Immigration rules that jeopardized Russian activist’s citizenship bid need fixing, experts say – CBC.ca

2024/01/15 Leave a comment

Would be nice to know if this is an isolated case or part of a broader pattern. Could likely be addressed through an operational bulletin:

….While her supporters applauded the eventual outcome, experts and advocates — including a Russian opposition politician convicted under the same law — say Canada must clarify its immigration rules to avoid making the same mistake again.

“This is a shocking case. It’s a clear miscarriage of justice,” said Matthew Light, and associate professor of criminology and European studies at the University of Toronto, in an interview before Miller’s intervention.

“I can only assume it arose through a very basic misunderstanding of the nature of the Russian political system and the law in question, which is … a blatant attempt to silence opposition to the war in Ukraine.”

Light said the law has had a “dramatic” effect in Russia, where thousands have been arrested for allegedly discrediting the “special military operation” in Ukraine.

Now, Light said, the Kremlin appears to be taking aim at Russians who have fled.

“I think the fact that the sentence that was handed down in this [case] was so extreme indicates that the Russian government sees it as important to them to send a message to Russian citizens abroad that they can be found and that they can be in trouble with their [adopted country’s] government if they speak out against the war.”

Light believes the intent of the Russian law is “perfectly clear” and said it’s astounding that Canadian immigration officials failed to recognize it for what it is.

“The part about this case that’s so unbelievable is that anybody in the Canadian government would believe that this is a proper law,” he said, likening it to a Canadian citizen being imprisoned for criticizing the war in Afghanistan.

“It’s really that simple. This is somebody who’s criticizing a policy of their government, in this case the invasion of Ukraine, and being punished for that.”

Wesley Wark, senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation and an expert on national security and intelligence issues, called Kartasheva’s case extraordinary for its “sheer absurdity.”

He was also interviewed before the minister’s intervention.

“It’s really a kind of Kafkaesque situation that this person has been thrust in,” said Wark, who attempted to intervene with senior government officials on Kartasheva’s behalf and said her predicament reminded him of another case in which he was involved.

He said Russia might even seize upon the gaffe for its own propaganda purposes.

“In a broader perspective, it does bring … the conduct of the Canadian government into disrepute,” Wark said. “On every level — in terms of international relations, in terms of application of the law, in terms of what I call bureaucratic turpitude, reputation impact on the individual in question — it’s just so wrong.”

Wark suspects Kartasheva’s application became bogged down on the desk of a junior official who was operating strictly by the book, but said that doesn’t make the government’s handling of it any less egregious.

“The very idea that we would even for a moment contemplate looking for an equivalent to a Russian criminal sanction that is politically motivated and designed to stamp out dissent … just strikes me as absurd,” he said.

Source: Immigration rules that jeopardized Russian activist’s citizenship bid need fixing, experts say – CBC.ca

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Pierre Poilievre pledges to tie immigration levels to homebuilding – Financial Post

2024/01/15 Leave a comment

Given current housing starts, less than 250,000, and for illustrative purposes, 3 persons per housing unit, this would mean a total of 750,000 permanent and temporary residents, less than half the current amount.

An easy understandable slogan but, like so many by all parties, more complex than presented given the various interested groups and the hard decisions around trade-offs:

The Conservative politician who’s trying to take down Justin Trudeau said that if he’s elected, he would link Canada’s immigration levels to the number of homes being built.

Pierre Poilievre took aim Friday at Trudeau’s housing minister, Sean Fraser, arguing that when Fraser was immigration minister, he oversaw soaring numbers of new arrivals without ensuring the country could properly accommodate them.

“We need to make a link between the number of homes built and the number of people we invite as new Canadians,” Poilievre said, speaking at a news conference in Winnipeg, Manitoba.He said his Conservative Party “will get back to an approach of immigration that invites a number of people that we can house, employ and care for in our health-care system.” He cited data showing that Canada is now completing fewer homes than it did 50 years earlier, when its population was around 22 million. It’s close to 41 million today

There were 219,942 new homes completed in Canada in 2022, the most recent year for which complete data is available, compared with 232,227 in 1972, when the country was going through a construction boom.

Poilievre did not say whether he would roll back Canada’s permanent resident target or curb the number of temporary newcomers, such as foreign students. In the past, he has declined to say that he would scale back immigration.

Canada accepted about 455,000 new permanent residents in the 12-month period to Oct. 1 while bringing in more than 800,000 non-permanent residents, a category that includes temporary workers, students and refugees. Canada’s population growth rate of 3.2 per cent means it’s growing faster than any Group of Seven nation, China or India.

Many economists have also criticized the government for failing to ensure services have kept pace with Canada’s immigration targets.

Trudeau has fallen far behind Poilievre in public polling, and the high cost of housing is likely part of the explanation. His government has unveiled several measures meant to boost home construction, and they’ve pledged to examine reforms to programs that allow temporary immigrants.

The prime minister told reporters in Guelph, Ont., on Jan. 12 that there’s no “magic solution” to the housing shortage and touted his government’s program to transfer millions of dollars to cities that speed up development approvals.

“Construction workers and availability of labour is a challenge we’re facing, which is why we continue to have ambitious immigration targets,” he said.

Source: Pierre Poilievre pledges to tie immigration levels to homebuilding – Financial Post

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Teenage surfing star granted Canadian citizenship, now sets her sights on Olympics – The Globe and Mail

2024/01/15 Leave a comment

Unclear whether this is a one-off decision or signals repeal of first generation cut-off. From the reporting, weak connection to Canada, one that appears to be more elite athlete driven and that she was reportedly searching for different citizenship options to allow her to compete in the olympics. Unclear why she didn’t compete with the American team:

…Canada’s citizenship laws are complex, with amendments changing the rules in 2009 and 2015. But essentially Bill C-37 in 2009 ended the extension of citizenship to second-generations born abroad.

In an October letter explaining its decision not to grant a “discretionary grant of citizenship,” Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada says Brooks did not meet the requirements.

“The application is refused on the basis that the applicant is not stateless, has not experienced special or unusual hardship or provided services of an exceptional value to Canada which warrants a discretionary grant of Canadian citizenship,” the letter stated.

Source: Teenage surfing star granted Canadian citizenship, now sets her sights on Olympics – The Globe and Mail

Source: Chris Selley: An elite surfer finally gets rightful Canadian citizenship. Other ‘lost Canadians’ keep waiting

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Trudeau botched immigration surge, Canada’s top bank economists say – Financial Post

2024/01/13 Leave a comment

Hard to make a stronger condemnation than this:

Canada’s current immigration policy — among the most open in the world — is now causing economic damage and needs to be reconsidered, according to the country’s top economists.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s decision to dramatically increase immigration — and allow a flood of temporary workers and international students — without providing proper support has created a laundry list of economic problems, including higher inflation and weak productivity, chief economists at Canada’s biggest banks said Jan. 11 during a wide-ranging panel discussion in Toronto.

“Frankly I’m surprised we screwed it up because we sit in such a privileged position in Canada,” Beata Caranci, chief economist at Toronto-Dominion Bank, told a packed audience at an Economic Club of Canada event.

Unlike many other countries, including the United States, Canada is not dealing with poorly controlled flows of migrants across its land borders and has had time to think about the implications of its policies, Caranci said. “We designed our own policy, we put it in place, we implemented it, and we still screwed it up.

Source: Trudeau botched immigration surge, Canada’s top bank economists say – Financial Post

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Keller:The day DEI World entered Canadian politics

2024/01/13 Leave a comment

Keller has shifted from valid critiques of current immigration policies to critiques of DEI, given the blinders by some to anti-semitism, with one of the more blatant examples. Another one might be the KOJO Institute as their website does not mention anti-semitism based upon a word search:

….But today’s anti-racism training often isn’t at all like that. Which is how you end up with Laith Marouf. He worked for an organization that received federal funding to deliver anti-racism education, and whose contract was terminated after it came to light that he was posting antisemitic content online.

In Liberal World, claiming to be against racism, while discriminating on the basis of race, is not only wrong, it’s a philosophical contradiction. But DEI World’s anti-racism doesn’t work that way. It starts by putting groups of people into either the good racial box or the bad one, so that one can decide who is oppressed and oppressor, and who is entitled to what sort of treatment.

That’s how you end up with people posting things online that, in Liberal World, are clearly racist – and yet these same people, their minds in DEI World, sincerely believe themselves to be anti-racists.

Source: The day DEI World entered Canadian politics

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Deputy ministers’ report on values and ethics in public service lacks ‘a point of view,’ says expert

2024/01/13 Leave a comment

Valid critique and yes, the need to be more pragmatic and I would argue, concrete:

….Michael Wernick, a former Clerk of the Privy Council, said that while the document was a “decent consultation ‘what we heard’ report,” it left him asking “what now?”

“It’s oddly lacking a point of view or position or a stance on anything. It kind of just sends the ball back to the Clerk and the Secretary of the Treasury Board and says we really should have policy on acceptable use of social media, but there’s no advice on what that policy should look like,” Wernick said.

“It identifies a problem with the incursions of political staff, but there’s no advice on what to do about it. So it kind of left me hanging.”

The report’s authors said the document is “intended to serve as a prologue to a broader dialogue on values and ethics in the public service, and we begin by sharing what we have heard, frankly and without filters.”

Pierre-Alain Bujold, spokesperson for the Privy Council Office, said the Clerk is taking time to reflect on the report’s observations and recommendations and consider the best options for next steps. He said the report will inform the “next phase,” including how to broaden the discussion on values and ethics.

When Hannaford created the group of senior officials tasked with discussing values and ethics within the public service, he said he expected to see a “milestone report” by the end of the year.

Wernick said he agrees with the report’s call for more engagement, adding that he’d like to see the next round “drill deeper and be more pragmatic.” He added that it will be interesting to see if Parliament shows interest in the report and if the House of Commons committee on government operations invites the Clerk to speak about it.

“This looks like a picture of how the public service sees itself,” he said. “I don’t know exactly who they talked to but it sounds like they talked to a lot of those who were involved in diversity, equity issues. The report is a bit light on things that voters and taxpayers would probably be more interested in like money, productivity, excellence.”

Daniel Quan-Watson, a deputy minister for just under 15 years before his retirement last year, said he supports the report’s recommendation for conversations to be furthered “institution-wide” within federal government departments.

“We need to keep talking about this because things are evolving quickly and in different ways and because people have a lot of questions,” Quan-Watson said, adding that conversations will differ substantially from organization to organization. “I think that this goes a long way to making sure that they do that.”

Quan-Watson said it would have been “deeply problematic” for a tool on all values and ethics in the public service to have been developed or for any major changes to be made to the Values and Ethics Code over a few months.

“That would miss 90 per cent of the public service, I’m not sure that those changes are ones that would be that effective,” Quan-Watson said, adding that he hopes public servants feel free to raise their questions and concerns to managers and senior leadership. “I think the sensible thing to say is listen, here are the areas that we looked at, we’re getting consistent themes in this, so let’s go see what the broader public service has to say about it.”

“That takes time. It makes it stronger and it makes it incredibly more valuable when it’s done.”

Source: Deputy ministers’ report on values and ethics in public service lacks ‘a point of view,’ says expert

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When ‘conservatives pounce’: The right finds its cautionary tale of subtle media bias

2024/01/13 Leave a comment

Always find MacDougall’s comments reasonable and balanced:

“I can think of no reporters I’ve ever dealt with who had it out for a party or a worldview. Most were trying to do the job in the fairest way possible,” said Andrew MacDougall, who was director of communications for former prime minister Stephen Harper and is now a director at Trafalgar Strategy.

“But like all biases, you’re not really aware of them until somebody points them out. If you’re university-educated and urban-living, you tend to have a worldview that is different from somebody who isn’t — and it takes a lot of effort to open your eyes up,” said MacDougall….

While MacDougall agrees that conservatives generally have to work harder to get a fair shake from the media, he also warned people on the right not to get too caught up in playing the victim. He pointed to the current controversy around Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s recent free luxury holiday in Jamaica as proof that, above all, the media craves juicy stories.

And when conservatives govern, he said, there are times when the negative reporting targeting them is just proper reporting.

“The hardest thing in government to do is to distinguish between the fact that you’re getting heat for being in government versus for being the party that you are in government,” he said.

Source: When ‘conservatives pounce’: The right finds its cautionary tale of subtle media bias

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Canadian Immigration Tracker – November 2023 update

2024/01/13 Leave a comment

No major changes from October.

The one element to flag is the sharp increase in the number of asylum claimants, from a monthly average of about 10,000 January to June 2023 to about 15,000 July to November, largely driven by the easing of visa restrictions, with close to two-thirds of claims being “inland.” Given the large number of Mexican claimants, averaging more than 2,000 per month in 2023, there will continue to be calls to reimpose the visa requirement on Mexicans, as well as more general calls to restore the previous visa restrictions.

Highlights on slide 3.

https://www.slideshare.net/slideshows/canadian-immigration-tracker-key-slides-november-2023/265358086

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Government was warned two years ago high immigration could affect housing costs

2024/01/12 Leave a comment

Public service providing “fearless advice” while government, as is its right, rejected it in favour of ongoing increases in permanent and temporary immigration. Advice to former immigration minister Fraser who now, ironically, and perhaps deservedly so, is now the housing minister who has to clean up this mess (not doable in substantive terms before the election).

Eerily similar to some of my earlier opinion pieces, Increasing immigration to boost population? Not so fast.:

Federal public servants warned the government two years ago that large increases to immigration could affect housing affordability and services, internal documents show.

Documents obtained by The Canadian Press through an access-to-information request show Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada analyzed the potential effects immigration would have on the economy, housing and services, as it prepared its immigration targets for 2023 to 2025.

The deputy minister, among others, was warned in 2022 that housing construction had not kept up with the pace of population growth.

“In Canada, population growth has exceeded the growth in available housing units,” one slide deck reads.

“As the federal authority charged with managing immigration, IRCC policy-makers must understand the misalignment between population growth and housing supply, and how permanent and temporary immigration shapes population growth.”

Immigration accounts for nearly all population growth in Canada, given the country’s aging demographics.

The federal government ultimately decided to increase the number of permanent residents Canada welcomes each year to 500,000 in 2025, a decision that drew considerable attention and scrutiny. It means in 2025, Canada will welcome nearly twice as many permanent residents as it did in 2015.

The document reveals federal public servants were well aware of the pressures high population growth would have on housing and services.

“Rapid increases put pressure on health care and affordable housing,” public servants warned. “Settlement and resettlement service providers are expressing short-term strain due to labour market conditions, increased levels and the Afghanistan and Ukraine initiatives.”

Housing affordability has now become a political liability for the Liberal government. The Conservatives have gained considerable momentum over the last year as the party pounces on affordability issues, while avoiding the issue of immigration in particular. These pressures have forced the Liberal government to refocus its efforts on housing policy and begin to address the spike in international students with new rules.

Recent data shows Canada’s pace of population growth continues to set records as the country brings in a historic number of temporary residents as well, largely through international student and temporary foreign worker programs.

The country’s population grew by more than 430,000 during the third quarter of 2023, marking the fastest pace of population growth in any quarter since 1957.

Experts spanning from Bay Street to academic institutions have warned that Canada’s strong population growth is eroding housing affordability, as demand outpaces supply.

The Bank of Canada has offered similar analysis. Deputy governor Toni Gravelle delivered a speech in December warning that strong population growth is pushing rents and home prices upward.

Public opinion polls also show Canadians are increasingly concerned about the pressure immigration is putting on services, infrastructure and housing, leading to waning support for high immigration.

The Liberal government has defended its immigration policy decisions, arguing that immigrants help bring about economic prosperity and help with the country’s demographics as the population ages.

However, amid the heightened scrutiny of the Liberal government’s immigration policy, Immigration Minister Marc Miller levelled out the annual target at 500,000 permanent residents for 2026.

The documents from 2022 note that Canada’s immigration targets have exceeded the recommendations of some experts, including the Century Initiative, an organization that advocates for growing the country’s population to 100 million by the end of the century.

However, attention is now shifting from these targets to the steep rise in non-permanent residents. Between July and October, about three-quarters of Canada’s population growth came from temporary residents, including international students and temporary foreign workers.

That trend is raising alarms about the increase in businesses’ reliance on low-wage migrant workers and the luring of international student byshady post-secondary institutions.

Mikal Skuterud, an economics professor at the University of Waterloo who specializes in immigration policy, says the federal government appears to have “lost control” of temporary migration flows.

Unlike the annual targets for permanent residents, the number of temporary residents is dictated by demand for migrant workers and international students.

He also notes there is a link between the targets for permanent residents and the flow of temporary residents.

“To the extent that you increase permanent numbers, and migrants realize the way you get a PR is to come here as a temporary resident … then migrants are incentivized to kind of come and try their luck,” he said.

Skuterud, who has been a vocal critic of the federal government’s immigration policy, says the benefits of high immigration have been exaggerated by the Liberals.

He said that starting around 2015, when the Liberal government was first elected, a narrative developed in Canada that “immigration was kind of a solution to Canada’s economic growth problems.”

And while the professor says that narrative is one that people like to believe, he notes higher immigration does little when it comes to increasing living standards, as measured by real GDP per capita.

Public servants at IRCC are in agreement, the released documents suggest.

“Increasing the working age population can have a positive impact on gross domestic product, but little effect on GDP per capita,” public servants noted.

Source: Government was warned two years ago high immigration could affect housing costs – Moose Jaw Today

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Gurski: Canada’s open-door immigration policy shouldn’t mean anything goes

2024/01/12 Leave a comment

Valid note of caution. Encouragingly, Minister Miller was frank about this concern and the need for rigorous security checks as well as the difference between Ukraine and Gaza:

More to the point, the ongoing war in Gaza has spurred the Liberal government to announce special measures to help the family members of Canadians get out of the war zone. In theory, this is a bold and welcome move but does have a security nexus. Hamas is the ruling party in the area — and is a listed terrorist entity in Canada. Support for it in the wake of Israeli military action after the Oct. 7 terrorist attack in southern Israel is on the rise, in the region, worldwide and possibly in Canada. It is possible and perhaps even probable that Hamas members or supporters will attempt to join the queue. They cannot be allowed to succeed (I am sure CSIS is well aware of the likelihood). Imagine a scenario where a recent arrival carried out an attack in the name of Hamas on Canadian soil: I would prefer not to have to go there.

We do not want to become a nation where the anti-immigrant lobby gains influence and status. We see what is happening in Europe (for instance, the political party led by far-right, anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders recently won the most seats in the Netherlands) and it ain’t pretty. One way to avoid that eventuality is to allow our security agencies to do their job, then take their advice to heart. The consequences of not doing so are dire indeed.

Phil Gurski is President/CEO of Borealis Threat and Risk Consulting, and a firmer CSIS employee. http://www.borealisthreatandrisk.com

Source: Gurski: Canada’s open-door immigration policy shouldn’t mean anything goes

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