Canada expands immigration program for undocumented construction workers in GTA

2023/01/24 Leave a comment

Of note:

To help address Canada’s housing crisis, the federal government is expanding a small-scale pilot project that offers permanent residence for out-of-status construction workers who are already working underground in the sector here.

On Friday, the government said it is doubling the annual number of available spots in the program from 500 workers — plus their family members — to 1,000, as part of its plan to ease the labour shortage in skilled trades.

Potential applicants are required to first identify themselves to the Canadian Labour Congress, which pre-screens and refers qualified candidates for final assessment by the immigration department. Eligible candidates have until Jan. 2, 2024, to apply.

“This pilot program is a significant step forward in addressing critical labour shortages for the Greater Toronto Area by supporting stability in the construction industry and bringing workers out of the underground economy,” Immigration Minister Sean Fraser said in a statement.

“By providing regular pathways for out-of-status migrants, we are not only protecting workers and their families, but also safeguarding Canada’s labour market and ensuring that we can retain the skilled workers we need to grow our economy and build our communities.”

In Ontario, the construction sector had 28,360 jobs waiting to be filled in the second quarter of last year, up from 20,895 over the same period in 2021.

Last November, Fraser raised eyebrows when he unveiled Canada’s multi-year immigration plan to bring in 465,000 new permanent residents in 2023, as well as 485,000 in 2024 and 500,000 in 2025 despite concerns over a looming recession.

While the majority of Canadians welcome a higher immigration level, some worry about whether the country will be able to accommodate so many more people amid a tight rental and housing market, fearing the measures could drive up housing costs further.

“We’re pushing people to regions that have more capacity to absorb newcomers. It’s not a coincidence that we’re talking about establishing stronger regional pathways,” Fraser said then, referring to immigration programs that offer incentives for newcomers to settle in smaller, rural communities.

“We’re not going to solve this problem if we don’t build more housing. Realistically, we need to leverage the new flexibilities that will kick in in 2023 to do targeted (immigration) draws for people who have the skills to build more houses.”

There are as many as 500,000 undocumented residents estimated to be in Canada. Many work precarious and often exploitative jobs in construction, cleaning, caregiving, food processing and agriculture.

The vast majority of undocumented residents came to Canada legally, only to later lose status because of issues with student visas, temporary work permits or asylum claims, advocates say.

Those issues are born out of an increasingly temporary immigration system, where many residents struggle to extend short-term permits and gain permanent residency.

One of Fraser’s mandated priorities from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was to explore more ways to regularize undocumented residents.

The immigration department has completed research and consultation for a broader regularization program based on the construction worker pilot. Cabinet is currently weighing different options for a final plan, the Star has learned.

“Out-of-status workers are vulnerable to employer exploitation and abuse, and they and their families live with limited access to education, health and social programs,” noted Bea Bruske, president of the Canadian Labour Congress, in a news release.

“The extension of the out-of-status construction workers in the GTA initiative for 2023 will help more vulnerable workers and their families during these uncertain times.”

Under the construction worker pilot program, only undocumented construction workers who live in Toronto, Durham, Halton, Peel and York regions qualify.

Source: Canada expands immigration program for undocumented construction workers in GTA

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Varela: Joe Biden should be trumpeting this immigration policy victory

2023/01/23 Leave a comment

One take:

Given the intense focus journalists place on migrants who come to the United States, it’s disappointing that they pay such little attention to the employers on this side of the border who recruit and exploit migrants and then, if they dare complain, fire them and make them even more vulnerable to deportation. The systematic oppression of migrants doesn’t get sufficient attention, partly because journalists haven’t done their jobs but also because those who are abused and exploited don’t speak up because they’re afraid or can’t speak up because they’ve been deported.

That’s why an announcement last week from the Biden administration that it will extend some protections to migrants reporting employer abusewas so historic. In a Jan. 13 news release, the Department of Homeland Security said that “noncitizen workers who are victims of, or witnesses to, the violation of labor rights, can now access a streamlined and expedited deferred action request process. Deferred action protects noncitizen workers from threats of immigration-related retaliation from the exploitive employers.” As a result, DHS noted, the whistleblower program confirmed the current administration’s “commitment to empowering workers and improving workplace conditions by enabling all workers, including noncitizens, to assert their legal rights.”

While I and multiple immigrant rights groups have generally criticized President Joe Biden for muddled immigration policies that carry forward former President Donald Trump’s misguided policies, I stand in agreement with those groups that were quick to praise Biden for this move.

“Today opens a pathway full of hope for those of us workers who fear reporting workplace abuses, so that we can come forward to share the challenges we face every day in hostile workplaces, suffering abuses like wage theft,” Jonas Reyes, a worker leader at Arriba Las Vegas Worker Center, said in a statement published on the website for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, or NDLON. “When we speak up and exercise our rights, we face retaliation. These protections are an important step to be able to speak up safely, and an opportunity to improve our working conditions and our lives.”

The Biden administration should have played up this announcement and drawn attention to a new policy that will further humanize one of this society’s most exploited populations. Instead, the administration conveyed the news in a press release on the Friday before the three-day Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend. NDLON held a virtual news conference to discuss the policy change, and while it did an excellent job of humanizing migrant voices and shining a light on their real plights, as of Thursday, that video had barely more than 150 views. By not playing up the news of the new whistleblower policy, the Biden administration missed an opportunity to transform the immigration debate by focusing on a plan that helps migrant workers instead of punishing them.

That missed PR opportunity means that when the topic is Biden and immigration, one of his progressive moves is likely to be ignored. The focus will remain on his administration’s failures to distance itself from Trump and the presidents before him who have treated immigration not as a humanitarian crisis but as a law enforcement and national security problem.

The White House statements that were released this month during Biden’s first official visit to the U.S. border with Mexico focused on “new enforcement measures to increase security at the border” meant to “reduce the number of individuals crossing unlawfully between ports of entry.” At the same time, those statements claimed that such measures “will expand and expedite legal pathways for orderly migration and result in new consequences for those who fail to use those legal pathways.” Part of these measures includes a mobile phone app that migrants can now use to apply for asylum.

New data from Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouseposted Wednesday said the immigration court backlog of close to 1.6 million cases is “the largest in history.” While the Biden administration’s announcement of a phone app may have been meant to decrease the number of people making the trek here, U.S. Code still makes it very legal for individuals to physically seek asylum at the U.S. border.

Despite the relative lack of attention the Biden administration and the media have given to the new DHS rule, the announcement does demonstrate that any real positive change in immigration policy will always come from grassroots movements. Rosario Ortiz, another worker leader at Arriba Las Vegas Worker Center, said in a statementthat she and coworkers had met with U.S. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh and DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas “to call for these protections.” Ortiz said, “I am proud of my coworkers and our brothers and sisters across the country who have helped open a pathway for others in our circumstances to seek the protections that we have won.”

That successful grassroots campaign is similar to the grassroots campaign that ended with Arizona voters last year granting in-state tuition to undocumented students. Like the whistleblower policy, the policy change was the result of a targeted campaign that took time to mature.

This kind of substantive change in national immigration policy that considers the rights of migrant workers has been long overdue. The groups who have been fighting for their communities know this, and there is no indication that they will slow down their efforts, no matter who’s in office — whether it’s Republicans who brag about being tough on immigrants or Democrats who are seemingly too afraid to draw attention to those fleeting moments when they’re doing right by them.

Julio Ricardo Varela is the founder of Latino Rebels, a co-host of the “In The Thick” political podcast and president of Futuro Media. 

Source: Joe Biden should be trumpeting this immigration policy victory

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Douglas Todd: China’s thrashing of ‘racist’ West disguises its own sins

2023/01/23 Leave a comment

Of note:

A UBC professor recently told me that when his family members flew back to work in China after the Christmas holidays they had to get a PCR test to prove to border officials that they did not have COVID.

He was taken aback, because he follows multiple Canadian and international media sources. The reports he had seen had tended to sympathize with Chinese officials who claimed Western nations that instituted test requirements for incoming Chinese citizens were “discriminating”.

The professor hadn’t realized Communist Party officials were simply displaying chutzpah, if not hypocrisy. It was not adequately reported that China, which has experienced an outbreak of COVID after lifting restrictions recently, demands anyone entering the country of 1.4 billion people provide a negative COVID test taken 48 hours before arrival.

Much media coverage had either totally failed to report China’s test requirement, or hardly noted it. Instead, many journalists behaved as if China had an important moral complaint: Western politicians were displaying anti-Chinese prejudice.

It’s a small example of a phenomenon common in the West. Many Canadian politicians, media outlets and activists often fall for China’s strategy of putting the West on the defensive with accusations of anti-Chinese racism. Among other things, it covers up China’s own disturbing reality.

While polls suggest about three in 10 Chinese-Canadians experienced insults during the first year of the pandemic (largely because of reports that the coronavirus began in Wuhan), there are countless examples of Canadians going along with China’s political tactic of amplifying and exaggerating incidents in the West, to avoid criticism of themselves.

One example is Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Repeating a theme, Trudeau tried to shut down Opposition complaints about how he covered up Ottawa’s engagement with China’s military at an infectious-disease laboratory in Winnipeg, where two scientists were arrested. Trudeau claimed Conservatives feared Asians, accusing party supporters of “intolerance toward Canadians of diverse origins.”

Liberal cabinet minister Patty Hajdu and Sen. Yuen Pau Woo also stand out as Beijing sycophants — for the way they have repeatedly charged Canadians who want to know more about the origins of COVID, and China’s infiltration into Canadian politics, of resorting to nasty “witchhunts” and “conspiracy theories” against people of Chinese background.

In B.C., the list of examples is long. It includes former Conservative MP Kenny Chiu (Richmond-Steveston East), who lost re-election after a torrent of abusive claims of being anti-Chinese after calling for a foreign-influence registry; Richmond lawyer Hong Guo, who has advised China’s state bodies, charging the B.C. Law Society with being anti-Chinese for disciplining her; B.C. scholars enduring the racist label for researching foreign investment in Vancouver housing; Chinese-language media branding former Vancouver mayor Kennedy Stewart a divisive ideologue for saying Canada’s spy agency is monitoring foreign political intrusion; and scores of Chinese-Canadian advocates for democracy in Hong Kong and Tibet routinely being cited for hating people from China.

China’s authoritarian leaders especially pull out the race card to crush people who point to the incarceration, mass surveillance and draconian clampdown on China’s 10 million Muslim Uyghurs.

The Chinese state-controlled Global Times has tried to stop Canadian criticism of the treatment of Uyghurs by pointing fingers at this country’s residential school system for Indigenous children.

This is not to overlook how accusations of anti-China prejudice are among the milder things thrown at Chinese-Canadians and others who fight for the rights of Uyghurs, Tibetans or Falun Gong members. China also intimidates through threats to health and livelihoods, including of family members in the motherland.

If anyone should doubt that race-baiting is a concerted strategy of China’s (as it is in Russia), check out last year’s statement from China’s embassy in the U.S. in response to the Democrat’s outlining their position on China. In a lengthy diatribe, the embassy accused Americans of white supremacy, flagrant hatred toward Asian-Americans, modern-day slavery, torturing immigrants, bullying and despising Muslims, forced labour, and slaughtering Indigenous people.

Bill Chu, a Vancouver anti-racism advocate, worries many in the West are being fooled by the propaganda spread in Chinese-language media and through pro-Beijing organizations that anti-Chinese hatred is widespread.

“A favourite PRC tactic is to use the terms ‘China,’ ‘Chinese’ and ‘Chinese Communist Party’ interchangeably. The PRC has mixed them all up so often and for so long that criticism of the CCP is now interpreted by China as a criticism of the people, and thus a racist act. The purpose of labelling such criticism as racism is to silence Western critics and politicians,” said Chu, who has been honoured for his work in Indigenous reconciliation.

“Canadians are so used to political pluralism that many assume Chinese citizens in the People’s Republic of China are enjoying the same,” Chu said. But while critics of the West have freedom of expression, the one-party dictatorship practices draconian censorship, lacks the West’s ethnic diversity, and allows almost no permanent immigration.

China’s record is shocking on racism, even while the Communist Party’s goal is to portray it as largely a Western phenomenon. In addition to brutal treatment of Muslims and Tibetan Buddhists, many reports have monitored abuse of Black people. In largely homogeneous China, where citizens are 90 per cent of Han ethnicity, Filipinos also complain of brazen discrimination.

While repressive China denies its own racist reality, Chu reminds North Americans to go in the opposite direction: “To be fair and acknowledge mistakes by the West.”

How are Chinese-Canadians responding? It’s tricky to capture the views of the 1.7 million people of Chinese origin in Canada, of which 831,000 were born in China, 487,000 in Canada, 228,000 in Hong Kong, and 72,000 in Taiwan.

An Angus Reid Institute poll of Canadians during the pandemic suggested about one-third of residents born in China “feel like an outsider in Canada,” a higher rate than for other ethnic Chinese.

However, a hefty 88 per cent of all Chinese-Canadians also said “I love Canada and what it stands for.” That was virtually the same proportion who agreed, “I feel a strong sense of belonging to Canada.” StatsCan reports many are doing well in education and careers.

Combining such polling results with recent reports about how Chinese nationals’ interest in emigrating to Canada had spiked 28-fold during the country’s lockdown, it would seem not many are truly buying Communist leaders’ accusations this country is a vipers’ pit of hate.

Source: Douglas Todd: China’s thrashing of ‘racist’ West disguises its own sins

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Le grand virage de l’immigration

2023/01/23 Leave a comment

More Quebec coverage of the dramatic shift to temporary workers while the Legault government maintains stable levels of permanent residents, somewhat hypocritically:

Intégration, capacité d’accueil, résidents permanents : pendant que les débats sur l’immigration se focalisent sur la cible de 50 000, ce sont au moins trois fois plus de gens chaque année qui arrivent au Québec avec un permis temporaire ou qui le renouvellent. Les chiffres et les experts sont sans équivoque, c’est un véritable virage de l’immigration qui s’opère en silence.

« Parler des niveaux permanents est absurde et obsolète, puisque l’outil principal est devenu l’immigration temporaire », exprime Stephan Reichhold, directeur général de la Table de concertation des organismes au service des personnes réfugiées et immigrantes (TCRI). « Parler seulement de résidents permanents n’illustre pas réellement la réalité au Québec », poursuit-il.

« C’est un faux débat de parler du seuil [de 50 000], car ils viennent de toute façon sur des voies temporaires », affirme aussi Denis Hamel, vice-président des politiques de développement de la main-d’oeuvre au Conseil du patronat du Québec (CSQ).

Ce déséquilibre vers le temporaire est incontestable, dit-il, et les employeurs membres du CSQ le constatent sur le terrain. « Mettez-vous dans la peau de l’employeur qui doit pourvoir un poste vacant. Il a trouvé un candidat à l’étranger, qui arriverait idéalement comme résident permanent, mais c’est quasi impossible en ce moment. Alors il [l’employeur] prend une voie plus rapide, une voie de contournement », expose-t-il en détail.

C’est « l’arbre qui cache la forêt », affirme également Mireille Paquet, titulaire de la Chaire de recherche en politique de l’immigration de l’Université Concordia.

La professeure y voit une certaine contradiction : « Le gouvernement dit pouvoir régler nos problèmes sans avoir recours à l’immigration. Mais c’est du discours, pas la pratique réelle. »

La « pratique réelle » est que le nombre d’immigrants continue de grimper, mais en passant par des catégories temporaires, disent d’une seule voix ces trois observateurs d’horizons différents.

Qui en est responsable ?

Ce virage date de plusieurs années, mais il s’est considérablement accéléré depuis la venue de la Coalition avenir Québec au pouvoir.

En quoi le gouvernement de François Legault peut-il en être responsable ? Les travailleurs étrangers temporaires — autant en agriculture que ceux hautement qualifiés — sont recrutés par les entreprises elles-mêmes. Les étudiants étrangers veulent décrocher un diplôme québécois. Les demandeurs d’asile arrivent par leur propre volonté et leurs propres moyens sur le territoire.

L’immigration temporaire et celle permanente sont considérées comme des vases communicants. La pénurie de main-d’oeuvre s’est vraiment amorcée depuis 2016, situe M. Hamel. Mais c’est maintenant, « étant donné le plafond [de résidents permanents] imposé par le gouvernement, que les employeurs se tournent vers les [résidents] temporaires, de gré ou de force », précise-t-il ensuite.

Là où le discours converge aussi avec la pratique est que Québec s’est exclu de la création de voies d’accès vers la résidence permanente. Les réformes durant le premier mandat caquiste ont notamment restreint les possibilités d’accéder à ce statut pour les personnes sans formation collégiale ou universitaire. « On a autant besoin d’ingénieurs que de bons soudeurs, alors pourquoi discriminer selon les diplômes ? » demande Denis Hamel.

À la demande répétée des employeurs, Québec a aussi mis en place des mesures pour favoriser le recrutement des travailleurs étrangers temporaires, et donc affiché son intention de miser davantage sur ce type d’immigration plutôt que de toucher aux seuils. Le ministère provincial de l’Immigration note dans son plan pour 2022 qu’il souhaite « appuyer les employeurs » pour « augmenter le nombre » de travailleurs étrangers temporaires.

Dans le reste du Canada, l’immigration temporaire est en forte hausse, mais Ottawa a pris une voie différente en créant davantage de voies d’accès à la permanence pour puiser dans ce bassin plus rapidement.

« Le nombre de personnes qui deviennent résidents permanents en ayant déjà eu un statut temporaire est énorme », a ainsi résumé le ministre fédéral de l’Immigration, Sean Fraser, l’automne dernier.

Plusieurs catégories d’immigration

Le nombre de 50 000 résidents permanents est une cible annuelle. Pour la comparer, il faut donc utiliser les données pour chaque année et pour chaque catégorie de temporaires. Il y avait en tout plus de 145 000 titulaires de permis temporaires en 2021, et au moins 181 000 en 2022, selon les données disponibles jusqu’en octobre ou en novembre, selon les catégories.

Il peut s’agir de personnes qui entrent nouvellement sur le territoire, ou encore qui se trouvaient déjà ici et renouvellent leur permis temporaire.

La grande boîte des temporaires, telle qu’illustrée dans notre graphique, regroupe des situations diverses. Les possibilités de devenir résident permanent varient grandement d’une catégorie à l’autre. Ces différents programmes et catégories ont néanmoins une chose en commun : une date d’expiration sur le papier qui donne le droit d’être sur le territoire québécois.

Il y a d’abord les étudiants internationaux, qui détiennent aussi le droit de travailler, un droit sans limites d’heures depuis novembre dernier.

Il y a ensuite le vaste Programme de mobilité internationale (PMI), composé de 70 sous-catégories telles que l’Expérience internationale Canada ou la trentaine de programmes vacances-travail (PVT). Ces immigrants temporaires sont souvent diplômés ou « qualifiés », mais peuvent aussi avoir des permis fermés.

Et enfin, les deux catégories considérées comme les plus précaires : les demandeurs d’asile et les travailleurs étrangers temporaires. Les uns vivent dans l’incertitude de voir leur statut de réfugié reconnu, un processus qui prend actuellement deux ans. Les autres, les travailleurs étrangers temporaires, arrivent sur le territoire avec un permis portant le nom d’un seul employeur ; ils ne peuvent donc pas être embauchés ailleurs au terme de leur contrat.

Ce stock de nouveaux permis temporaires s’ajoute à un bassin de résidents temporaires déjà sur le territoire, grâce à des contrats ou à des permis d’études chevauchant plusieurs années par exemple. Résultat, le nombre de résidents non permanents (temporaires) comptabilisés par Statistique Canada a presque triplé en 10 ans.

Au 1er juillet 2022, l’effectif des résidents non permanents était de 290 000 personnes au Québec, soit plus de 3 % de la population totale de la province.

En posant l’hypothèse que ces « non permanents » veulent s’installer au Québec, il faudrait donc près de six ans pour leur octroyer un statut permanent avec le plafond actuel.

Goulot d’étranglement et conséquences

« On croit que la majorité des résidents temporaires souhaitent rester. Mais pour obtenir la résidence permanente, le nombre de “places” est limitée à 50 000. Ça veut donc dire que les délais s’allongent sans mesure, on s’en va vers une crise et on va perdre beaucoup de monde dans ce goulot d’étranglement », dit M. Reichhold.

Ce virage s’opère silencieusement puisqu’il « n’a jamais été discuté d’un point de vue politique », dit Mireille Paquet. Ces gens temporaires ne répondent peut-être pas « aux idéaux linguistiques et culturels du gouvernement », mais la professeure croit que le Québec « ne peut pas faire l’économie de cette discussion difficile ».

Au-delà des chiffres, « c’est un changement de paradigme », ajoute-t-elle : « L’approche historique du Canada est que les gens arrivaient avec la résidence permanente. C’est toujours comme ça qu’on a compris l’immigration. »

« On perd l’élément intégration et [le fait de pouvoir] dire que ces gens font partie de notre société, ce qui était à la base de notre philosophie », renchérit Stephan Reichhold.

Peu importe le programme utilisé, le statut temporaire induit davantage de vulnérabilité, disent-ils aussi. « Empêcher les gens de se projeter vers l’avenir est paradoxalement un frein majeur à l’intégration », affirme Stéphanie Arsenault, professeure de travail social à l’Université Laval.

« La précarité nuit aussi aux employeurs », note quant à lui M. Hamel, à cause du roulement de personnel et des démarches administratives très lourdes.

Ce virage remet aussi en question l’idée qu’une immigration trop rapide mettrait la cohésion sociale à risque, selon M. Reichhold. « Pour les dizaines de milliers, voire des centaines, de temporaires, ça se passe relativement bien. Ils ont déjà un travail ou font des études, ils occupent un logement et ils consomment. Il n’y a pas de signal de saturation », insiste-t-il.

« Si ce qui nous importe est de savoir si tous ces gens sont capables de trouver de l’emploi au Québec, on le sait, ils sont déjà ici », réitère Mireille Paquet.

La journaliste Sarah R. Champagne a participé au documentaire Essentiels, qui sera diffusé à Télé-Québec le mercredi 25 janvier à 20 h.

Source: Le grand virage de l’immigration

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Scorecard Comparison: Century Initiative and Coalition for a Better Future

2023/01/23 Leave a comment

While I am not in general a fan of scorecards and indices given their selective nature and sometimes less than clear methodology, they are of course useful communications tools.

While Century Initiative has 38 indicators spread over six themes, the Coalition for a Better Future has 21 indicators spread over three central goals: winning globally, living better and growing sustainably.

The Century Initiative scorecard reflects its changing emphasis from growth for growth’s sake (demographic arguments) to a recognition of the need to “grow well” rather than just grow, and thus has a wider range of indicators.

In contrast, the Coalition has a narrower focus on productivity with relatively few indicators beyond key economic indicators, along with inclusion and diversity.

The CI’s scorecard also comes with an informative detailed narrative that analyzes progress or lack thereof across all indicators. The Coalition, in contrast just provides a measure of progress or lack thereof compared to OECD and other benchmarks, without a narrative, even for indicators where the reasons for their assessment are unclear.

Both scorecards highlight Canadian weakness in addressing economic growth and productivity issues. There is considerable overlap in the membership of both.

Both provide opportunities for serious analysis of the positive and negative impacts of current immigration policies across Canadian society.

Area
Century InitiativeCoalition For a Better Future
DemographicPopulation Growth
Immigrant Admissions
Fertility Rate 
Life Expectancy
Immigration Global Reputation 
Public Support for Immigration 
Regional Retention of Immigrants
Migrant Integration Policy
Immigrant Income Gap
International Students Transitioning to Permanent Residents
EconomicEarly-stage EntrepreneurshipCurrent Trade Account
Business Spending on R&DBusiness Investments in R&D (%GDP)
Innovation Investment in Intellectual Property per Worker ($)
ProductivityInvestment in Productive Tangible Assets per Worker ($)
Business GrowthGlobal Ranking for Financing of SMEs
Diversity in LeadershipShare of Women in Senior Management Positions (%)
Strength of Indigenous EconomyShare of Indigenous People in Senior Management Positions (%)
GDP per capitaGDP per capita ($)
Household DebtAverage Export Value per SMB ($)
Income InequalityIncome Parity Across Genders, Races, and People with Disabilities ($)
Global CompetitivenessGlobal Market Share in Key Sectors
Mean Income from Wages, Salaries and Commissions ($)
Number of “narwhals” (Companies worth $1B+)
Prosperity Index Ranking (#)
Education, Skills, EmploymentPerformance in reading, science and math among 15-year olds (PISA)
Post-secondary Attainment
Youth not in Employment, Education or Training (NEET)Youth not in Employment, Education or Training (NEET) (%)
Participation in Adult LearningParticipation in Adult Learning (%)
Employment Rate
Incidence of Low-wage WorkAverage Poverty Gap (%)
Children and FamiliesChildcare Participation
Parental Leave Uptake
Employment Rate for Mothers
Child Poverty
Youth Well-being
Infrastructure & Environment Investment in Infrastructure
Housing Affordability
Broadband UptakePercentage of Households with Access to Broadband (%)
Population Density of Metropolitan areas
Resilience
Climate Change PerformanceGHG Emissions per unit of GDP
Percentage of Primary Energy Supply from Zero-Carbon Sources (%)
Clean-tech Contribution to GDP ($)

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

COVID-19 Immigration Effects – November 2022 update

2023/01/23 Leave a comment

The government continues to make progress on backlogs but the significant still not meeting service standards: temporary residence 44 percent, permanent residence 45 percent, citizenship 72 percent, visitor visas 70 percent in backlog (November 30 data).

PRs: Decrease compared to October. YTD 412,000,  2021 same period 360,000. Of note, an ongoing and dramatic drop in TR2PR transitions, from 251,000 in 2021 to 172,000 in 2022 YTD. Quebec YTD 63,000, 2021 same period 44,000 (despite public debates).

TRs/IMP: Flat compared to October. YTD 446,000, 2021 same period, 305,000.

TRs/TFWP: Slight decrease compared to October. YTD 133,000, 2021 same period 105,000.

Students: Flat compared to October. YTD 479,000, 2021 same period 415,000.

Asylum claimants: Small increase compared to October. YTD 80,000, 2021 same period 19,000.

Settlement Services (July): Decrease compared to June. YTD 1,031,000, 2021 same period 918,000.

Citizenship: Increase compared to October. YTD 347,000, 2021 same period 115,000.

Visitor Visas. Increase compared to October. YTD 1,097,000, 2021 same period 194,000.

Filed under Citizenship, Immigration Tagged with ,

Suella Braverman proved it again: racism is a fire the Tories love to play with

2023/01/21 Leave a comment

Over the top commentary but elements of truth and unfair to conflate recent politicians with those living in a different time and context, with many similarities in various countries:

Last Friday, an 82-year-old woman wrapped up warm and set off on a 200-mile round trip for a meeting that she half suspected wouldn’t even let her in. As you read this, the film of her speaking that evening has been viewed more than five million times. Which is odd, because it’s not much to look at: a wobbly side-view of a woman with white hair, intense closeups of grey cardigan. Bridgerton this is not.

But it’s the words that count. Joan Salter has got herself down to Hampshire for a public meeting with the home secretary, and now it is her turn to ask a question. As a child survivor of the Holocaust, she hears Suella Braverman demean and dehumanise refugees and it is a reminder of how the Nazis justified murdering Jews like her. So why do it?

Even as the words come out, Braverman’s face freezes. The evening so far has been a Tory activists’ love-in, which, Salter tells me later, made her nervous about being the sole dissenter. But then the home secretary responds, “I won’t apologise for the language I’ve used” – and a disturbing truth is exposed about what Britain has become.

Braverman labels those seeking sanctuary in Britain an “invasion”. Quite the word, invasion. It strips people of their humanity and pretends they are instead a hostile army, sent to maraud our borders. Her junior minister Robert Jenrick once begged colleagues not to “demonise” migrants; now he stars in videos almost licking his jowls over “the Albanians” forced on to a flight to Tirana. Salter is right to say such attitudes from the top fuel and license extremists on the ground. We saw it after the toxic Brexit campaign, when Polish-origin schoolchildren in Huntingdon were called “vermin” on cards left outside their school gates, as race and religious hate crimes soared that summer.

Today, the air is once again poisonous. Far-right groups have been visiting accommodation for asylum seekers, trying to terrify those inside – many of whom have fled terror to come here – often before sharing their videos on social media. The anti-fascist campaigners Hope Not Hate recorded 182 such jaunts last year alone, culminating in a petrol bomb tossed at an asylum centre in Dover by a man with links to far-right groups and who would post about how “all Muslims are guilty of grooming … they only rape non-Muslims”.

Unlike those big men in their big boots frightening innocent people, Salter isn’t chasing social media clout. The grandmother wants to warn us not to return to the times that sent her, at the age of three, running with her parents across Europe in search of sanctuary. She does make a mistake in yoking the home secretary to the term “swarms”. As far as I can see, this figurehead for the new Tory extremism has yet to use that vile word. But I can think of a Tory prime minister who has used that word: David Cameron, the Old Etonian never shy of blowing on a dog whistle, who made a speech denouncing multiculturalism even as Tommy Robinson’s troops marched on Luton. And Margaret Thatcher talked of how the British felt “rather swamped” by immigrants. In those venerable names from the party’s past lies the big picture about the Conservatives’ chronic addiction to racist politics.

Source: Suella Braverman proved it again: racism is a fire the Tories love to play with

Filed under Multiculturalism, Racism Tagged with , ,

Métis Nation of Ontario to determine who is a Métis citizen with …

2023/01/21 Leave a comment

Of interest:

Métis Nation of Ontario members are voting to determine who the organization should recognize as a Métis citizen.

Some 28,000 members across the province are able to cast their “yes” or “no” vote in a plebiscite, as to whether or not the Métis Nation should continue to represent around 5,400 people with incomplete documentation about their ancestry.

In 2003, a landmark Supreme Court of Canada decision determined Métis people have rights under Section 35 of the Canadian Constitution, which pertains to Indigenous treaty rights.

Métis Nation of Ontario president Margaret Froh said that decision meant Métis people were recognized in the same way as First Nations and Inuit people.

In 1993, Ontario conservation officers charged Steve and Roddy Powley, both members of the Sault Ste. Marie Métis community, for harvesting a bull moose outside of the city.

The Supreme Court determined the Powleys could exercise a Métis, and Indigenous, right to hunt.

In 2019, that recognition from the Supreme Court of Canada led to the country’s first Métis self-government agreement.

With that recognition, Froh said it’s time for the Métis Nation of Ontario to take the next step.

“One of the very first things that any Indigenous people do when they are pushing for that recognition of their inherent rights is they determine who it is that they represent,” Froh said.

Source: Métis Nation of Ontario to determine who is a Métis citizen with …

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Moreau: Être ou ne pas être, les impasses de l’auto-identification

2023/01/21 Leave a comment

Self-identification and identity. Recently, most of the cases have been with respect to Indigenous identity, As ancestries become mixed over time, challenges for self-identification, and for organizations, will continue to increase:

Les mesures de « discrimination positive » imposées aux universités pour leur recrutement de professeurs-chercheurs soulèvent bien des questions en lien avec la justice, le caractère égalitaire, la transparence des processus d’embauche, sans compter le rôle de l’excellence dans le choix des meilleurs candidats. Ces enjeux, fondamentaux dans une démocratie, ont été mentionnés et analysés par de nombreux commentateurs. Il en est un, en revanche, qui n’a pas encore faire l’objet de toute l’attention qu’il mérite : celui qui entoure le principe de l’auto-identification.

On demande en effet aux postulants, dans le cadre de ces mesures d’action positive, de s’auto-identifier comme étant des Autochtones, des personnes en situation de handicap, des femmes, ou encore comme appartenant à l’une ou l’autre des minorités racisées ou de genre.

Or, au fur et à mesure que les demandes d’auto-identification du genre vont se multiplier (et on peut être certain qu’elles se multiplieront), tout en devenant de plus en plus impératives pour l’obtention d’une chaire du Canada, puis d’un poste à l’université, dans les institutions culturelles, dans les diverses administrations, etc., elles vont immanquablement donner lieu à de fausses déclarations.

On a déjà vu, ces dernières années, au Canada, au moins trois femmes se faire passer pour autochtones, alors que, semble-t-il, elles ne l’étaient pas : la cinéaste Michelle Latimer, en 2020 ; la prétendue « gardienne du savoir » Suzy Kies, également coprésidente de la Commission des peuples autochtones du Parti libéral du Canada et, accessoirement, instigatrice d’autodafés en Ontario ; et, plus récemment, la chercheuse Carrie Bourassa, de l’Université de la Saskatchewan, qui était aussi directrice scientifique de l’Institut de santé des Autochtones.

« Autoautochtonisation »

Et on peut être absolument certain qu’il y en aura d’autres, tout comme on verra monter en flèche le nombre de candidats à des postes ici ou là qui feront valoir leur appartenance à une minorité racisée ou de genre, puisque ces auto-identifications deviendront des sésames recherchés.

Si l’on en doute, il suffit pour s’en convaincre de considérer qu’un mot a déjà été inventé pour définir le premier phénomène : « l’autoautochtonisation ». Selon la Loi sur l’équité en matière d’emploi, il suffit d’avoir un parent issu d’une « minorité visible » pour être réputé appartenir à une « minorité visible », ce qui ouvre la porte à des recherches généalogiques intéressées. Tandis que le fait de se déclarer non binaire ou bisexuel, par exemple, n’engage à rien de très précis en termes de comportement ou de relations amoureuses.

À leur tour, ces auto-identifications frauduleuses obligeront évidemment les institutions concernées à se livrer à des vérifications de plus en plus poussées. Mais comment ? D’ores et déjà, à la suite de ce qu’il est convenu d’appeler « l’affaire Carrie Bourassa », l’Université de la Saskatchewan a modifié ses règles d’embauche. L’auto-identification ne suffit plus, il faut désormais prouver son identité, ce qui ne manque pas d’engendrer d’autres imbroglios.

Ainsi, cette université a rejeté il y a quelque temps la candidature de Réal Carrière, un professeur d’études autochtones qui avait été sélectionné par un jury unanime et lui-même composé de professeurs autochtones, car il ne pouvait pas fournir de preuves écrites de son identité supposée.

Faudra-t-il alors remettre à l’honneur ces « statuts de pureté du sang » qui avaient cours autrefois dans l’empire espagnol et exiger de chaque candidat qu’il prouve, arbre généalogique en main, la fiabilité de son identité à travers l’exposé public de ses origines ? Faudra-t-il également que l’État remette son nez dans les chambres à coucher de ces mêmes candidats pour s’assurer qu’ils appartiennent bien à une minorité sexuelle ou de genre ?

Ce genre d’immixtion dans la vie privée risque de devenir inévitable dans la vérification de ces identités revendiquées. D’autant plus que les litiges qui ne manqueront pas de surgir à ce sujet aboutiront inéluctablement devant les tribunaux, qui auront donc la charge délicate de trancher ces questions identitaires, de décréter qui est vraiment autochtone, réellement racisé, authentiquement non binaire, etc. Bonne chance !

Pour régler cette question de façon définitive, on pourrait aussi faire en sorte, comme on le fait sous d’autres cieux pour l’appartenance religieuse, que cette identité se voie inscrite dans les documents officiels et les pages intérieures de nos passeports. Nul besoin alors de continuer à s’auto-identifier. Le problème serait enfin résolu. Mais à quel prix ? Et serait-ce vraiment un progrès ?

L’auteur est professeur de littérature à Montréal, rédacteur en chef de la revue Argument et essayiste. Il a notamment publié Ces mots qui pensent à notre place (Liber, 2017) et La prose d’Alain Grandbois. Ou lire et relire Les voyages de Marco Polo (Nota bene, 2019).

Source: Être ou ne pas être, les impasses de l’auto-identification

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Marshall: Biden gets real on immigration

2023/01/21 Leave a comment

One take:

No issue better illuminates America’s debilitating political stalemate than immigration. Everyone knows there’s a mounting humanitarian and law enforcement crisis on our southern border, but our political leaders find it safer to appease their most militant partisans than to work together to forge pragmatic solutions.

That may be changing. After ignoring an unprecedented surge of migrants for two years, President Biden has announced some modest steps toward restoring order. His reward for taking on this combustible issue is a fusillade of criticism from rightwing nativists who say he’s not serious and leftwing activists worried that he is.

Source: Biden gets real on immigration

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