Globe editorial: Ottawa’s AI push must translate into savings [translation]

2025/08/21 Leave a comment

Other areas ripe for AI use are the overhead functions of HR and Finance:

…That is a good thing. Translators are no strangers to machines; they’ve been using computer tools for decades. But they have often warned that the programs are imperfect and nowhere near good enough to replace them. “At times, a ChatGPT translation will make sense,” Joachim Lépine, co-founder of LION Translation Academy in Sherbrooke, Que. wrote in a LinkedIn post this month. But “’sometimes useful’ is not good enough for high-stakes situations. Only humans have professional judgment. Period.”

However, new generative AI tools are rapidly improving in quality and are good enough to competently handle routine translations of mundane texts such as policy documents, press releases or memos. The more the programs learn from the language fed into them, the better they should become – although more critical documents such as laws and court rulings should continue to be handled by humans.

A centrepiece of the bureau’s rethink is its AI project, a program called PSPC Translate, which draws from the government’s data and language storehouse. It could serve as a bellwether for further government efficiencies and savings using AI. True success would be if the initiative translated into real savings and allowed government to slash the size of the bureau. 

Source: Ottawa’s AI push must translate into savings

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Immigrants seeking lawful work and citizenship are now subject to ‘anti-Americanism’ screening

2025/08/21 Leave a comment

Well, it likely will, encouraged by the Trump administration and USCIS political appointments:

Immigrants seeking a legal pathway to live and work in the United States will now be subject to screening for “anti-Americanism’,” authorities said Tuesday, raising concerns among critics that it gives officers too much leeway in rejecting foreigners based on a subjective judgment.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said officers will now consider whether an applicant for benefits, such as a green card, “endorsed, promoted, supported, or otherwise espoused” anti-American, terrorist or antisemitic views.

“America’s benefits should not be given to those who despise the country and promote anti-American ideologies,” Matthew Tragesser, USCIS spokesman, said in a statement. “Immigration benefits—including to live and work in the United States—remain a privilege, not a right.”

It isn’t specified what constitutes anti-Americanism and it isn’t clear how and when the directive would be applied.

“The message is that the U.S. and immigration agencies are going to be less tolerant of anti-Americanism or antisemitism when making immigration decisions,” Elizabeth Jacobs, director of regulatory affairs and policy at the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that advocates for immigration restrictions, said on Tuesday. 

Jacobs said the government is being more explicit in the kind of behaviors and practices officers should consider, but emphasized that discretion is still in place. “The agency cannot tell officers that they have to deny — just to consider it as a negative discretion,” she said.

Critics worry the policy update will allow for more subjective views of what is considered anti-American and allow an officer’s personal bias to cloud his or her judgment. 

“For me, the really big story is they are opening the door for stereotypes and prejudice and implicit bias to take the wheel in these decisions. That’s really worrisome,” said Jane Lilly Lopez, associate professor of sociology at Brigham Young University.

The policy changes follow others recently implemented since the start of the Trump administration including social media vettingand the most recent addition of assessing applicants seeking naturalization for ‘good moral character’. That will not only consider “not simply the absence of misconduct” but also factor the applicant’s positive attributes and contributions.

“It means you are going to just do a whole lot more work to provide evidence that you meet our standards,” Lopez said.

Experts disagree on the constitutionality of the policy involving people who are not U.S. citizens and their freedom of speech. Jacobs, of the Center for Immigration Studies, said First Amendment rights do not extend to people outside the U.S. or who are not U.S. citizens.

Ruby Robinson, senior managing attorney with the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center, believes the Bill of Rights and the U.S. Constitution protects all people in the United States, regardless of their immigration status, against government encroachment. “A lot of this administration’s activities infringe on constitutional rights and do need to be resolved, ultimately, in courts,” Robinson added. 

Attorneys are advising clients to adjust their expectations. 

“People need to understand that we have a different system today and a lot more things that apply to U.S. citizens are not going to apply to somebody who’s trying to enter the United States,” said Jaime Diez, an immigration attorney based in Brownsville, Texas. 

Jonathan Grode, managing partner of Green and Spiegel immigration law firm, said the policy update was not unexpected considering how the Trump administration approaches immigration.

“This is what was elected. They’re allowed to interpret the rules the way they want,” Grode said. “The policy always to them is to shrink the strike zone. The law is still the same.”…


Source: Immigrants seeking lawful work and citizenship are now subject to ‘anti-Americanism’ screening

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Coren | Gaza has me thinking about my Christian and Jewish heritage and the urgent need to learn, listen and love

2025/08/21 Leave a comment

Amen:

…The founder of Zionism, Theodore Herzl, was a deeply secular man who once believed that assimilation would defeat antisemitism. He changed his view when exposed to the Jew-hatred of the Dreyfuss trial, when a blameless Jewish French army officer was arrested and imprisoned, with the Roman Catholic Church at the forefront of the campaign.

It took until the 20th century for systemic change, especially when churches were exposed to the horrors of the Holocaust. Today, I almost always experience sensitivity and understanding. Yet, just last month at a major gathering of Christians there was a large banner calling for solidarity with the “crucified Palestinian people.” Of all the words that could have been used to describe the appalling state of the Palestinians and their treatment by Israel, why the ugly accusation that has been thrown at Jews for centuries?

All of us have to learn, listen, and ultimately love. It’s the only chance peace and justice have.

Source: Opinion | Gaza has me thinking about my Christian and Jewish heritage and the urgent need to learn, listen and love

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Le projet pilote pour les étudiants francophones hors Québec peine à décoller

2025/08/21 Leave a comment

Remains to be seen degree to which program has signifiant uptake:

Présenté comme un outil phare pour attirer des étudiants francophones, le projet n’a pas encore donné les résultats escomptés. Sa première année d’existence aura surtout servi de rodage, selon l’Association des collèges et universités de la francophonie canadienne (ACUFC), qui espère que Immigration, Réfugiés et Citoyenneté Canada (IRCC) ne se fie pas aux résultats de cette première année pour évaluer le rendement du programme.

Le programme pilote, présenté l’an dernier, permet à des étudiants francophones étrangers d’obtenir plus facilement un permis d’études dans certains collèges et universités francophones hors Québec. Pendant leur formation, ils ont accès à des services d’intégration normalement réservés aux résidents permanents, et une fois diplômés, ils peuvent emprunter une voie accélérée vers la résidence permanente. Chaque institution a un quota de laissez-passer qu’elle peut offrir. Ces cibles n’ont pas nécessairement été atteintes partout…

Source: Le projet pilote pour les étudiants francophones hors Québec peine à décoller

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Su | Canada’s immigration approach is becoming more exclusionary. It’s not the direction we should be heading

2025/08/20 Leave a comment

Classic example of activist academic arguments, conflating previous race-based criteria with more objective age, language and education criteria, assuming that refusals are all unjustified, that international students were the focus of anger rather than the Liberal government.

And any public conversation will of course need to address the very real pressures on housing, healthcare and infrastructure that immigration-based population growth has exacerbated.

It is striking that so many immigration researchers did not anticipate or warn about the impact of the excessive growth in temporary and permanent residents. Some reflection is in order, rather than making these weak, and in some cases, false arguments:

In 2023, Canada marked the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Exclusion Act, a law that explicitly banned nearly all Chinese immigrants for nearly a quarter century. Many see it as a black mark in Canadian history because it deliberately targeted and expelled the very Chinese labourers who had done the dangerous, back-breaking work of building the Canadian Pacific Railway, only to be cast aside once their labour was no longer needed.

The centenary was a moment of reflection. But since then, Canada has become more restrictive, not less. Rising immigration refusal rates, while not racially explicit, are carrying the pattern of exclusion forward.

Recent data shows that applicants across almost all permanent and temporary resident categories, skilled workers, international students, grandparents and refugees, are facing more rejections. Immigration officials and political leaders point to policy integrity, institutional capacity and shifting targets. But these procedural justifications obscure a more unsettling truth: our immigration system is shifting from openness toward restriction, prioritizing exclusion over welcome.

As a migration scholar as well as an immigrant myself, I know that exclusion doesn’t always arrive with bold legal declarations. It often hides in plain sight, through administrative hurdles, opaque rules, and decisions that are hard to explain but easy to feel.

One clear example we have all experienced collectively across Canada is the demonization of international students. In the past two years, federal policy changes dramatically capped their numbers, blamed them for historical housing and health care shortages and limited their ability to stay.

This framing fuelled hateful online commentary, targeted in-person violent hate crimes and attacks, and even anti-immigrant posters, such as one spotted near a college in Toronto’s Roncesvalles neighbourhood that used multiculturalism to justify xenophobia.

Another example is a spike in Express Entry rejections for permanent residency when applicants declare an “nonaccompanying” spouse. This tactic, once common and legal, is now treated by officers as a sign of dishonesty, triggering procedural fairness letters or outright refusal. This shift is not in the law but in how rules are interpreted and enforced.

The numbers tell a broader story. In just two years, rejection rates for all temporary resident categories have increased 10 to 27 per cent. For example, rejection rates for student permits rose to 65 per cent from 41 per cent and work permits for spouses to study and work rose to 52 per cent from 25 per cent. While visitor visas rose to 50 per cent from 39 per cent.

Then there are the persistent disparities in approval rates for applicants from the Global South. African students, in particular, have long faced disproportionate rejection. Parliamentary testimony revealed that French-speaking African students can face refusal rates as high as 80 to 83 per cent, among the highest of any group, often because officers doubt their “intent” to return home after studying.

A 2024 MPOWER Financing report found that fewer than half of African student visa applications are approved, with rates dropping to 22 per cent for some Francophone African countries. Earlier analyses of IRCC data by the Canadian Association of Professional Immigration Consultants showed that from 205 to 2020, Nigeria’s approval rate was 12 per cent. These decisions, couched in bureaucratic language, reproduce long-standing patterns of racial and regional bias, sending a powerful message about who is seen as credible future Canadians, and who is not.

To be clear, today’s policies are not the same as the 1923 Chinese Exclusion Act, which was explicit, racist, and devastating for Chinese Canadian families. But we would be naïve to think that exclusion only happens when written in black and white legislation.

As Catherine Clement’s recent book ”The Paper Trail to the 1923 Chinese Exclusion Act” shows, policy is not just about law, it’s about how it’s felt, lived, and remembered. Her work documents how exclusion operated through bureaucratic delays, suspicion, and silence, separating families for lifetimes and squandering human potential.

What we are seeing today is different, but still worth naming: a shift toward discretion-based refusal, especially for applicants from racialized countries and communities. When exclusion becomes procedural, it becomes harder to see, challenge or measure.

Immigration, at its best, is a promise: that those who qualify will be treated fairly, and that our system reflect our values. My own family benefited from that promise and was able to live the Canadian dream. But rising rejection rates, unclear standards, and a lack of transparency undermine that promise. If we want to preserve the integrity of our immigration system, we must first preserve its fairness.

That starts with publishing disaggregated refusal statistics, improving officer training, clarifying communication with applicants, and creating accountability mechanisms when discretion oversteps reason. Above all, it requires a public conversation that resists easy answers and considers the human cost of policy shifts.

We tell ourselves that we’ve moved past the kind of exclusion Catherine Clement documents so powerfully. But history doesn’t just live in museums, it echoes in policy, in silence, and in the decisions we choose not to question.

We still have time to course correct. But it will take political courage, public awareness, and a willingness to look critically at what our systems are doing, not just what they claim to do. Canada must resist creeping exclusion and remain a place of opportunity, or Gold Mountain (金山) the Chinese nickname for Canada.

Source: Opinion | Canada’s immigration approach is becoming more exclusionary. It’s not the direction we should be heading

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Border bill would leave dissidents who visited Canada in the past at risk: experts

2025/08/20 Leave a comment

Valid concern but how to have an exception from the general rule with a definition and process that separates significant dissidents from some who make claim but have less legitimate fears:

Dissidents, human-rights activists and journalists being persecuted by foreign regimes could find themselves unable to get asylum hearings in Canada under planned immigration changes, refugee experts warn. 

They are calling on the federal government to create an exception in Bill C-2, the Strong Borders bill, so dissidents can find safe haven here. 

As it is currently worded, the bill would exclude dissidents and others from hearings at the Immigration and Refugee Board if they came to Canada more than a year before their claim.

Many – including political opponents of authoritarian regimes – may have visited Canada to attend meetings, speak at summits or give lectures, the experts warn. 

Bill C-2, which is going through its parliamentary stages, aims to tighten up immigration rules and is likely to cut the total number of asylum claims. It would put people who have been in Canada for more than a year on a fast track to deportation. 

The bill specifies that the one-year period “begins on the day after the day of their first entry.” 

Lawyers said a “first entry” would include any previous visit to Canada, including a holiday here. 

“Unlike the U.S. approach, where the one-year rule generally applies based on the most recent entry and includes exceptions, the Canadian version is broader and more rigid,” immigration lawyer Warda Shazadi Meighen of Toronto law firm Landings LLP said in an e-mail.

“This has troubling implications. It would apply to individuals who came to Canada years ago for reasons entirely unrelated to their current need for protection – as children on holiday, students, guest speakers or attendees at international conferences. 

“These are often the same people – foreign dissidents, human rights advocates, journalists and LGBTQ+ individuals – who later flee genuine and escalating persecution from authoritarian regimes. Their prior, often innocent, engagement with Canada could now preclude them from seeking asylum here.”

Ms. Shazadi Meighen urged the government to create “a clear carve-out for dissidents and others fleeing political violence or state persecution, or at minimum a discretionary mechanism with procedural safeguards for those who fall outside the one-year window due to past presence but now face genuine risk.” 

Gauri Sreenivasan, co-executive director of the Canadian Council for Refugees, called the one-year bar being proposed in Bill C-2 “a dangerous step that actually undermines safety for many in Canada.”

“For example, those that travelled to Canada as children, or someone that came to Canada previously as a renowned journalist, academic or human-rights defender to share their expertise and is later under threat in their country for this very reason could be arbitrarily denied access to safety due to their earlier visit; it defies logic,” she said. “There should be no time limit on the right to seek protection in or at our borders.”

Fen Osler Hampson, president of the World Refugee and Migration Council, said the wording of the bill’s clauses on asylum could have far-reaching, unintended consequences.

“In legislative drafting, every word and comma counts and the government should scrutinize every word, sentence and paragraph in new legislation carefully, not just in terms of their intended consequence and professed objectives, but also their potentially unintended consequences, which, in this particular instance, are profound and unintentionally discriminatory,” Mr. Osler Hampson, who is also professor of international affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa, said in an e-mail. 

Source: Border bill would leave dissidents who visited Canada in the past at risk: experts

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Ian Cooper: The real reason to be upset by the Toronto International Film Festival scandal 

2025/08/19 Leave a comment

More on the TIFF decision and reversal with broader implications. But presumably, for Cooper, there would be some cases where art and art organizations may wish to draw the line:

…Art, like education, is not a TikTok algorithm. It’s not there to cheerlead your pre-existing biases. If you don’t like something, nobody’s forcing you to watch it. If you find yourself groping for an excuse to silence opposing voices, you should probably find some other line of work.

A partially publicly funded arts organization ought to apply principles of institutional neutrality, and its staff ought to prioritize ideological diversity at least as much as visual diversity. The film festival offers a platform. It should not pick a side. Just as academic institutions have been forced to reinvent themselves along these lines or else descend into endless shouting matches, so too will artistic ones.

It’s hard to know whether TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey, or the festival’s board, donors, and government funders, are willing to deliver that kind of blunt message. To do so would require the kind of restraint that seems to be in short supply in our polarized culture.

If they can’t do that, they should give up their public funding altogether. Canadian taxpayers should not have to pay for anybody’s political soapbox.

Ian Cooper is a Toronto-based lawyer.

Source: Ian Cooper: The real reason to be upset by the Toronto International Film Festival scandal

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Davantage de demandeurs d’asile en Ontario, mais moins de débats?

2025/08/19 Leave a comment

Good long read in Le Devoir contrasting Ontario and Quebec, featuring comments by Mireille Paquet and me:

Depuis maintenant près de deux ans, le gouvernement de François Legault réclame une meilleure répartition des demandeurs d’asile au Canada. L’un de ses arguments phares, répété récemment par le ministre de l’Immigration, Jean-François Roberge, est le fait que le Québec accueille plus de demandeurs d’asile que sa part démographique dans le Canada.

En d’autres mots, la province représente 22 % de toute la population canadienne, mais compte 40 % de tous les demandeurs d’asile sur son territoire, selon Statistique Canada.

C’est vrai, mais c’est aussi le cas en Ontario. Bon an mal an depuis au moins 2021, la province voisine compte sur son territoire près de la moitié des demandeurs d’asile au pays, alors que son poids démographique est de 39 %. Les données montrent ainsi une histoire légèrement différente du récit politique.

Ainsi, même lorsque Québec a transféré des demandeurs d’asile par autobus, surtout vers l’Ontario, à partir de l’été 2022 et plus intensivement à l’hiver 2023, la province voisine comptait déjà entre 46 % et 49 % de tous les demandeurs au pays.

Le Québec a bel et bien reçu plus de demandes d’asile que son voisin pendant plusieurs années depuis 2017 ; mais l’Ontario l’a aussi dépassé en 2021, en 2024 et pour les quatre premiers mois de 2025. Les arrivées sont donc à distinguer du nombre de personnes présentes ou réellement installées dans une province.

Le phénomène est aussi plus complexe, car il s’étend souvent dans une migration secondaire : les demandeurs en question peuvent atterrir au Québec ou franchir la frontière vers la province, mais ensuite se déplacer vers l’ouest. Le Devoiravait déjà révélé qu’entre 25 % et 33 % des demandeurs d’asile avec une première adresse au Québec déménageaient ensuite dans une autre province.

Politisation

Le premier ministre de l’Ontario, Doug Ford, a beau avoir essayé de faire des vagues autour des permis de travail pour les demandeurs d’asile au Conseil de la fédération en juillet, il s’est rétractéune semaine plus tard. Il faut dire que la délivrance des permis de travail est maintenant beaucoup plus rapide qu’en 2022 ou en 2023, c’est-à-dire en 45 jours, a confirmé au Devoir Immigration, Réfugiés et Citoyenneté Canada.

M. Ford a aussi formulé le souhait d’avoir plus de pouvoirs en immigration, notamment en 2022 pour pouvoir accueillir plus de travailleurs qualifiés — et non moins. S’il l’a mentionné au détour d’une ou deux conférences de presse, il n’a pas utilisé le dossier dans un bras de fer avec Ottawa, contrairement au Québec, où les échanges sont même devenus plutôt acrimonieux.

Pour Mireille Paquet, professeure à l’Université Concordia, difficile de dire si l’on en parle réellement moins en Ontario qu’au Québec, puisqu’elle ne connaît pas d’études sur cette question précisément. « On en parle certainement différemment », affirme-t-elle toutefois, reconnaissant une politisation de l’immigration propre au Québec.

Ses recherches montrent que les questions migratoires sont en effet de plus en plus politisées dans l’espace politique québécois, et plus clairement depuis le scrutin de 2018, qui a porté la Coalition avenir Québec au pouvoir. « Le gouvernement provincial a décidé de s’emparer de cette question et d’en faire un enjeu de revendication auprès du fédéral », observe-t-elle.

« Et cela se reflète aussi dans la manière dont le public réfléchit à ces questions : plus on parle du fait que les demandeurs d’asile créent des pressions sur les services, plus on augmente l’anxiété dans la population — que ce soit à tort ou à raison, ce n’est pas à moi de le dire. »

C’est aussi que la province voisine s’est « rapidement désengagée de ce dossier », signale-t-elle. Quand les arrivées ont commencé à s’accélérer plus clairement au chemin Roxham en 2017, « l’Ontario a essayé de se mobiliser, mais a dit rapidement que c’est un domaine de compétence fédérale : on ne s’en mêle pas ».

L’enjeu est alors retombé plutôt sur le gouvernement local à Toronto qui a à son tour réclamé du financement à Ottawa, sans que Queen’s Park soit impliqué.   

Étude comparative

Une rare comparaison a été réalisée par les chercheuses Audrey Gagnon et Lindsay Larios, qui ont utilisé les plateformes électorales et la couverture médiatique du Toronto Star et de La Presse entre 1987 et 2018 dans leur analyse.

Fait intéressant : les deux autrices notent qu’au début des années 2000, les politiques d’immigration étaient davantage discutées pendant les campagnes électorales en Ontario qu’au Québec. Mais cette relative importance a diminué à partir de 2010, « peut-être parce que la politisation n’a pas apporté beaucoup de bénéfices électoraux », indiquent-elles dans leur article publié en 2021 dans le Canadian Journal of Political Science.

La trajectoire du Québec montre plutôt une plus grande importance à partir de 2003, en croissance jusqu’à 2018. Ce sont les tensions autour de l’intégration, ainsi qu’une polarisation plus grande, surtout à partir de l’affaire Hérouxville en 2007. Ce n’est qu’ensuite que les candidats aux élections québécoises « ont su exploiter l’inquiétude de la province concernant la préservation de sa langue et de sa culture ».

En Ontario, « la présence des nouveaux arrivants n’est pas considérée comme une menace pour l’identité culturelle, mais plutôt comme une partie intégrante de celle-ci », écrivent-elles.

Le ton et les arguments

« Au Québec, l’attention est plus soutenue qu’épisodique, à cause des questions identitaires », note aussi Andrew Griffith, ancien directeur général au ministère fédéral de l’Immigration.

« Oui, il y a eu un changement notable dans l’opinion publique au Canada, mais on y communique surtout en termes de besoins en logement, et pas de peurs », note celui qui est aussi un associé de l’Institut Environics. Au Québec, le mot « menace » a été associé explicitement à « demandeurs d’asile » par le ministre Roberge dès février 2024, avant qu’il ne soit à l’immigration.

C’est donc sur le fond et sur le ton que les débats sont différents, observe M. Griffith. Mais cette attention n’a pas que du mauvais, au contraire. Dans le reste du Canada, il était presque tabou de parler d’immigration pendant longtemps : « C’est compréhensible, mais c’est aussi malsain. J’ai toujours pensé qu’il était souhaitable d’avoir une discussion basée sur des faits et de réfléchir aux impacts de l’immigration. »

Les demandeurs d’asile étaient aussi en quelque sorte « plus visibles » au Québec. D’une part, parce que les arrivées à la frontière terrestre par le chemin Roxham ont marqué l’imaginaire dès 2017. Mais aussi parce qu’ils se concentrent ensuite surtout à Montréal, alors qu’ils sont plus dispersés en Ontario dans des agglomérations urbaines comme Ottawa, London, Niagara, Waterloo, York, Durham, Peel et Hamilton.

Dans les dernières années, d’autres questions ont également été politisées avant en Ontario, conclut néanmoins Mme Paquet, notamment celle des étudiants internationaux et des collèges privés.

Source: Davantage de demandeurs d’asile en Ontario, mais moins de débats?

For almost two years now, François Legault’s government has been calling for a better distribution of asylum seekers in Canada. One of its key arguments, recently repeated by the Minister of Immigration, Jean-François Roberge, is the fact that Quebec welcomes more asylum seekers than its demographic share in Canada.

In other words, the province represents 22% of the entire Canadian population, but has 40% of all asylum seekers in its territory, according to Statistics Canada.

It’s true, but it’s also the case in Ontario. Good year bad year since at least 2021, the neighboring province has on its territory almost half of the asylum seekers in the country, while its demographic weight is 39%. The data thus show a slightly different history of the political narrative.

Thus, even when Quebec transferred asylum seekers by bus, especially to Ontario, from the summer of 2022 and more intensively in the winter of 2023, the neighboring province already had between 46% and 49% of all applicants in the country.

Quebec has indeed received more asylum applications than its neighbor for several years since 2017; but Ontario has also surpassed it in 2021, in 2024 and for the first four months of 2025. Arrivals are therefore to be distinguished from the number of people present or actually settled in a province.

The phenomenon is also more complex, because it often extends into a secondary migration: the applicants in question can land in Quebec or cross the border to the province, but then move west. Le Devoir had already revealed that between 25% and 33% of asylum seekers with a first address in Quebec then moved to another province.

Politicization

Ontario Premier Doug Ford may have tried to make waves around work permits for asylum seekers at the Federation Council in July, but he retracted a week later. It must be said that the issuance of work permits is now much faster than in 2022 or 2023, i.e. in 45 days, confirmed to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

Mr. Ford has also expressed the desire to have more powers in immigration, especially in 2022 to be able to accommodate more skilled workers – and not less. If he mentioned it at the turn of one or two press conferences, he did not use the file in a tug-of-war with Ottawa, unlike in Quebec, where the exchanges even became rather acrimonious.

For Mireille Paquet, a professor at Concordia University, it is difficult to say whether we really talk about it less in Ontario than in Quebec, since she does not know any studies on this issue precisely. “We certainly talk about it differently,” she says, however, recognizing a politicization of immigration specific to Quebec.

His research shows that migration issues are indeed increasingly politicized in Quebec’s political space, and more clearly since the 2018 election, which brought the Coalition avenir Québec to power. “The provincial government has decided to seize this issue and make it a challenge with the federal government,” she observes.

“And this is also reflected in the way the public thinks about these issues: the more we talk about the fact that asylum seekers create pressures on services, the more we increase anxiety in the population – rightly or wrongly, it’s not up to me to say. ”

It is also that the neighboring province has “quickly disengaged from this file,” she says. When arrivals began to accelerate more clearly on Roxham Road in 2017, “Ontario tried to mobilize, but quickly said it was a federal area of competence: we don’t get involved.”

The issue then fell rather on the local government in Toronto, which in turn called for funding in Ottawa, without Queen’s Park being involved.

Comparative study

A rare comparison was made by researchers Audrey Gagnon and Lindsay Larios, who used election platforms and media coverage of the Toronto Star and La Presse between 1987 and 2018 in their analysis.

Interestingly, the two authors note that in the early 2000s, immigration policies were more discussed during election campaigns in Ontario than in Quebec. But this relative importance has decreased since 2010, “perhaps because politicization has not brought many electoral benefits,” they indicate in their 2021 article in the Canadian Journal of Political Science.

The trajectory of Quebec shows rather greater importance from 2003, in growth until 2018. These are the tensions around integration, as well as greater polarization, especially since the Hérouxville affair in 2007. It was only then that the Quebec election candidates “were able to exploit the province’s concern about the preservation of its language and culture”.

In Ontario, “the presence of newcomers is not seen as a threat to cultural identity, but rather as an integral part of it,” they write.

The tone and arguments

“In Quebec, attention is more sustained than episodic, because of identity issues,” notes Andrew Griffith, former Director General at the Federal Ministry of Immigration.

“Yes, there has been a notable change in public opinion in Canada, but we communicate mainly in terms of housing needs, and not fears,” notes the one who is also a partner of the Environics Institute. In Quebec, the word “threat” was explicitly associated with “asylum seekers” by Minister Roberge in February 2024, before he was in immigration.

It is therefore on the substance and on the tone that the debates are different, observes Mr. Griffith But this attention is not only bad, on the contrary. In the rest of Canada, it was almost taboo to talk about immigration for a long time: “It’s understandable, but it’s also unhealthy. I have always thought it was desirable to have a fact-based discussion and to reflect on the impacts of immigration. ”

Asylum seekers were also somehow “more visible” in Quebec. On the one hand, because the arrivals at the land border by Roxham Road marked the imagination as early as 2017. But also because they then concentrate mainly in Montreal, while they are more dispersed in Ontario in urban agglomerations such as Ottawa, London, Niagara, Waterloo, York, Durham, Peel and Hamilton.

In recent years, other issues have also been politicized before in Ontario, however, concludes Ms. Paquet, especially that of international students and private colleges.

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Marco Rubio Once Filed a Brief Embracing Birthright Citizenship

2025/08/19 Leave a comment

While people can legitimately change their minds and positions, the nature of many of the policy reversals by Rubio and others appear more driven by pleasing Trump and being in power than by principle:

In a 2016 court filing, Marco Rubio, then a senator running for president, made the case that the Constitution conferred citizenship on essentially all children born in the United States. His argument was a crisp rendition of what was until recently the consensus understanding.

But the views he expressed are now in tension with an executive order issued by President Trump in January that seeks to restrict birthright citizenship. The Supreme Court seems likely to hear a direct challenge to the order’s constitutionality in the term that starts in October.

The little-noticed court filing helps show how quickly the Republican Party and parts of the mainstream of conservative legal thought have shifted on the issue. It is also a reminder that the question of who is born a citizen may affect eligibility to be president.

Tommy Pigott, a State Department spokesman, said in a statement that “it’s absurd the NYT is even wasting time digging around for decade-old made-up stories,” adding that Mr. Rubio was “100 percent aligned with President Trump’s agenda.”

Source: Marco Rubio Once Filed a Brief Embracing Birthright Citizenship

Filed under Birthright Citizenship, Citizenship Tagged with ,

Immigration temporaire« Je prie tous les jours »

2025/08/19 Leave a comment

A really nice series in La Presse capturing the regional realities of Temporary Foreign Workers in Quebec regions, this one being Mont-Tremblant and the Fairmont employees:

Située au cœur des Laurentides, Mont-Tremblant est la troisième destination touristique du Québec. Réputée pour sa station de ski, son village piétonnier, son parc national et ses nombreuses activités de plein air, la ville attire chaque année plus de trois millions de visiteurs.

Derrière cette vitrine, une réalité plus fragile : l’économie locale repose en partie sur une main-d’œuvre immigrante.

Au Fairmont Tremblant, quelque 60 des 277 employés détiennent un statut temporaire. L’hôtel loge plusieurs d’entre eux dans des maisons qu’il loue à Saint-Jovite, un secteur de la ville.

« Quand on fait venir des personnes de l’étranger, on est capables de les loger dans nos maisons de manière temporaire, explique Julie Labelle, directrice adjointe aux ressources humaines. On les accompagne de A à Z. »

Mais depuis que le gouvernement fédéral a imposé une nouvelle règle limitant à 10 % le nombre d’employés temporaires à bas salaire – soit ceux payés moins de 34,62 $ l’heure – que chaque entreprise peut embaucher, tout est paralysé.

« On dépasse déjà ce ratio, souligne Julie Labelle. On ne peut donc pas renouveler leurs permis. »

« Un petit coin de paradis »

Adelina Rebelo, 55 ans, est arrivée du Brésil en juillet 2023. Son fils Lucas, 29 ans, l’a rejointe quelques mois plus tard. Tous deux ont été embauchés à l’hôtel : elle comme femme de chambre, lui comme équipier à l’entretien ménager.

« Quand j’ai vu Mont-Tremblant, je me suis dit : mon Dieu, on va travailler dans un petit coin de paradis », dit-elle dans un français impeccable.

Avant de venir au Québec, elle a vécu huit ans en Suisse, puis est retournée au Brésil, où la violence l’a rattrapée. « On a subi trois vols à main armée à la maison. J’ai vu les bandits avec un revolver sur la tête de mon fils, comme ça. »

Convaincue par des amis brésiliens installés à Montréal, elle a quitté São Paulo. Aujourd’hui, elle se sent bien et souhaite rester au Québec pour de bon.

Le Fairmont Tremblant, comme d’autres employeurs de la région, se retrouve dans une impasse. La limite fédérale empêche de renouveler les permis… et d’embaucher à nouveau.

Est-ce que l’hôtel pourrait fonctionner sans ces employés temporaires ?

« Non, répond Julie Labelle. Il faudrait fermer des restaurants, restreindre des heures d’ouverture, peut-être réduire des chambres, nos disponibilités. »

Pour elle, leur contribution dépasse largement la logistique.

« C’est ça qui enrichit l’environnement de travail. Ils apportent tous leur petite touche. » 

Ça apporte une richesse dans l’hôtel pour le service à la clientèle. On a des employés qui parlent plusieurs langues. Des fois, c’est pratique.

 Julie Labelle, directrice adjointe aux ressources humaines du Fairmont Tremblant

Julie Labelle est catégorique : « On veut les garder, et eux veulent rester. »

Adelina, elle, garde espoir. « Je vais rester ici jusqu’au dernier jour », dit-elle.

Source: Immigration temporaire « Je prie tous les jours »

Located in the heart of the Laurentians, Mont-Tremblant is the third tourist destination in Quebec. Renowned for its ski resort, pedestrian village, national park and many outdoor activities, the city attracts more than three million visitors every year.

Behind this showcase, a more fragile reality: the local economy is partly based on an immigrant workforce.

At Fairmont Tremblant, some 60 of the 277 employees have temporary status. The hotel houses several of them in houses that he rents in Saint-Jovite, an area of the city.

“When we bring people from abroad, we are able to house them in our homes on a temporary basis,” explains Julie Labelle, Assistant Director of Human Resources. We accompany them from A to Z. ”

But since the federal government imposed a new rule limiting the number of low-wage temporary employees to 10% – those paid less than $34.62 per hour – that each company can hire, everything has been paralyzed.

“We already exceed this ratio,” says Julie Labelle. We cannot therefore renew their permits. ”

“A little corner of paradise”

Adelina Rebelo, 55, arrived from Brazil in July 2023. Her son Lucas, 29, joined her a few months later. Both were hired at the hotel: she as a maid, he as a housekeeping team member.

“When I saw Mont-Tremblant, I said to myself: my God, we are going to work in a little corner of paradise,” she said in impeccable French.

Before coming to Quebec, she lived eight years in Switzerland, then returned to Brazil, where violence caught up with her. “We suffered three armed robberies at home. I saw the bandits with a revolver on my son’s head, like that. ”

Convinced by Brazilian friends living in Montreal, she left São Paulo. Today, she feels good and wants to stay in Quebec for good.

The Fairmont Tremblant, like other employers in the region, finds itself at an impasse. The federal limit prevents you from renewing permits… and hiring again.

Could the hotel operate without these temporary employees?

“No,” answers Julie Labelle. We should close restaurants, restrict opening hours, maybe reduce rooms, our availability. ”

For her, their contribution goes far beyond logistics.

“This is what enriches the work environment. They all bring their little touch. ”

It brings a wealth in the hotel for customer service. Sometimes it’s convenient.

Julie Labelle, Assistant Director of Human Resources at Fairmont Tremblant

Julie Labelle is categorical: “We want to keep them, and they want to stay. ”

Adelina, on the other hand, remains hopeful. “I will stay here until the last day,” she says.

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , ,

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