Canada should deny care to pregnant ‘birth tourists,’ doctor argues

2023/06/22 Leave a comment

Good article based upon the opinion piece by Dr. Barrett shared yesterday:

Should Canada deny care to ”birth tourists,” pregnant women who visit Canada with the sole purpose of delivering their babies here, thereby obtaining automatic Canadian citizenship for their newborns?

It’s a provocative, and, some say, dangerous suggestion. However, a leading expert in preterm and multiple births is arguing that Canadian hospitals and doctors should have “absolutely zero tolerance” for birth tourism, a phenomenon that is rising once again now that COVID travel restrictions have been dropped.

It’s a “sorry state of affairs” that women in Canada face wait times of 18 months or longer for treatment for pelvic pain, uncontrolled bleeding and other women’s health issues, Dr. Jon Barrett, professor and chief of the department of obstetrics and gynaecology at McMaster University wrote in an editorial in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Canada.

“The thought that even ONE patient seeking birth tourism would potentially take either an obstetrical spot out of our allocated hospital quota, or even worse, a spot on the gynaecologic waiting list, should be enough to unite all in a position that anything that in any way facilitates this practice should be frowned upon,” Barrett wrote.

“These are non-Canadians getting access to health care, which we haven’t got enough of for our own Canadians,” he said in an interview.

When planned low-risk births go wrong, and babies end up spending weeks in intensive care, hospitals can be left with hundreds of thousands in unpaid bills. One Calgary study found that almost $700,000 was owed to Alberta Health Services over the 16-month study period.

The women themselves are also at risk, Barrett said, of being  “fleeced” by unscrupulous brokers and agencies charging hefty sums upfront for birth tourism packages that include help arranging tourist visas, flights, “maternity” or “baby hotels” and pre-and post-partum care.

And, while he declined to provide specific examples, “Tempted by large sums of money, even the best of us can be tempted into poor practice,” Barrett wrote.

The issue has triggered high emotions and debate among Canada’s baby doctors. Under Canada’s rule of jus soli, Latin for “right of soil,” citizenship is automatically conferred to those born on Canadian soil.

Birthright citizenship gives the child access to a Canadian education and health care. They can also sponsor their parents to immigrate when they turn 18.

Other developed nations require at least one parent to be a citizen, or permanent resident.

According to data collected by Andrew Griffith, a former senior federal bureaucrat in Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, “tourism” births account for about one per cent, give or take a bit, of total births in Canada. Data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information show Canada hosted 4,400 foreign births in 2019.

At a national level, the numbers aren’t huge, however they can become significant at the local level, Griffith said: In pre-COVID years, non-resident births accounted for up to 25 per cent of all births at a single hospital in Richmond, B.C., while the numbers at a handful of other popular destination hospitals in Ontario and Quebec approached five to 10 per cent of all births.

“In a system that is tight and stretched, it does become an issue at the hospital level,” Griffith said.

But birth tourism also undermines the integrity and confidence in Canada’s citizenship process, he said, “It appears like a short cut, a loophole that people are abusing in order to obtain longer-term benefit for their offspring.”

“It sends the wrong message that basically we’re not very serious in terms of how we consider citizenship and its meaningfulness and its importance to Canada,” Griffith said.

Barrett is careful to stress that birth tourism absolutely doesn’t apply to women who happen to be in Canada because of work, or study programs, or as refugees. “We must declare that people who are here for a genuine reason should have seamless access to health care,” he said.

What he opposes are the “non-urgent planned and deliberate birth tourists in our hospitals.”

Doctors can’t deny care to a woman in labour. Emergency care would always be given, he said. “Obviously you’re never going to turn somebody away.”

But doctors and hospitals could decline to provide pregnancy care before birth. “Eventually, if you create this unfriendly environment,” Barrett said, “if everybody said we are not looking after you and not facilitating this, eventually people will not come. They would realize they are not getting what they are seeking, which is optimal care.”

Some women step off the plane 37 weeks pregnant, three weeks from their due date. “That’s why my colleagues say, ‘You can’t do that. People are going to suffer,’” Barrett said. “Yes, unfortunately, people are going to suffer, because they won’t get pregnancy care, and they’ll show up at the hospital without antenatal care.”

While some women do come to Canada seeking superior medical care, “let’s be frank,” said Calgary obstetrician and gynecologist Dr. Colin Birch. “The principal motivator is jus soli.

“Sometimes its veiled under, ‘I want to get better medical care,’ but, interestingly, they fly over several countries that can give them the equivalent care to Canada to get here,” said Birch, countries that don’t offer jus soli.

Birch is co-author of the Calgary study, the first in-depth look at birth tourism in Canada. Their retrospective analysis, a look back over the data, involved 102 women who gave birth in Calgary between July 2019 and November 2020. A deposit of $15,000 was collected from each birth tourist, and held in trust by a central “triage” office to cover the cost of doctors’ fees. A deposit wasn’t collected to cover fees for hospital stays for the mom or baby; women were made aware they would be billed directly.

The average age of the woman was 32. Most came to Canada with a visitor visa, arriving, on average, 87 days before their due date. Birth tourists were most commonly from Nigeria, followed by the Middle East, China, India and Mexico. Overall, 77 per cent stated that the reason for coming to Canada was to give birth to a “Canadian baby.”

Almost a third of the women had a pre-existing medical condition. One woman needed to be admitted to the ICU after delivery for cardiac reasons, another was admitted for a high blood pressure disorder and stroke. Nine babies required a stay in the neonatal intensive care unit, including one set of twins that stayed several months. Some women skip their bills without paying.

“Every conversation about heath care is that we haven’t got money for health care,” Birch said. “Yet you’ve got unpaid bills of three-quarters of a million. It’s not chump change.”

But denying care is a dangerous and unrealistic “gut reaction” that some hospitals have already taken, Birch wrote in his counter editorial for the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Canada. “Let’s be very clear: They won’t let them through the front door, or they send them on to another hospital.”

“You cannot have zero tolerance for patients,” Birch said. “You can’t do that because that leads to maternal and fetal complications.”

The federal government could tweak the rule of “jus soli,” excluding people who just come to Canada on a temporary visitor visa to give birth, and then leave, he and others said. “You do the Australian approach, that one of the parents has to be a citizen of the country,” said Griffith, a fellow of the Environics Institute and Canadian Global Affairs Institute.

Three years ago, the United States announced it would start denying visitor visas to pregnant foreign nationals if officials believe the sole purpose was to gain American citizenship for their babies.

While some have said birth tourists are being demonized as “queue jumpers and citizenship fraudsters,” Griffith isn’t convinced birth tourism is a politically divisive issue.

“I don’t think there are very many people that really would get upset if the government sort of said, ‘We’re going to crack down on birth tourists, women who come here specifically to give birth to a child and who have no connection to Canada.’”

Source: Canada should deny care to pregnant ‘birth tourists,’ doctor argues

Filed under Birth Tourism, Citizenship Tagged with , , , ,

Griffith: A one-click citizenship oath isn’t the way to go

2023/06/22 Leave a comment

My analysis of the feedback to the government’s proposal to allow for self-administered citizenship oaths:

The federal government was probably hoping nobody would notice when it announced in February that it was planning to allow self-administered citizenship oaths. It quietly rolled out the news in its official online newspaper the Canada Gazetterather than through the minister responsible.

But opposition was swift, voiced by prominent people including former governor general Adrienne Clarkson, former minister of immigration Sergio Marchi, former Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi and former citizenship judges. The Conservatives opposed the change in Parliament. And nearly 700 people left comments on the notice during the consultation period. Of them, two-thirds of them disapproved.

The plan would allow the citizenship oath to be taken using a secure online portal without the presence of an authorized person, a departure from the tradition of in-person ceremonies or those held virtually. The government says the move could cut processing time by three months and would eliminate the need for people to take time off work to attend ceremonies.

In the comments, opposition is nearly universal among citizens and about two-thirds of immigrants. But, interestingly, strong support comes from applicants, many of whom are frustrated with the application process and its delays (table 1).

This clear divide is telling.

https://e.infogram.com/6bd9c4ce-b784-4e21-a639-f25c3cc3b05f?parent_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpolicyoptions.irpp.org%2Fmagazines%2Fjune-2023%2Fa-one-click-citizenship-oath-isnt-the-way-to-go%2F&src=embed#async_embed

The government could seize on this significant support among applicants, but it would only reinforce the narrative that the Trudeau Liberals neglect the harder and more fundamental issues of improving application processing and service. Large backlogs, now declining, similarly reinforce the narrative that government programs are not working.

The settlement industry has been silent on the plan, which is disappointing considering the crucial role it plays in the immigration journey. Immigration lawyers, their associations and the settlement sector did not submit any comments. The only organization that provided comments was the Canadian Association of Professional Immigration Consultants, and it opposes the move.

The process outlined in the Gazette allowed anonymous comments. As table 2 illustrates, anonymous commenters appear more supportive of the change. The overwhelming negative commentary may have discouraged some from identifying themselves. Additionally, some immigrants and applicants might have feared publicly expressing opposition because they worried it could have a negative impact on their citizenship application process.

https://e.infogram.com/11f24e31-e639-422e-a6e6-040960025d1f?parent_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpolicyoptions.irpp.org%2Fmagazines%2Fjune-2023%2Fa-one-click-citizenship-oath-isnt-the-way-to-go%2F&src=embed#async_embed

Comments varied from brief expressions such as “yes,” “no,” “fantastic,” or “horrible” to more extensive submissions. Supporters point to efficiency and reduced timelines, and most of their comments are short. Opponents tend to mention policy narratives or talk about their experiences, emphasizing the significance of reciting the oath together with other people virtually or in person. Their comments are much more detailed than those of the supporters.

The miniscule number of comments submitted in French (less than one per cent) is likely a reflection of meagre coverage and commentary in French-language Quebec media. Canadian citizenship (unlike immigration) is not a big topic in their coverage. It’s also possible some Quebecers submitted their comments in English.

Where does this leave the government? 

The government should focus on streamlining the application and processing procedures instead of diminishing the significance of the ceremony. After all, for most applicants, transparency (“where is my application in the system?”) and predictability (“when will it be approved?”) are their key issues.

Ceremonies serve as one of the few positive touch points between the government and immigrants. The overall weight of the Gazette submissions supports this viewpoint, emphasizing the meaningfulness of historical processes and the symbolism they hold.

Methodology

All comments were compiled into a spreadsheet to allow for analysis. Duplicative narratives were deleted in cases where they appeared in a number of sections. “Yes,” “No” and equivalent one-word comments were treated as separate comments (Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada can separate out duplicate entries for “individuals.”)

In identifying comments as being from citizens, applicants or immigrants, a strict test was applied: Did the comment identify the person explicitly as one of the three? The terms are not mutually exclusive. Many commenters identified themselves as both citizens and former immigrants, and all applicants are immigrants. However, a more liberal test allowing for more interpretation of the substance of comments would likely show a comparable result.

Source: A one-click citizenship oath isn’t the way to go

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with , , ,

Citizenship ceremonies too important to drop – Winnipeg Free Press

2023/06/21 Leave a comment

Yet another reminder of the importance of citizenship ceremonies:

“I Swear ….”

For the past few months, there have been rumblings that the federal government would like to do away with Canadian citizenship ceremonies.

This is very disappointing.

Just over a week ago there was an article on this possibility in the Free Press.

As someone who has presided over hundreds of ceremonies, in-person and virtually, and sworn in over 50,000 new citizens, I would like to weigh in on this topic by adding my voice to those across Canada who are quietly screaming that to do away with Canadian citizenship ceremonies might prove to be an irreversible tragedy.

Virtual ceremonies were introduced as a result of the pandemic. However, now that life is regaining more normalcy, the federal government is exploring how to take that cost-saving measure one step further and eliminate all citizenship ceremonies.

To draw a simple parallel, imagine students in Grade 12 who are graduating only to be told that there will be no celebration, no ceremony, no anything… because they will simply receive their graduation certificate at some point, down the road, in the mail.

Becoming a citizen in one of the freest, wealthiest, most beautiful nations that has ever existed in the history of the world is a big deal. The in-person ceremony is an occasion, an unforgettable event, that the new citizens have hoped for, worked for, studied for and dreamed of for years. One has only to attend a ceremony anywhere in this country, and you will instantly recognize that everyone who has had the good fortune to gain citizenship to this nation views it as one of the greatest moments in their life.

I often tell those about to take their oaths that this day is a milestone. They will never have, or experience, another day like this, ever! The simple truth is that most people who participate in an in-person ceremony remember the event and the date for the rest of their lives.

Many people attend these ceremonies in their native dress, some dress in red and white, while others come in their Sunday best. The sheer delight and joy one sees in the adults and children as they receive their citizenship certificate, along with a small Canada flag and pin, is almost palpable.

When a ceremony ends, everyone sings O Canada. In almost every in-person ceremony you will see some people literally weeping with joy as they sing ‘their’ national anthem.

I’ve had the honour of presiding over ceremonies in the VIA train station, the provincial exhibition fairgrounds in Brandon, CFB Shilo, RCMP “D” Division, the new Winnipeg Police Station, Grace Hospital, Winnipeg City Hall, the Manitoba Legislative Building, the Western Canada Aviation Museum, Government House, Investors Group Field, Lower Fort Garry, on the beach at Clear Lake, the Manitoba Museum, the Winnipeg Art Gallery and dozens of school gymnasiums, cultural centres and community clubs throughout the province. I’ve presided over a ceremony by someone’s bedside in a hospital and also done a ceremony in a downtown citizenship office for someone who lived in Churchill and was on his way to Antarctica.

Regardless of where the ceremony takes place or how big or small an event it is, I have never, not once, seen anyone receive their citizenship who was not overjoyed beyond belief at their good fortune to become a Canadian.

Rather than eliminate all ceremonies, or all in-person ceremonies in favour of doing most ceremonies virtually — hold more in-person ceremonies. Yes, there will be occasions when a virtual ceremony has to be performed because of remoteness to accommodate those becoming new citizens. However, those ceremonies should reinforce the importance of in-person ceremonies wherever and whenever possible.

I also often tell new citizens to remember that the freedoms they will receive as Canadians were paid for with lives and bravery. Canadians played a major role in both world wars, the Korean War, the Afghanistan War and many peacekeeping initiatives over the past several decades.

Citizenship in this nation is a great honour for all Canadians — those born here and those who chose to live here. Let’s never, ever lose sight of how lucky we all are to call this wonderful land our home.

One member of Parliament, attending a ceremony several years ago, commented on the size of the lottery jackpots saying “Don’t worry about winning the lottery. You’ve already won the biggest prize of all. You have won the ‘lottery of life’ by becoming a Canadian.”

Canada is too strong, too beautiful and too respected as a nation to have its citizenship watered down, diminished and devalued.

To become a citizen of this magnificent nation is a ceremony we should embrace, honour and treasure.

Always.

Dwight MacAulay is the former chief of protocol for the government of Manitoba and has been a presiding official for Canadian citizenship ceremonies for 12 years.

Source: Citizenship ceremonies too important to drop – Winnipeg Free Press

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with , ,

Barrett: Birth Tourism – An Opinion

2023/06/21 Leave a comment

Yet another sensible commentary by a medical professional:

Personally, one of the things that I find most enjoyable about my position as an academic chair is the collaborative discussion amongst fellow academic chairs in a monthly meeting, facilitated by the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada (SOGC). Recently, we brought up the topic of birth tourism, which prompted lively discussion, passionate views and the suggestion to write this editorial. Despite different jurisdictions, approaches, and models, there was unanimity on one aspect, and that is to clearly define birth tourism; the “deliberate travel to another country with the purpose of giving birth in that country”. Birth tourism is often motivated to attain citizenship in the long term or to attain medical care that is perceived to be better than in the home country. It is important to delineate that birth tourism is NOT a birth occurring in Canada by a person who happens to be away from their country of citizenship, because of work, study, or as a refugee.

The concept of and the practice of birth tourism is complicated from the patient’s, the healthcare team’s, the facility’s, and the healthcare system’s perspectives. Birth tourism has been recognized as an issue in Canada for some time, but became less prevalent during the COVID-19 pandemic with travel restrictions in place for international travel. Now, as we struggle because our health human resources are in crisis and our systems are struggling in every province and territory, the issue of birth tourism and its impact on our healthcare providers, our patients, our hospitals, and our healthcare systems is a matter of concern once again.

In my personal opinion, Canadian hospitals and physicians should have absolutely zero tolerance for birth tourism, declining to accept these patients into care while concurrently ensuring that patients in Canada for other legitimate reasons, who tend to be underserved, are able to receive unrestricted healthcare without imposing undue financial burden or stress.

In my previous life as a busy clinician, I remember the frustration when the leadership team of a hospital essentially declined to provide services to any patient without provincial insurance coverage, unless they were a refugee, a student, or were in Canada for another work-related reason. Of course, patients presenting as emergencies would be treated without hesitation. In retrospect, despite enjoying the direct re-imbursement that this practice facilitates, I realize now that the leadership team were correct.

They are correct because the facilitation of birth tourism causes everyone to suffer. Mostly, of course, our patient, Canadians, or those here in our country as refugees or here to work or to study.

I do not have to provide any annotated references for the sorry state of affairs in our hospitals in which we currently do not have the resources to provide an acceptable level for those requiring obstetrical and gynaecologic services. Waiting time for uro-gynaecological service is more than 18 months in most of our centres. The thought that even ONE patient seeking birth tourism would potentially take either an obstetrical spot out of our allocated hospital quota, or even worse, a spot on the gynaecologic waiting list, should be enough to unite all in a position that anything that in any way facilitates this practice should be frowned upon.

But that is not the only reason; our hospitals suffer too. A recent publication points to the fact that routinely, hospitals are left with significant shortfalls when a planned low-risk birth goes wrong and babies spend months in the intensive care unit. More specifically, the birth tourist had planned to spend CAD 10 000 for the birth of a baby – not $300 000 caring for the baby when things go wrong.

Finally, the patients may also suffer. There are many reports of people being fleeced by unethical individuals who have charged them large sums of money up-front to facilitate this industry. Finally, although I will not provide specific examples, we the healthcare providers may suffer too. Tempted by large sums of money, even the best of us can be tempted into poor practice.

In my opinion, we must firmly champion the provision of care to patients who are in Canada for work or study or as refugees without demanding excessive payments from them. We must not tempt ourselves to take advantage of the vulnerable or the unlucky. Instead we should unite in a firm stand against birth tourism by refusing to accept the non-urgent planned and deliberate birth tourists in our hospitals, rather than devising elaborate flow diagrams and/or fee schedules that facilitate and may in reality encourage the process.

Our country, our healthcare providers, and our system deserve this.

John F.R. Barrett, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, McMaster University

Source: Birth Tourism – An Opinion

Filed under Birth Tourism, Citizenship Tagged with

Regg Cohn: Here’s what our Supreme Court got right about irregular migration

2023/06/21 Leave a comment

Good assessment:

Border crossing points are perennial flashpoints in Canada.

The Canada-U.S. boundary long ago emerged as an internal dividing line, pitting two premiers against the prime minister. Our traditionally undefended frontier — now heavily patrolled — also offered fodder for the political opposition in Parliament.

An attempt to bring order to the border disorder provided fresh ammunition for refugee rights advocates to fight it out in the courts. Their lawyers argued that we dare not return migrants to the U.S. because it’s simply not a safe space for the world’s refugees (news to those who keep trying and retrying to get in).

All of which makes the sudden unanimity of Canada’s Supreme Court on the constitutionality of the bilateral and controversial Safe Third Country Agreement so remarkable. If not necessarily surprising.

After years of litigation in the courts, and lengthy negotiation in two capitals, the improvised pathways that permitted migrants to enter Canada are now at a dead end. The country’s highest court ruled last week that the bilateral pact does not violate our Charter of Rights (setting aside one question on gender rights, to be retried by the lower courts).

The 8-0 decision was the culmination of bitter arguments about the border, political and legal. But it was also predictable and inevitable, because any other outcome would lead to an unsustainable and unrealistic free-for-all.

The fight over our frontier has been a battle on two fronts: first, the original 2004 agreement (contested in the courts); second, the subsequent flashpoints at unofficial pathways (like Quebec’s Roxham Road) not covered by the bilateral agreement — a loophole that allowed the Americans to refuse to take back so-called “irregular” migrants.

The logic behind the 2004 mutual border pact was that refugee claimants who seek asylum at official crossings were deemed to have found “safe harbour” wherever they set foot first, either America or Canada. That’s because migrants have no inherent right to cherry pick between the second or third country where they put down roots.

A bona fide refugee is fleeing war or persecution — not poverty or hopelessness at home. There is no provision for fine-tuning one’s final destination (or the process of refugee determination) merely because their second stop seems to some a hostile place.

Yes, Canada needs more people. But if we fail to maintain a clear distinction abroad between our regular immigration stream for selected applicants, and a regulated refugee stream for those who don’t necessarily qualify, then domestic support will atrophy.

Canadians, like people in other high-immigration countries, still want people to play by the rules. Never mind the cliché of “queue-jumpers,” Canada cannot countenance “country shoppers” without undermining the integrity of an already overloaded refugee determination system.

Critics argued that automatically sending applicants back to America subjected them to an arbitrary determination and detention system. The Supreme Court quite rightly countered that no system is perfect, and that America is a democracy where the rule of law still prevails, even if not always to our tastes; Canada is in no position to second guess every other quasi-judicial system in the world.

The political question that preceded this month’s court ruling arose over how to deal with the glaring loophole in the Safe Third Country Agreement, by which the Americans would only take back people at official crossings. In the aftermath, tens of thousands of migrants detoured instead to Roxham Road and other unofficial pathways far from those border posts.

The surge in refugee claimants, while not massive by global standards, had an upward curve that was impossible to ignore. Shortly after winning power in 2018, Premier Doug Ford picked a fight with the federal government for failing to clamp down on the border crossings; more recently, Quebec’s François Legault pressured Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to close the bilateral loophole.

With COVID came a clampdown, as both the Americans and Canadians were loath to let an uncontrolled stream of migrants into either country. Post-pandemic, Washington belatedly recognized the benefits of restoring order — not to appease Ottawa’s concerns but to address its own insecurities about the tens of thousands of irregular migrants crossing from Canada into the U.S. Last March, Canada and the U.S. closed the loophole on unofficial crossings — and with it, shut down Roxham Road.

For all its faults, America’s refugee system cannot be upgraded or downgraded based on whoever is in power. Would critics of the U.S. change their view of our supposedly superior system if Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre one day becomes PM while the Democrats rule in Washington?

If America is such hostile territory, why do so many still risk the hazard of an irregular border crossing to the U.S., with Canada merely a way station? Let us not forget the deaths of eight migrants (from two families, one Romanian and the other Indian) trying to cross the St. Lawrence River into the U.S. at night earlier this year. Or the family of four from India’s Gujarat state that froze to death trying to cross the border from Manitoba into the U.S. in 2022.

Migrants are only human — they will take desperate actions to escape persecution or poverty at home, for which Canadians must show consideration with our refugee determination procedures. But the notion that Canada should countenance risky or merely irregular measures for those fleeing supposed uncertainty or misery in America has no serious foundation in refugee law or the Charter of Rights.

Source: Here’s what our Supreme Court got right about irregular migration

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Deputy minister left government weeks after Indigenous group privately called for his resignation, documents show

2023/06/21 Leave a comment

Cancel culture, Canadian government style…

A deputy minister’s recent departure from the federal public service occurred just weeks after a national Indigenous organization privately called for his resignation over an e-mail dismissing their description of colonialism as “a gross misreading of history.”

Timothy Sargent’s nearly three-decade career in the federal public service – which included representing Canada internationally on trade and finance files – ended without a public explanation in October when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a shuffle of deputy ministers.

The news release named a new deputy minister of Fisheries and Oceans, but made no mention of Mr. Sargent, who had been in that job since early 2019. Normally such news releases thank senior officials for their service if they are retiring or leaving for another position.

Internal e-mails and letters obtained by The Globe and Mail through Access to Information – as well as additional details provided by government officials – reveal his departure followed months of behind-the-scenes controversy over an e-mail he wrote in May, 2022.

Government officials told The Globe that Fisheries Minister Joyce Murray became personally involved in the matter, apologizing to the recipient of the e-mail and raising her deputy minister’s actions with Janice Charette, the Clerk of the Privy Council and head of the public service.

The controversy began in May when Mr. Sargent received a letter of invitation signed by Dawn Madahbee Leach, chair of the National Indigenous Economic Development Board, a small organization based in Gatineau supported financially by the federal government that provides advice to Ottawa on policy and ministerial appointments.

The letter invited Mr. Sargent to attend a luncheon hosted by Deloitte Canada to launch a National Indigenous Economic Strategy for Canada. The letter said “one of colonialism’s most nefarious objectives was the deliberate exclusion of Indigenous people from sharing the wealth of our country. This strategy is a path forward towards economic reconciliation that is both inclusive and meaningful.”

The letter was e-mailed to Mr. Sargent by public affairs consultant Isabelle Metcalfe on May 30, 2022.

Mr. Sargent responded the next morning with a one-sentence e-mail to Ms. Metcalfe and Mario Iacobacci of Deloitte.

“I shall certainly not attend an event which is premised on a gross misreading of history,” he wrote.

Ms. Metcalfe promptly forwarded Mr. Sargent’s response to Ms. Madahbee Leach, who then e-mailed Mr. Sargent that evening to express regret regarding his position.

“In the spirit of reconciliation, I would welcome the opportunity to discuss with you your response in an effort to salvage the opportunity for you to attend the event and learn,” she wrote on May 31.

About a month later, Mr. Sargent sent a two-page letter of apology to Ms. Madahbee Leach, dated June 29.

“I fully acknowledge that my response was inappropriate and illustrated a lack of awareness of and sensitivity to the many challenges and barriers, past and present, faced by Indigenous people to fully and equitably participate in Canadian society and the economy,” the letter stated. “I would like to make restitution for the harm that this has caused, both to the Department’s reputation but also to the fact that is exactly the kind of thing that points to systemic racism at the highest levels of government.”

The letter ended with a request for a meeting.

The documents show Mr. Sargent e-mailed a copy of the letter to Ms. Charette, the PCO Clerk, as well as Daniel Quan-Watson, the deputy minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations, and Christiane Fox, the then-deputy minister of Indigenous Services.

“Colleague, you will find attached a letter I sent earlier today to Ms. Dawn Madahbee Leach expressing my sincere remorse over language used in a reply to an invitation to the launch of the National Indigenous Economic Strategy,” he wrote in the e-mail, which was released in a partly redacted form. “I also want to thank you for your support both over the past several years but also more recently through this time.”

On Sept. 9, the National Indigenous Economic Development Board (NIEDB) sent Mr. Sargent a new letter from Ms. Madahbee Leach, with copies to Mr. Trudeau, Ms. Charette, some federal ministers, the Assembly of First Nations, the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and the Métis National Council.

The letter acknowledged Mr. Sargent’s letter of apology but said his original comments appear to be at odds with the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commissioner’s Report, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples and many Supreme Court of Canada rulings.

“Your response to our invitation is particularly shocking in that, as a senior official, it appears that you do not agree with, or believe in, the findings of these vital and fundamental documents. The boldness with which you confidently and openly shared your thoughts that we were presenting a ‘gross misrepresentation of history’ is a prime example of systemic racism at the highest levels of government,” she wrote.

The letter said the sincerity of his letter of apology “is greatly diminished” by the fact that it was only received after his superiors had been informed of the e-mail. It said that after careful consideration and after receiving input from a variety of Indigenous leaders, the NIEDB “firmly believes that a senior official holding the views that you have expressed should no longer serve in any capacity in the federal public service, or in any other government or affiliated entity.”

Mr. Sargent declined to comment on the issue when reached by phone Thursday at the Centre for the Study of Living Standards, where he now works as the deputy executive director. He is also a Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation.

Prior to leading the Fisheries Department, he was the deputy minister of International Trade during the negotiation of the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement. He has also worked as a senior Finance Department official with responsibility for the G7 and G20.

In response to questions from The Globe, Jeff Woodland, a spokesperson for the Fisheries Minister, provided a statement saying Ms. Murray was “deeply disappointed” to learn of Mr. Sargent’s e-mail.

“The comments were unacceptable and inappropriate,” the statement said, adding that Ms. Murray raised the issue with the PCO Clerk and spoke with Ms. Madahbee Leach “to apologize on behalf of the government and department.”

PCO spokesperson Stéphane Shank said an acting deputy minister assumed Mr. Sargent’s role as of late June, 2022, before a permanent replacement was named on Oct. 31. The PCO said Mr. Sargent submitted his resignation effective Oct. 12.

“PCO cannot comment on individual circumstances in accordance with the Privacy Act,” Mr. Shank said.

In an interview, Ms. Madahbee Leach said Mr. Sargent’s initial e-mail was unsettling and he never took up her invitation to discuss the issue directly. She said she felt Ms. Murray and her office handled the situation well.

“They were also very shocked,” she said. “When they see something in writing like this, it was quite something.”

Source: Deputy minister left government weeks after Indigenous group privately called for his resignation, documents show

Filed under Aboriginal, Government Tagged with , ,

Barutciski: Quebec’s caution about immigration is a lesson for all of Canada

2023/06/21 Leave a comment

I wouldn’t necessarily characterize as this driven by ideology as much as misplaced emphasis on demographics and overall GDP growth, along with siloed approaches that ignore the impacts of high levels of permanent and temporary immigration across all levels of government. And if driven by ideology, it is more by economic ideology than anything else.

But the demographic impact on lower levels in Quebec compared to the rest of Canada is significant, as it is with respect to Indigenous peoples:

Plans to boost immigration levels in Canada are raising questions. The recent suggestion that Canada will become a country of 100 million inhabitants created controversy particularly in Quebec. Large increases in permanent and temporary residents at a time when there is a housing shortage suggests federal policy is increasingly influenced by ideology, in contrast to past pragmatic approaches.

Although temporary permits increased under the Harper government, they exploded under the Trudeau government. Quebec’s new French language commissioner recently pointed out the impact of large numbers of foreign students in Montreal, a city worried that the use of French is being replaced by a generic North American culture and its English language. As a key actor in the historic compromise that established the federation, Quebec’s concerns should be taken seriously by any Canadian committed to successful immigration outcomes.

Although Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has stated that the 100 million is not governmental policy, it is impossible to ignore the context. Immigration is simply a more sensitive issue outside the English-speaking world. European countries such as Germany and France are open to immigration, but they handle language and culture prudently because of their stronger sense of identity. For example, nobody in Hamburg would accept basic demographic shifts that result in the local population being born largely outside of Germany, let alone brag about this development as a symbol of openness to diversity. While inclusive Torontonians have been doing this for years, it is clear that Quebec’s sensibilities are closer to continental Europe’s than to the rest of Canada.

The modern version of the ambitious 100-million project has been debated for more than a decade. It was notably proposed as a geopolitical project that focused on the multi-faceted benefits of a larger demographic base. The idea was then appropriated by the Toronto-based advocacy group known as the Century Initiative. This influential group focused on economic liberalization and transformed the goal into a more one-dimensional project responding to issues such as labour supply.

Yet two important constituencies were absent from the early stages of the Century Initiative’s deliberations: Quebec and Indigenous peoples. Their concerns about demographic submersion were ignored. This was the “diversity is our strength” approach within a Toronto-centric worldview that emphasized certain economic benefits while excluding other perspectives.

Congruence with the agenda of progressive ideologues was just a matter of time. As soon as Trudeau came to power in late 2015, some cabinet members pushed for a massive increase in immigration. In the burgeoning atmosphere of identity politics, anyone opposed to increased immigration could be accused of racism. Trudeau’s first minister of immigration, John McCallum, proved to be a moderate voice to the extent that the increases in overall immigrant numbers under his watch were a fraction of what was advocated by some other cabinet ministers. He even expressed reservations, acknowledging the risk that newcomers would converge on the country’s largest urban centres, thereby creating the impression of saturation which could in turn undermine public support for future increases.

Yet Trudeau’s ideological instincts tend to align more with establishment thinking in Toronto than in Quebec City. A clash with Quebec was inevitable given that it has more difficulty attracting immigrants who can integrate within its distinct francophone society. While steady increases may be possible, as recently suggested by Premier François Legault, demographic submersion is a real threat if the rest of Canada enjoys population growth that largely outpaces other G7 members.

The underlying tension results from English-speaking Canada’s overconfident multicultural policy, which allows the short-term welcoming of massive numbers of immigrants while dismissing potentially destabilizing effects of long-term demographic shifts. Just as for Quebec, this may prove to be an existential issue for Indigenous people who risk carrying even less weight in overall population numbers and accompanying political representation.

Any national party genuinely committed to unity should consider these challenges if the vast country is to remain pro-immigration. With regard to Quebec’s hesitations, it would help national cohesion to understand the challenges faced by francophone jurisdictions that are competing with the Anglosphere for immigrants from around the world. Condescension in relation to the specific integration difficulties experienced by Quebec is misplaced.

After all, no country has ever transformed its demographic base in such a way that the numerically dominant ethnic group voluntarily cedes its leading position to migrants invited from culturally diverse places. Canadians could be reassured that the transformation is not driven by ideology if the unique nature of this societal experiment were to be acknowledged and openly debated.

Michael Barutciski is coordinator of Canadian Studies at Toronto’s Glendon College, York University. He spent the spring in both Quebec and Germany comparing migration policies.

Source: Barutciski: Quebec’s caution about immigration is a lesson for all of …

Filed under Immigration, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Chinese, Vietnamese students caught up in college-admission scam, Ottawa says

2023/06/20 Leave a comment

Some useful data:

Students from China and Vietnam have been caught up in an immigration scam affecting Indian students involving fake acceptance letters to Canadian colleges, the federal immigration department told MPs.

Immigration Minister Sean Fraser told the Commons committee on citizenship and immigration that eight Indian students ensnared in the fraud have already been deported. But they could return to Canada “if they demonstrate that their intention to come to Canada was genuine and that they were not complicit in fraud.”

Mr. Fraser this week granted a reprieve from deportation to students who were unknowingly involved in the scam. They will be granted temporary residency permits while a task force investigates their cases to see if they were innocently duped or complicit in the immigration fraud.

The task force will look into the cases of 57 Indian students with bogus admission letters to Canadian colleges and universities who have been issued with removal orders, and 25 are going through the deportation process, deputy minister Christiane Fox told MPs on the immigration committee last Wednesday.

Ten Indian students found to have fake admission letters to colleges have left Canada voluntarily.

Ottawa launched a probe into 2,000 suspicious cases involving students from India, China and Vietnam earlier this year. It found that around 1,485 had been issued bogus documents to come to Canada by immigration consultants abroad, she said.

Although 85 per cent of the students affected by scams were from India, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada had also uncovered evidence of fraud affecting Chinese and Vietnamese students.

Ms. Fox said 976 of the students had been refused entry to Canada after their letters of acceptance from colleges were found to be fake, while 448 had their applications to come to Canada approved.

The deputy minister told the committee of MPs that around 300 of these students would have their cases individually investigated by the new task force. Others of the 448 who had their applications approved have been found to have been linked to “criminality.”

In the Commons last Friday, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said the students had been “defrauded by shady consultants who gave them fake admission letters.” He said the newcomers should be given work permits while they wait for their applications for permanent residence to be processed.

Also on Friday, Conservative MPs called for overseas immigration consultants who duped the students to be blacklisted and all their files, including those in the past, to be reviewed.

“Every consultant or agent who scammed these international students should have the files they worked on reviewed to protect the victims and proactively inform them,” said Tom Kmiec, Conservative immigration critic. “Any consultant or agent who committed fraud should be barred and their names should be logged with IRCC to prevent future fraud.”

Saskatoon Conservative Brad Redekopp, who also sits on the immigration committee, urged the federal government to immediately start checking the files of overseas consultants found to have issued bogus documents. He told The Globe and Mail it was a problem that, while Canadian immigration consultants had to register and were subject to standards, overseas consultants did not face similar checks.

Ms. Fox said the department was already looking into the files of consultants found to have issued fake letters of acceptance to Canadian universities.

Mr. Fraser said the department had found that multiple consultants had been involved in the scam involving fake admission letters as part of study permit applications. He said the government was conducting hundreds of investigations to “bust fraudsters.”

In 2018, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada introduced a new program to verify letters of acceptance to colleges, he said. But he added the department deals with hundreds thousands of applications a year and it would be hard to manually verify every admission letter. He hoped that new efforts to clamp down on overseas scams could be aided by technology, but it also required the co-operation of foreign authorities.

He said he understood the situation was extremely distressing for students facing deportation, after being duped by “bad actors,” and their well-being was paramount.

The task force will look at whether they finished their studies or started work in Canada soon after they arrived.

Source: Chinese, Vietnamese students caught up in college-admission scam, Ottawa says

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , , ,

Blaming immigration for the country’s housing crisis disguises the real problem, analysts say

2023/06/20 Leave a comment

In denial. Not the only reason for the housing crisis but definitely a significant contributing factor:

It’s an argument that comes up time after time whenever there is a discussion about the housing crisis that plagues Metro Vancouver or anywhere else in Canada.

If Canada can’t house the people who already live here, we should stop letting more people into the country.

On Friday, the country’s population hit 40 million, with nearly all of last year’s growth due to immigration. The federal government has signed on to allow up to 500,000 newcomers into Canada annually by 2025.

Source: Blaming immigration for the country’s housing crisis disguises the real problem, analysts say

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Muslims opposed to LGBTQ curricula for their kids aren’t bigots

2023/06/20 Leave a comment

A justification from the Dean of an Islamic Centre to provide some context to Canadian and American protests and highlighting an alignment among the religious right across religions. Ingenuous to argue that it is not political given today’s environment:

We are witnessing a unique and welcome phenomenon: Muslims in the West are at the forefront of a social movement that transcends any one faith or ethnicity. For those following the news, protests led by parents have erupted across the United States and Canada against school boards that wish to teach schoolchildren content about the acceptability of LGBTQ lifestyles.

While parents of all ethnicities and religions are involved, Muslim parents have been playing a central role in all of these cases, both as organisers and protesters, and their highly visible presence is creating waves on social media.

It is understandable for parents to be concerned. In Maryland, for example, a school district has approved books that discuss homosexuality and transgenderism as normal realities for children as young as three years old. This is state-sponsored ideological indoctrination of toddlers who can barely form complete sentences, much less think critically.

Parents have a God-given duty and legal right to provide moral instruction and guidance to their children. This includes the right of parents and their children to reject ideologies that contravene their beliefs.

Yet, supposedly secular institutions like public schools are now dictating that students must accept and affirm LGBTQ ideology, at times with the threat that if they refuse to do so, they “do not belong” in their country, as one teacher in Edmonton, Canada, recently said to a Muslim student.

As Muslims, we refuse to be coerced into believing something our faith categorically condemns. This is not a political stance. It is a moral principle.

A recent statement I helped draft, titled “Navigating Differences: Clarifying Sexual and Gender Ethics in Islam”, has been signed and endorsed by more than 300 Islamic scholars and preachers across North America. In this document, we explicitly and clearly lay out the non-negotiable, normative Islamic position on sexuality and gender ethics.

We believe this statement will allow Muslim parents, educators, students and professionals to establish their right to hold their religious views without fear of legal reprisal. All too often, those who wish to live in accordance with mainstream, family-based morality are accused of being bigoted and “homophobic” if they refuse to endorse LGBTQ events. Many suffer social repercussions for holding such beliefs.

Worse still, children are expected to attend events in which drag shows and other actions deemed immoral by many people of faith are showcased.

This statement seeks to be a reference point to demonstrate to school boards and employers why Muslims must preferably be excused from activities that contradict our religious ideals.

The statement is explicitly non-partisan and states that the signatories are “committed to working with individuals of all religious and political affiliations to protect the constitutional right of faith communities to live according to their religious convictions and to uphold justice for all”.

Despite such clear declarations of non-partisanship and though the protesters, from Maryland to Ottawa, have insisted they are asserting moral agency rather than political allegiance, certain groups insist on turning this into a partisan issue.

Those who have committed themselves to a left-wing liberal ideology (including some progressive Muslims) are outraged and ashamed of anything short of the full affirmation and acceptance of all LGBTQ demands. They point to our own experience of oppression as a Muslim minority and say we should thus show reciprocity to other marginalised groups, even as LGBTQ advocates often refuse to show the same sensitivity on issues we hold sacred.

The fact that conservative media outlets have provided a platform for Muslim parents to share their grievances is supposedly conclusive proof that these protesters, and all of us who oppose the teaching of the LGBTQ agenda in schools, are aligning themselves with the far-right, including white supremacists. That is simply not the case.

To be sure, the sudden friendliness of politically-conservative groups and media outlets towards Muslims is indeed tempting some in the community to rush to forge new alliances with the political right after previously flirting with the left. They are making a mistake. Again.

Muslims across North America should firmly root their moral values in their faith, not in a specific political ideology. To understand why this distinction is so critical, we ought to heed a lesson from our recent past.

In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, Islam in North America faced an existential crisis. Muslims were widely portrayed as the enemy. Scholars were deported. Bearded Muslim men and hijabi women were harassed, randomly questioned and detained at airports. Many worshippers avoided praying in masjids and some Muslims even changed their first names. The reality of Muslims in North America in the first decade of this century was one of fear, anxiety and extreme alienation.

The open hostility of the North American political right towards Islam and Muslims sharply contrasted with the comparatively sympathetic left. As a matter of pragmatic political (and in some cases, literal) survival, Muslims flocked to the liberal political parties of Canada and the United States. These left-wing institutions gave Muslims the best chance to survive against anti-Muslim forces largely represented by the conservative right. But embracing the left meant accepting an entire package of causes, some of which aligned ideologically with Islamic ethics (such as combatting racism), while others did not (such as the legalisation of certain drugs).

Many Muslims began approaching politics not as a tool but as an ideology. They felt motivated to resolve the cognitive dissonance between their political commitments and their religious beliefs, even if it meant radically reinterpreting the faith to allow for such accommodation.

Some progressives who identified with Islam began claiming, for the first time in our 14 centuries of scholarship, that the Quran has been misunderstood and that in its correct interpretation, it endorses alternative sexual lifestyles and sanctions same-sex marriages.

To be clear, Islamic law differentiates between a desire, which is in itself not sinful, and the deed, which could be a sin. Those struggling with same-sex desires but wishing to abide by Islamic law are our full brethren in faith and deserve all the love and rights of believers. They stand in contrast to those who flout Islamic law and take pride in disobedience. Muslim politicians and influencers, in particular, should be careful not to make religious claims on behalf of our faith.

In an authentic narration, Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) says: “believer is not bitten from the same hole twice”. Muslims who are rightly indignant about the moral decay sweeping our society in the name of inclusivity ought to be cautious not to be a pendulum that swings from one extreme to another.

Our politics is not our ideology and our ideology is neither left nor right. Our ideology is centred in our unshakeable faith, grounded in our immutable creed, and firmly rooted in the timeless words of God and the teachings of His final Messenger. We are a “Middle Nation” and, as the Quran says (2:143), our role is to be moral exemplars for mankind.

Yasir Qadhi Dean of The Islamic Seminary of America and Resident Scholar of East Plano Islamic Center

Source: Muslims opposed to LGBTQ curricula for their kids aren’t bigots

Filed under LGBTQ, Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with , , ,

← Older posts

Newer posts →