the new money.

But there are cheaper ways to serve those needs with better planning and co-ordination, advocates say…

Source: Is there a better place to put refugees than hotels? The push for a national asylum plan

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Wells: Immigration Minister Marc Miller

2024/04/05 Leave a comment

Well worth listening to the intv:

All the time I’ve been covering politics I’ve had a category in my mind for politicians who just sound like people when they talk to me. I don’t put all that much stock in it. There are lots of ways to be good at your work, or less good, and talking’s only part of it. But just on a human level, it’s hard not to like people who don’t robot up as soon as I walk into a room.

Marc Miller is one such. He’s in a tough portfolio these days, not for the first time. Thirteen months ago he was on the pod as minister of Crown-Indigenous Affairs. Now of course he’s at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. He’s a careful talker, and like a lot of people who mistrust communications advice, he’s low on pat slogans, so at no point in our interview did he sound like he had a bunch of ready answers. But I’ve always had the impression I’m basically talking to Marc Miller, not to some homunculus version of him that he’s interposed between me and the real item. 

His job since last June is to introduce a note of caution, or a symphony, into what had been the most pro-immigration government in generations. Symphonies of caution are all the rage these days; even the prime minister has started to notice there’s something amiss. (I don’t think the text of the linked tweet quite summarizes what Justin Trudeau said, but the clip is worth hearing.)

Since the flow of new Canadians has implications for housing, federalism, and the fortunes of the official opposition, just for starters, it’s become clear that Miller has a mandate to change some policies. Which he’s done, capping international student permits and planning for a gradual cut in temporary residents. We talked about both in our interview.

We also caught up on the ambitious reform to the department’s organization that his former deputy minister, Christiane Fox, undertook last year — before she was shuffled yet again in January. (She’s now Deputy Clerk of the Privy Council.) 

And I took the opportunity to run a peculiar theory past Miller: that the recent substantial increase in immigration rates was essentially orchestrated by the McKinsey consulting firm and its former top executive, Dominic Barton. I don’t put much stock in the notion, and Miller gives it even less credence, but it led the nightly French-language national news at Radio-Canada for days on end last year, beginning with this story (the linked version of the story is in English). In the first years of this government, Barton led an advisory council on economic growththat recommended much higher immigration. Later he helped found the Century Initiative, an NGO that advocates for much higher immigration. (Barton’s name has disappeared from the group’s website since Radio-Canada started reporting.) And McKinsey has been getting far more contracts from the Liberal government than its Conservative predecessor. My Rad-Can colleagues suggested all these things are connected. I’ve now spent more time explaining the hypothesis to you than I wanted, but at least now you’ll know what I’m on about when I ask Miller about it.

I don’t endorse everything Miller says here. He’s got this thing where he pre-emptively blames Pierre Poilievre for stuff he thinks Poilievre mightsay eventually, which strikes me as a stretch. But I know few effective politicians who aren’t also ardent partisans. Anyway, give it all a listen. 

Source: Immigration Minister Marc Miller

Filed under Immigration, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

How caste discrimination impacts communities in Canada

2024/04/05 Leave a comment

Of interest albeit small scale study based on 19 interviews:

Many perceive caste to be a phenomenon that only exists in India. Yet, it is a part of Canadian society, and an issue that many in South Asian diasporas are contending with. 

The late British Columbia-based poet and activist Mohan Lal Karimpuri described caste as a system of high and low, a form of “social, economic, political, religious inequality” that takes away the power of the many and puts it in the hands of the few. It is the hierarchical ranking of people in accordance with an ascriptive identity, associated with family, lineage and hereditary occupation. 

Those who are Dalit, like Karimpuri, are among the most marginalized by dominant castes, and historically systematically excluded in social, economic and cultural terms. Dalits are most vulnerable in India where violence and exclusion remain pervasive. In 2022, Amnesty International stated that “hate crimes including violence against Dalits and Adivasis [Indigenous Peoples] were committed with impunity.” 

But caste does not only exist in South Asia. In recent years, it has been formally recognized as a potential grounds for discrimination in the United States and Canada in diverse contexts in places like Seattle, Wash. and Burnaby, B.C.. 

The Toronto District School Board, the Ontario Human Rights Commission, Harvard University and the University of California, Davis have recognized casteism as a form of discrimination. 

In 2023, California lawmakers passed a bill that would explicitly ban caste discrimination in the state. However, it was vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom who said it was “unnecessary,” arguing that caste discrimination was already banned under existing laws.

To truly understand what caste means and its impact, the stories of those who experience caste discrimination must be heard. All too often, the experiences of those marginalized within the caste system are treated as an addendum or aside to dominant caste narratives, and casteist perspectives persist in the public domain and remain unquestioned. 

Lack of visibility

In 2020, we initiated the Caste in Canada project in partnership with Dalit civil society leaders in B.C. The project documented the lives of Canadians of Dalit ancestry through in-depth oral history interviews. We interviewed 19 people from an array of backgrounds impacted by caste. Fourteen of these interviews are now available on the project website.

One recurrent theme in the interviews was the issue of visibility. University student Vipasna Nangal, for example, expressed concern about how many Dalits mask their caste identity in Canada as a way of avoiding stigma. 

As she notes, “in order to resist something you have to acknowledge it… and so you can’t have resistance without having visibility.” Caste, therefore, is something that needs to be talked about and not hidden. The limitations of masking caste identity are eloquently addressed in the interview with journalist Meera Estrada. She poignantly describes the pain involved in pretending not to be Dalit and her own personal journey towards publicly acknowledging her identity. 

Participants in the project voiced this as a common concern: that only by making the stories of Dalits more visible and accessible can we create domains for the recognition, and then obliteration, of caste and casteism, and the possibility of moving past caste divisions, for all. 

Challenging the social acceptability of casteism

Another important theme was the need to challenge the social acceptability of casteist discourse. Several participants emphasized the pervasiveness of casteist discourses in popular contexts, such as in music, where dominant caste perspectives are celebrated. 

Participant Rashpal Singh Bhardwaj, founder of the Ambedkar International Social Reform Organization (AISRO), described the organization’s work with local radio stations to discourage playing music that celebrates dominant caste identities on the radio. 

Caste discrimination is a part of the life experiences of many in Canada, both as a result of experiences in India, but also here in Canada. Participants Gurpreet Singh and Kamaljit described how people of South Asian heritage in Canada try to discover each other’s caste backgrounds — and the exclusion this entails.

It is, in short, a part of Canadian society, working on multiple levels and complicating our understanding of diversity in the Canadian context. 

Tackling caste

Given that caste is a continuing problem both in India and abroad, it is no surprise that Dalit Canadians have organized extensively to address discrimination. In B.C. there are several organizations, such as our project partner, the Chetna (“Awareness”) Association of Canada, represented in our interviews by its executive director, Jai Birdi — who played a key role in the project, and speaks in his interview about how to respond to caste discrimination with power and resilience — and Manjit and Surjit Bains, Ambedkarite Buddhist activists.

Other important organizations include AISRO and its members Rashpal Singh Bhardwaj, Jogender Banger, and Kamlesh Ahirwhom we interviewed for the project. There is also the Ambedkarite International Co-ordination Society, represented in the project by Param Kainth, who also speaks eloquently about the importance of the teachings of the Buddha for Dalits. 

As the titles of these organizations make clear, they are inspired by India’s towering leader and architect of the Indian constitution, B.R. Ambedkar, who campaigned for the rights of South Asia’s diverse Dalit communities. His life and activism provide the model for millions of Dalits around the world as they seek to remake the world without caste. With the Caste in Canada project, we work with our Dalit colleagues to do the same in Canada.

Source: How caste discrimination impacts communities in Canada

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ICYMI: Nouvelle hausse des immigrants temporaires au Québec

2024/04/05 Leave a comment

Ongoing focus of Quebec discussion and debates:

Le nombre de résidents non permanents au Québec a de nouveau grimpé à la fin de l’année 2023, une hausse qui s’explique notamment par l’arrivée massive de demandeurs d’asile, dont le gouvernement Legault réclame de nouveau une meilleure répartition à travers le Canada.

Le dernier décompte de Statistique Canada, rendu public mercredi matin, fait état de plus de 560 000 immigrants temporaires résidant au Québec au début du premier trimestre de 2024 (1er janvier). C’est une augmentation de 32 000 personnes depuis la dernière mise à jour de l’agence statistique, rendue publique en décembre.

On compte parmi ces nouveaux arrivants près de 177 000 demandeurs d’asile, en hausse de 16 000 depuis le dernier décompte. « Clairement, il faut que le fédéral prenne ses responsabilités et répartisse les demandeurs d’asile dans l’ensemble du Canada, dans les autres provinces », a réitéré la ministre québécoise de l’Immigration, Christine Fréchette, quelques instants après avoir pris connaissance de ses nouvelles données.

Les données laissent toutefois entrevoir un ralentissement de la croissance des immigrants temporaires. Il s’agit de l’augmentation la moins importante du nombre de résidents non permanents depuis un an. Quant aux détenteurs de permis de travail et d’études, ainsi que leurs proches, ils étaient plus de 383 000 au premier jour de l’année.

La publication de ces statistiques survient à quelques heures d’une rencontre entre la ministre Fréchette et son homologue au fédéral, Marc Miller. L’élue caquiste compte bien profiter de cet entretien pour « aborder la répartition des demandeurs d’asile ».

En plus d’exiger des gestes d’Ottawa sur cette question, Québec demande que le fédéral lui verse environ 1 milliard de dollars pour compenser les services offerts aux personnes en attente d’asile depuis 2021.

Source: Nouvelle hausse des immigrants temporaires au Québec

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ICYMI: Trump’s immigration rhetoric makes inroads with some Democrats. That could be a concern for Biden

2024/04/05 Leave a comment

Of note (even if immigrants, particularly irregulars and illegals, tend to commit less crime):

The video shared by former President Donald Trump features horror movie music and footage of migrants purportedly entering the U.S. from countries including Cameroon, Afghanistan and China. Shots of men with tattoos and videos of violent crime are set against close-ups of people waving and wrapping themselves in American flags.

“They’re coming by the thousands,” Trump says in the video, posted on his social media site. “We will secure our borders. And we will restore sovereignty.”

In his speeches and online posts, Trump has ramped up anti-immigrant rhetoric as he seeks the White House a third time, casting migrants as dangerous criminals “poisoning the blood” of America. Hitting the nation’s deepest fault lines of race and national identity, his messaging often relies on falsehoods about migration. But it resonates with many of his core supporters going back a decade, to when “build the wall” chants began to ring out at his rallies.

President Joe Biden and his allies discuss the border very differently. The Democrat portrays the situation as a policy dispute that Congress can fix and hits Republicans in Washington for backing away from a border security deal after facing criticism from Trump.

But in a potentially worrying sign for Biden, Trump’s message appears to be resonating with key elements of the Democratic coalition that Biden will need to win over this November.

Roughly two-thirds of Americans now disapprove of how Biden is handling border security, including about 4 in 10 Democrats, 55% of Black adults and 73% of Hispanic adults, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in March.

A recent Pew Research Center poll found that 45% of Americans described the situation as a crisis, while another 32% said it was a major problem.

Vetress Boyce, a Chicago-based racial justice activist, was among those who expressed frustration with Biden’s immigration policies and the city’s approach as it tries to shelter newly arriving migrants. She argued Democrats should be focusing on economic investment in Black communities, not newcomers.

“They’re sending us people who are starving, the same way Blacks are starving in this country. They’re sending us people who want to escape the conditions and come here for a better lifestyle when the ones here are suffering and have been suffering for over 100 years,” Boyce said. “That recipe is a mixture for disaster. It’s a disaster just waiting to happen.”

Gracie Martinez is a 52-year-old Hispanic small business owner from Eagle Pass, Texas, the border town that Trump visited in February when he and Biden made same-day trips to the state. Martinez said she once voted for former President Barack Obama and is still a Democrat, but now backs Trump — mainly because of the border.

“It’s horrible,” she said. “It’s tons and tons of people and they’re giving them medical and money, phones,” she said, complaining those who went through the legal immigration system are treated worse.

Priscilla Hesles, 55, a teacher who lives in Eagle Pass, Texas, described the current situation as “almost an overtaking” that had changed the town.

“We don’t know where they’re hiding. We don’t know where they’ve infiltrated into and where are they going to come out of,” said Hesles, who said she used to take an evening walk to a local church, but stopped after she was shaken by an encounter with a group of men she alleged were migrants.

Immigration will almost certainly be one of the central issues in November’s election, with both sides spending the next six months trying to paint the other as wrong on border security.

The president’s reelection campaign recently launched a $30 million ad campaign targeting Latino audiences in key swing states that includes a digital ad in English and Spanish highlighting Trump’s past description of Mexican immigrants as “criminals” and “rapists.”

The White House has also mulled a series of executive actions that could drastically tighten immigration restrictions, effectively going around Congress after it failed to pass the bipartisan deal Biden endorsed.

“Trump is a fraud who is only out for himself,” said Biden campaign spokesman Kevin Munoz. “We will make sure voters know that this November.”

Trump will campaign Tuesday in Wisconsin and Michigan this week, where he is expected to again tear into Biden on immigration. His campaign said his event in the western Michigan city of Grand Rapids will focus on what it alleged was “Biden’s Border Bloodbath.”

The former president calls recent record-high arrests for southwest border crossings an “invasion” orchestrated by Democrats to transform America’s very makeup. Trump accuses Biden of purposely allowing criminals and potential terrorists to enter the country unchecked, going so far as to claim the president isengaged in a “conspiracy to overthrow the United States of America.”

He also casts migrants — many of them women and children escaping poverty and violence — as “ poisoning the blood ” of America with drugs and disease and claimed some are “not people.” Experts who study extremism warn against using dehumanizing language in describing migrants.

There is no evidence that foreign governments are emptying their jails or mental asylums as Trump says. And while conservative news coverage has been dominated by several high-profile and heinous crimes allegedly committed by people in the country illegally, the latest FBI statistics show overall violent crime in the U.S. dropped again last year, continuing a downward trend after a pandemic-era spike.

Studies have also found that people living in the country illegally are far less likely than native-born Americans to have been arrested for violent, drug and property crimes.

“Certainly the last several months have demonstrated a clear shift in political support,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of the immigrant resettlement group Global Refuge and a former Obama administration and State Department official.

“I think that relates to the rhetoric of the past several years,” she said, “and just this dynamic of being outmatched by a loud, extreme of xenophobic rhetoric that hasn’t been countered with reality and the facts on the ground.”

Part of what has made the border such a salient issue is that its impact is being felt far from the border.

Trump allies, most notably Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, have used state-funded buses to send more than 100,000 migrants to Democratic-led cities like New York, Denver and Chicago, where Democrats will hold this summer’s convention. While the program was initially dismissed as a publicity stunt, the influx has strained city budgets and left local leaders scrambling to provide emergency housing and medical care for new groups of migrants.

Local news coverage, meanwhile, has often been negative. Viewers have seen migrants blamed for everything from a string of gang-related New Jersey robberies to burglary rings targeting retail stores in suburban Philadelphia to measles cases in parts of Arizona and Illinois.

Abbott has deployed the Texas National Guard to the border, placed concertina wire along parts of the Rio Grande in defiance of U.S. Supreme Court orders, and has argued his state should be able to enforce its own immigration laws.

Some far-right internet sites have begun pointing to Abbott’s actions as the first salvo in a coming civil war. And Russia has also helped spread and amplifymisleading and incendiary content about U.S. immigration and border security as part of its broader efforts to polarize Americans. A recent analysis by the firm Logically, which tracks Russian disinformation, found online influencers and social media accounts linked to the Kremlin have seized on the idea of a new civil war and efforts by states like Texas to secede from the union.

Amy Cooter, who directs research at the Center on Terrorism, Extremism and Counterterrorism at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, worries the current wave of civil war talk will only increase as the election nears. So far, it has generally been limited to far-right message boards. But immigration is enough of a concern generally that its political potency is intensified, Cooter said.

“Non-extremist Americans are worried about this, too,” she said. “It’s about culture and perceptions about who is an American.”

In the meantime, there are people like Rudy Menchaca, an Eagle Pass bar owner who also works for a company that imports Corona beer from Mexico and blamed the problems at the border for hurting business.

Menchaca is the kind of Hispanic voter Biden is counting on to back his reelection bid. The 27-year-old said he was never a fan of Trump’s rhetoric and how he portrayed Hispanics and Mexicans. “We’re not all like that,” he said.

But he also said he was warming to the idea of backing the former president because of the reality on the ground.

“I need those soldiers to be around if I have my business,” Menchaca said of Texas forces dispatched to the border. “The bad ones that come in could break in.”

Source: Trump’s immigration rhetoric makes inroads with some Democrats. That could be a concern for Biden

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