Les délais pour le Certificat de sélection du Québec humanitaire explosent

2022/07/05 Leave a comment

Nice to see a rare critical article on the Quebec’s government handling of an immigration program rather than the almost reflexive but sometimes warranted blaming the feds:

Le gouvernement Legault accuse des retards sans précédent dans la délivrance du Certificat de sélection du Québec (CSQ) pour des immigrants que le Canada a pourtant acceptés comme résidents permanents pour motifs humanitaires. Alors que ce n’était qu’une formalité de quelques semaines, il faut maintenant près d’un an pour obtenir ce précieux sésame, qui donne accès à d’importants services, dont l’assurance maladie du Québec.

« C’est une situation dramatique », dit l’avocate Anne-Cécile Raphaël. « C’est un document court et simple. Il n’y a pas de difficultés à le produire. »

Me Raphaël a plusieurs clients ayant été acceptés comme résidents permanents pour des raisons humanitaires, mais qui attendent depuis des mois d’avoir le CSQ. « J’ai des clients dont la demande a été déposée en juillet-août [2021] et qui n’ont toujours pas leur CSQ, dit-elle. J’ai une cliente qui a un dossier complet et dont le CSQ est la dernière pièce manquante. D’ailleurs, pour l’écrasante majorité des cas, il n’y a que ça qui manque. »

Le Devoir a pu constater que de nombreux avocats ont des clients dont la demande de CSQ, déposée à l’été dernier, n’a effectivement toujours pas été traitée. Certains rapportent même que ces personnes ont carrément abandonné l’idée de vivre au Québec pour aller dans une autre province. « J’ai même une famille du Nigeria qui a déménagé en Ontario en raison des longs délais pour avoir le CSQ », a indiqué l’avocate Nataliya Dzera.

Ancien président de l’Association québécoise des avocats et avocates en immigration, Guillaume Cliche-Rivard, remarque que le problème des délais semble uniquement se poser pour les personnes ayant fait une demande de résidence pour des « considérations d’ordre humanitaire ». « Ce n’est pas aussi long pour le refuge ou la réunification familiale. C’est dans l’humanitaire que les délais explosent », soutient l’avocat qui s’apprête à briguer les suffrages pour Québec solidaire dans Saint-Henri–Sainte-Anne, à Montréal.

« Je ne comprends pas pourquoi le gouvernement tarde à donner le CSQ. Ce sont tous des gens qui sont ici et qui ont fait l’objet d’une décision positive d’IRCC [Immigration, Réfugiés et Citoyenneté Canada]. Ils ont des circonstances personnelles assez dramatiques qui ont justifié ces demandes humanitaires. »

Privés de RAMQ

Le gouvernement fédéral a le pouvoir d’accorder une résidence permanente pour considérations d’ordre humanitaire à quelqu’un qui fait la démonstration d’une bonne intégration et qui remplit certains critères justifiant les exemptions demandées. Pour une personne désirant s’installer au Québec s’ajoute l’étape du CSQ qui, il n’y a pas si longtemps, s’obtenait facilement et rapidement, soit en deux ou trois mois, selon les observations des avocats. « Quand le formulaire est rempli et que toutes les informations sont là, c’est un simple document à délivrer. C’est un taux d’approbation de plus de 95 % », a observé Me Cliche-Rivard.

Toutefois, tant que le CSQ n’est pas reçu, il n’est pas possible d’avoir accès à la RAMQ, ni aux mêmes droits de scolarité que les résidents permanents et les citoyens canadiens. Sans le CSQ, il n’est pas non plus possible pour un demandeur de conclure son dossier de résidence permanente afin, ensuite, d’entamer les démarches pour parrainer ses enfants qui seraient demeurés dans le pays d’origine. Cette lenteur, qui nuit au dossier de leurs clients, indigne plusieurs avocats en immigration.

« Je m’occupe d’une veuve originaire de l’Europe de l’Est, dont [la demande pour motifs] humanitaires avait été acceptée à la suite d’une bataille en cour fédérale. Cette fois-ci, elle doit attendre presque un an pour être admissible à la carte RAMQ », raconte Me Dzera, en laissant entendre que sa cliente est âgée et pourrait avoir besoin de soins.

Après avoir obtenu une réponse positive à sa demande de résidence permanente pour motifs humanitaires, Diana, qui ne donne pas son vrai nom par crainte de représailles, a ensuite attendu près de 8 mois avant d’avoir son CSQ et 11 mois pour avoir sa RAMQ et sa résidence permanente. « J’ai eu de graves problèmes de santé et je n’avais pas ma carte [d’assurance maladie]. Mes visites à l’hôpital coûtaient très cher », raconte cette Haïtienne d’origine, mère de six enfants. « Je n’allais pas bien. J’étais en dépression. »

Diana avait aussi le projet de faire venir au Québec sa fille aînée, qui avait alors 21 ans, âge limite pour parrainer un enfant, mais son CSQ est arrivé trop tard. Sa fille a eu 22 ans dans l’intervalle. « Je veux ma fille ici avec moi. C’est très triste ce qui est arrivé. On avait préparé tout son dossier pour pouvoir le déposer le plus tôt possible. »

11 mois d’attente

Le ministère de l’Immigration, de la Francisation et de l’Intégration (MIFI) ne nie pas que le délai s’est allongé et estime à 11 mois le délai actuel moyen pour le traitement des demandes de CSQ pour considération humanitaire. Cela inclut l’attente pour obtenir des documents ou renseignements manquants par le client, le cas échéant. À la mi-juin, le MIFI en était à examiner les demandes reçues à la mi-août 2021.

« Le nombre de demandes de sélection permanente [CSQ] reçues par le MIFI dans le cadre du Programme des personnes sélectionnées pour considérations humanitaires a augmenté depuis les dernières années », a indiqué le ministère pour expliquer ces délais.

« Comme une grande partie des personnes qui présentent ces demandes sont des demandeurs d’asile déboutés, le MIFI estime que l’augmentation du nombre de demandes d’asile faites au Québec influe sur le nombre de demandes pour considérations humanitaires reçues », ajoute-t-il.

Source: Les délais pour le Certificat de sélection du Québec humanitaire explosent

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Dyer : Judeo-Christian America: Why scholars reject GOP’s use of ‘Judeo-Christian’

2022/07/04 Leave a comment

Interesting and informative read:

On the right, the phrase “Judeo-Christian” has become like a password: It’s a short, fast way to prove your conservative ilk.

“We believe that America’s destiny depends on upholding the Judeo-Christian values and principles of our nation’s founding,” said former President Donald Trump recently at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority conference in Nashville, Tennessee.

“We know that this is a nation with a deep Judeo-Christian footing. We must defend it at every turn,” said Mike Pompeo at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February.

Explaining his decision to start the National Association of Christian Lawmakers in 2020, Arkansas state Sen. Jason Rapert remarked, “Our ultimate goal and intent is that we restore the Judeo-Christian foundations of our government that were intended from the very beginning.”

And, in Idaho in 2015, a group of Republican politicians cited the “Judeo-Christian bedrock of the founding of the United States” in their proposal to make the state formally Christian.

But experts say the phrase is problematic at best, with critics describing it as a sort-of “marketing campaign” that outstayed its welcome.

“The phrase is … a modern one arising from a contemporary political setting that elides a painful history between Jews and Christians in which there was a huge power differential,” said Malka Simkovich, Crown-Ryan chair of Jewish Studies and director of the Catholic-Jewish Studies Program at Catholic Theological Union.

She and others believe the term “Judeo-Christian” papers over the history of violent antisemitism that Jews faced in Christendom and collapses important theological differences between Judaism and Christianity, erasing Jews in the process.

“There isn’t such a thing as Judeo-Christian anything,” said Meredith J.C. Warren, a senior lecturer in Biblical and Religious Studies at the University of Sheffield.

Critics also say that the inclusion of “Judeo” gives a false sense of multiculturalism when the term actually serves to exclude Muslims, atheists and members of many other faiths. They’re hoping the phrase “Judeo-Christian” will soon be retired in favor of a more inclusive — and accurate — alternative.

What is the history of the term ‘Judeo-Christian’?

The origin of the phrase “Judeo-Christian” isn’t entirely settled: European scholars have noted that German theologians used the term in the early 1800s. Today, the term is sometimes used — problematically, Simkovich said — in reference to the “early followers of Jesus who lived in the Jewish community.”

In the American context, the term “Judeo-Christian” was part of “a redefinition of democracy that began in the ’30s in response to totalitarianism around the globe,” said K. Healan Gaston, author of “Imagining Judeo-Christian America: Religion, Secularism, and the Redefinition of Democracy” and a lecturer on American religious history and ethics at Harvard Divinity School.

In the wake of massive Catholic and Jewish immigration to what was then an overwhelmingly Protestant country, the phrase “Judeo-Christian” was also a response to anti-Catholic sentiment and antisemitism. It can be understood as an attempt to create tri-faith unity among the three religious groups that were, at the time, at the center of American life, Gaston said.

This unity was instrumental to the war effort and post-war nation building, becoming deeply linked to the American concept of democracy. The phrase became ubiquitous during the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower, though Eisenhower later backed away from the term privately when he realized how exclusionary it was, according to Gaston.

The term was handy during the Cold War as a way of differentiating America from our supposedly nonreligious, communist enemies, said Marc Zvi Brettler, a Jewish studies professor at Duke University and co-author of “The Bible With and Without Jesus: How Jews and Christians Read the Same Stories Differently.”

“One of the times the term was really ascendant was as an anti-communist term,” Brettler said.

Some of that anti-communist residue lingers on the word today as the right often falsely depicts Democrats — a group that includes the majority of American Jews as well as Black Americans, one of the country’s most religious demographics — as godless, secular humanists at best and radical socialists at worst.

For the most part, from the 1930s to 1970s, it was liberals that used the term “Judeo-Christian,” said Gaston. But by the 1970s, the phrase began to gain currency with the right. And it took off in the 1980s with conservatives. Ronald Reagan included the term in his presidential platform, said Gaston, who explained that Reagan imprinted a “Judeo-Christian framework on top of deep-seated anti-communism and free market economics.”

After Reagan, Jerry Falwell and his Moral Majority picked up the phrase and it came to be used in five subsequent Republican presidential platforms, Gaston said, but never on the Democratic side. It remains a shorthand for all of those ideas that Reagan loaded into the term, including free market capitalism, family values and other conservative ideals.

How do Jews feel about the phrase Judeo-Christian?

For some Jews, the inclusion suggested by the phrase “Judeo-Christian” has been comforting, said Gaston, adding that the Conservative movement has historically been somewhat more amenable to the term than the Reform and Orthodox movements.

But many American Jews have a complicated relationship with the term, said Brettler, a practicing Jew

While it’s “fine to talk about the commonalities between Judaism and Christianity,” he said that current usage of the term represents a “problematic construct that makes things much more hunky dory than they should be.”

The expression emphasizes “the similarities and almost entirely (denies) the differences,” between Christianity and Judaism, Brettler added.

There’s also a risk that people who embrace the phrase “Judeo-Christian” will deny the antisemitism experienced by early Jewish immigrants to the U.S.

Invoking the so-called “Judeo-Christian” foundations of the country, Brettler said, is “a type of fake nostalgia.”

Has the phrase caught on outside the U.S.?

The phrase “Judeo-Christian” — with an exclusionary meaning — has also caught on among the European right, particularly in France, according to Nadia Malinovich, author of “French and Jewish: Culture and Politics of Identity in Early Twentieth Century France” and a researcher affiliated with the Groupe Société Religions Laïcités at the French National Centre for Scientific Research.

“Jews have been re-centered as white societal insiders Europeans while Muslims are now cast as the primary others,” said Malinovich. The phrase, she added, is “being bandied about” as a cover for Christian nationalism

“Rather than saying ‘Christian civilization,’ it’s Judeo-Christian. … It’s a way of trying to cover up the fact that it’s just Christian by somehow getting the Jews involved ex-post facto,” she said.

Obliterating the theological differences and contemporary and historical tensions between Jews and Christians, Malinovich said, is, among other things, “disrespectful of the Jews who died in the Holocaust.”

Moving away from Judeo-Christian

The term “Judeo-Christian” omits the third Abrahamic faith — Islam — and erases its contributions to European history and, by extension, Western culture. The phrase ignores the fact that, historically, Jews lived with greater freedom and security in the Muslim world than they did in Christendom, said Warren.

In the American context, not only does “Judeo-Christian” exclude Muslims, Warren added, but also Indigenous communities.

“In North America specifically it’s important to foreground the rights and traditions of the continent’s First Peoples rather than erase them, too, with the phrase Judeo-Christian,” she said.

Many religion experts say the term should scrapped in favor of something more inclusive, like “interfaith.”

“Judeo-Christian” was “a brilliant civic invention that widened the country’s understanding of itself and reduced antisemitic and anti-Catholic bigotry,” Eboo Patel, founder and president of Interfaith America, recently told the Deseret News.

“Now that America’s demographics have changed further — there are just as many Buddhists and Muslims in the country as there are Lutherans — it’s time to write the next great chapter in the history of American religion. And we think ‘interfaith America’ is the right title for that chapter.”

Rather than trying to create a melting pot in which individuals’ identities are subsumed into a larger national identity, we should strive for a potluck, Patel said, “where people’s unique identities are welcome contributions to the feast.”

Source: Judeo-Christian America: Why scholars reject GOP’s use of ‘Judeo-Christian’

Filed under Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with ,

Délais d’attente à Service Canada ou quand l’exception fait la règle

2022/07/04 Leave a comment

A reminder that Service Canada’s problems go beyond passport services and are long standing:

Relayée largement par les grands médias, « la crise des passeports » soulève depuis quelques semaines l’indignation de nombreux Canadiens qui s’étonnent de l’échec monumental de Service Canada à délivrer des passeports dans des délais raisonnables.

Les personnes sans-emploi qui ont dû composer avec la machine défectueuse qu’est Service Canada sourcillent probablement devant les propos de la ministre lorsqu’elle invoque le caractère exceptionnel de la situation. Certains se rappelleront également qu’en 2006, un syndicat d’employés de la fonction publique canadienne avait pointé du doigt l’existence de directives internes ayant pour effet de falsifier les chiffres sur les délais d’attente réels à Service Canada.

Le manque de transparence et le cafouillage chez Service Canada ne datent pas d’hier. Depuis l’instauration de cette méga-agence fédérale, les groupes de défense des droits des chômeurs de la province n’ont cessé de dénoncer l’accroissement des délais d’attente pour le traite006, pour résorber l’arriéré des 80 000 dossiers dont le traitement dépassait les 28 jours, le Mouvement autonome et solidaire des sans-emploi (MASSE) recommandait d’augmenter le nombre d’agents d’au moins 20 % et de cesser la chasse aux « mauvais chômeurs ».

Le même son de cloche fut donné en 2008, 2010, 2013 et pour toutes les années subséquentes. Enfin, le rapport Massé sur la qualité des services, publié en 2015, suggérait un ensemble de solutions qui auraient pu être mises en place bien avant la pandémie. Il faut augmenter le nombre d’agents et bonifier leur formation, simplifier les procédures opérationnelles et investir dans les infrastructures technologiques.

Après dix-sept ans, force est de constater que Service Canada est non seulement devenu une machine qui fragilise les populations vulnérables, mais un véritable frein à l’exercice du droit à une protection en cas de chômage pour tous les travailleurs.

Depuis l’hiver 2022 — alors que les demandes de chômage atteignent un creux historique — Service Canada bat de tristes records. En janvier, ce sont près de 300 000 dossiers qui ne respectent pas les normes de traitement, certaines personnes pouvant attendre jusqu’à un an pour que soit traitée leur demande. Gardés dans l’ombre, les futurs prestataires doivent appeler en moyenne sept fois les services de première ligne pour obtenir un suivi de leur dossier.

Comble de l’aberration, les demandes classées « urgences humanitaires » ne sont plus considérées comme prioritaires depuis quelque temps. Des chômeurs en détresse se font dire de prendre leur mal en patience, de s’endetter et parfois même d’aller chercher de l’aide sociale. Les conséquences sont dramatiques. Connaissez-vous beaucoup de personnes capables de faire vivre leur famille sans revenus pendant deux, voire quatre mois ?

Au-delà de la pandémie

Loin d’être perméable aux vagues de réformes de l’administration publique observées depuis 1970, le Canada crée en 2005 Service Canada, un organe à guichet unique au sein duquel seront désormais administrés les programmes de quatorze ministères. Cette nouvelle structure, nous promet-on, « permettra à la fois d’améliorer la qualité des services tout en réalisant des économies ».

Service Canada importe des méthodes de gestion propres à celles des entreprises privées et témoigne d’une vision clientéliste des services publics. L’importance accrue accordée aux mécanismes d’évaluation du rendement du personnel alourdit les procédures administratives, alors que l’informatisation mur à mur des services est inadaptée aux besoins réels des chômeurs dont les demandes sont « irrégulières ».

Résultat : l’ajout d’un billet médical dans la demande d’assurance-emploi, ou la déclaration d’indemnités provenant de la CNESST par exemple, peut priver une personne sans-emploi de prestations pendant des mois.

À l’été 2020, le gouvernement Trudeau a promis d’adapter le régime d’assurance-chômage « à la réalité des travailleurs du XXIe siècle ». Or, tant et aussi longtemps que le gouvernement nie les dysfonctions profondes de l’appareil censé administrer le régime, les Canadiens risquent de ne pas voir la couleur des prestations auxquelles ils et elles ont droit.

L’amnésie du gouvernement a assez duré.

Source: Délais d’attente à Service Canada ou quand l’exception fait la règle

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Shmigel: Australia: Multiculturalism is in, and that’s a good thing

2022/07/04 Leave a comment

On the need in Australia for a conservative case for multiculturalism, learning from the Canadian experience:

According to the latest Census results, for the first time, more than half of Australians (51.2 per cent) are now either born overseas or have at least one parent born overseas.

Ethnics and migrants, dear Speccie readers, now have the numbers. Multiculturalism – broadly defined – is in the majority.

If there’s one word or concept that gets many conservatives and many libertarians ‘highly focused’ that is definitely it: multiculturalism. In some ways, that’s understandable when we consider ‘progressive’ ills rightly or wrongly associated with it.

Given the demographic facts of Australia, it may be time for people on the centre-right of Australia’s political spectrum to think anew about what’s historically been positioned by some as a necessarily bad thing.

Perhaps it is time for the conservative case for multiculturalism.

But first, let’s step back. What’s been the critique of multiculturalism in the past? These points might summarise it:

  • Multiculturalism segregates Australians into different types – the ghetto argument.
  • Multiculturalism undermines mainstream Australian values – the cultural subversion argument.
  • Multiculturalism is social engineering – the ‘collectivism is bad’ argument.

While familiar, do these arguments actually stand up against factuality? Not so much.

In the first respect, after many decades of diversity and of pro-multicultural policies, the reality is that the vast majority of everyday interactions between Australians of up to 200 different ethnic, religious, and linguistic backgrounds are entirely civil and respectful. Inter-ethnic relations are in most respects completely normal and unremarkable. They’re in fact dead-set boring 99 per cent or more of the time.

Migrant groups have always tended to both geographically and culturally assimilate more than they tend to segregate. The trend, as driven by migrants themselves, isn’t toward any ghettos or enclaves, but toward the new outer suburban and multi-ethnic residential developments that dominate our major cities’ real estate sales. (Home ownership is greatly valued by our largest and fastest growing ethnic group – Indians – in particular.)

The truth is that, regardless of settlement status or ethnic background, much more binds us than drives us apart. The number of formal complaints to various human rights bodies or government agencies, no less criminal charges via the legal system, based on internecine hatred or ethnic violence between Australians is tiny. In 2020, in a culturally diverse society of some 23 million, there were some 100 complaints about racial hatred to the Human Rights Commission of which 20 per cent were between neighbours and 30 per cent were workplace-related.

Truth be told, migrants tend to readily settle and integrate, and their non-migrant neighbours and workmates tend to readily accept them. Think of the Vietnamese migration of the 70s and the once-prevalent mythology around Cabramatta and other ‘enclaves’ that accompanied that wave. Many in that era were convinced that was the end of our culture as we know it. Those are now but distant memories. We don’t even think twice about our Vietnamese origin neighbours or our child’s schoolmate. If we do, it’s likely to consider ourselves lucky to have such respectful and hard-working neighbours and their smart kids.

In the second respect, unlike many European countries, we actually have very little disagreement – beyond some squeaky media grabs from time to time – about our beliefs. English is uncontested as our language; in fact, it’s the legislated language in some states. We generally abide by the same norms; our settlement and citizenship system, unlike those of France or Germany for example, encourages that. People may well practice their home cultures in their homes, houses of worship, and community centres, but, if we’re honest, there’s little evidence of a substantive impact on our home-grown and common one.

In the third respect, it’s hard to deny the individual aspiration of the majority of people from migrant and ethnic backgrounds. In fact, they tend to own more small businesses than ‘non-ethnics’; they tend to succeed in higher education to a greater extent than ‘non-ethnics’, as any quick look at the annual HSC or VCE results shows.

Those on the centre-right need to consider this evidence that many people from migrant and ethnic backgrounds are about taking responsibility, working hard, and getting ahead at the individual and family levels – rather than counting on some hand-out mentality targeted at ‘groups’ or ‘victims’. Their presence, and indeed now predominance, in Australian society, is reinforcing social goods that our side values.

While there are vast differences between ethnic backgrounds – say Indian people and Chinese people – and vast differences within any given ethnic group itself, a generalisation is possible: people from migrant and ethnic backgrounds exemplify the characteristics that many of us on the centre-right see as positive and constructive. Multiculturalism is working in favour of our model of society.

For some more depth, consider the pro-business behaviours of our migrants and ethnics. In recent years, small businesses have contributed around $400 billion to Australia’s GDP (or about a third of the total economy) and employed some 40 per cent of the business workforce. Less known is that a third of small businesses are run by first or second-generation migrants, some 80 per cent of whom didn’t own a business before coming to Australia. Migrant business owners employed 1.4 million people across Australia and had an annual revenue that was 53 per cent higher than for non-migrant businesses.

If we more broadly consider ethnic connection, the numbers are even bigger: the clear majority of small businesses in Australia are owned by Australians with a non-Anglo surname.

That is a fine level of entrepreneurialism that the centre-right should embrace and admire. And, in purely political marketing terms, migrant and ethnic small business is a significant constituency to respect and work with (read: not pander to).

And, both major parties do in fact ‘get it’ in part. It’s standard practice for there to be specific election campaigning on both sides with regard to ethnic communities and the way that they communicate. Both parties are also smart enough to realise that there isn’t an ‘ethnic vote’ per se and that people, regardless of background, vote on similar issues such as the economy and social services. You can, though, certainly lose large swathes of voters if you don’t show you are respectful of people’s origins or treat them as second-class citizens.

Participation, rather than communications, will be the key going forward. Canada, for example, with a similar multicultural dynamic has for a few generations now had Ministers of significant ethnic background (putting aside Francophone politicians) from both sides of politics. While there were further changes at the last election, Australia’s parliament is yet to significantly look like its suburbs.

To get to that point, and the centre-right would be purely electorally dumb not to aspire to it, we need to drop some of our misconceptions. That starts with avoiding semantic slippage and not so automatically labelling specific policy concerns as somehow solely products of ‘multiculturalism’. That kind of generalisation has hints of a deeper institutional racism and, therefore, the centre-right would want nothing to do with it.

It might be better to think of multiculturalism not as policy or policy objective, but rather as what my old boss, Barry O’Farrell, thought of it. He said: ‘Multiculturalism is simply a way of life.’

If its strong features are pro-opportunity and pro-family, the centre-right should be welcoming that way of life.

As I was writing this piece, I walked past a theatre in western Sydney where a citizenship ceremony was taking place. There were dozens of people and family units who were clearly not ‘Anglo’ for a lack of a better term. All were impeccably dressed; all held Australian flags; all were intensely proud of this the day they became Australians. They are winners and the centre-right should back them.

Source: Multiculturalism is in, and that’s a good thing

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Ontario needs stronger voice in immigration, McNaughton says

2022/07/04 Leave a comment

Pre-negotiation starting position. Higher national levels provide federal government with room to meet or partially meet Ontario’s demands:

Ontario needs more autonomy in immigration to ensure newcomers meet the economic needs of the province, Labour, Immigration, Training, and Skills Development Minister Monte McNaughton says.

The province is seeking more control as it negotiates a new federal-Ontario immigration agreement this fall, similar to the deal with Quebec, with the goal of filling an estimated 340,000 job vacancies, he said.

“Over the last 18 months, we’ve reprioritized the immigrants that Ontario needs, so skilled trades workers and health-care workers are the professionals that we’re prioritizing through the Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program (OINP),” McNaughton said Saturday. “But as it stands today, the federal government only gives us 9,000 newcomers to select out of 125,000 that come to Ontario every year.”

Given its population, Ontario has a disproportionately small voice in choosing newcomers compared to other Canadian jurisdictions, he said.

As a first step, the federal government should immediately double the number of newcomers through OINP to 18,000 a year, he said.

McNaughton said he has already reached out to his counterparts in other parts of the county to determine common ground and goals before approaching the federal government at a joint meeting at the end of the month.

“That’s how Ontario and Canada was built over the last 155 years, by bringing in newcomers with the right skills to build the future of our country,” McNaughton said. “And that’s exactly what we’re asking for from the federal government.”

Being free to choose newcomers based on their skill sets means a better match with the labour market and more success for new immigrants, he said.

“Only 25% of immigrants today that are here in Ontario are actually working in fields that they’ve studied,” he said.

The Doug Ford government has been set on its labour and immigration agenda for several years, becoming the first government in Canada to recognize all foreign credentials outside health care, he said.

Ontario has now opened all its training programs as widely as possible including to newcomers, people on social assistance and those with criminal backgrounds, he said.

“My message is if you have the skills and want to work, Ontario needs you,” McNaughton said.

A substantial time lag in the federal immigration approval process remains a challenge with some applicants waiting years, he said.

Ontario has offered its own resources to accelerate the process, he said.

“I just can’t press enough of the federal government to give us more of a say, to speed up the process and ensure that we’re bringing in immigrants with the right skills to build the future of Ontario,” McNaughton said.

Source: Ontario needs stronger voice in immigration, McNaughton says

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Will Canada welcome over 500,000 new immigrants per year?

2022/07/04 Leave a comment

Real question is should Canada welcome over 500,000 new immigrants per year given the externalities involved (e.g., housing, transit, infrastructure, environmental impact etc):

Minister Sean Fraser believes Canada’s immigration levels will surpass 500,000 per year “sooner rather than later”, but the minister cautioned that future increases must be done in a careful manner that supports the needs of communities across the country.

The immigration minister was in Toronto last week to speak at Collision, a global technology conference. Following his speaking engagement, he sat down with CIC News for an in-depth conversation on the future of Canada’s immigration system.

Canada now seeking over 430,000 immigrants annually

Prior to the pandemic, Canada was seeking over 340,000 new immigrants per year but immigration fell in 2020 due to travel restrictions and Canadian government officials needing to work remotely. In October 2020, Canada announced it would seek over 400,000 immigrants annually beginning in 2021 to support its post-COVID economic recovery. Canada ended up exceeding its target by landing a record 405,000 new permanent residents last year.

In February, Fraser tabled Canada’s Immigration Levels Plan 2022-2024. Canada is now seeking over 430,000 immigrants per year and will target 450,000 by 2024.

Immigration Levels Plan 2023-2025: Over 500,000 new permanent residents per year?

Fraser is due to announce updated targets yet again by this November 1st, when he announces the Immigration Levels Plan 2023-2025.

Although it is still too early to finalize the 2023-2025 plan, CIC News asked Fraser to share his early thoughts on the plan, and more specifically, whether he was working towards getting the annual target to over 500,000 per year.

“Look, I wouldn’t put it on the clock. I think we will get there. We’re growing in excess of 1% of our population through the existing track. That trajectory is going to continue. I don’t know the exact year we’re going to cross that threshold [500,000 immigrants per year]. It’s going to be based on the needs of communities.”

“It’s not a point of pride that I have to be the minister that gets to 500,000…what’s important to me is that I’m meeting the needs of communities and giving them the opportunity to experience success through our immigration system. If that means we have to welcome 500,000 new permanent residents in a calendar year, then that’s great. And I’m very happy to advance that.”

“My sense is we’re going to get there sooner rather than later, because the needs and opportunities associated with welcoming newcomers are great. And if we can ensure we do not exceed our absorptive capacity of our communities on our way to getting there, then this is going to be a huge strategic advantage for Canada.”

Fraser is aware of the importance of providing enough supports to Canadians and newcomers alike

Among the major immigration levels considerations is Canada’s capacity to provide the necessary infrastructure and supports to its existing population as well as new arrivals.

While speaking on stage at Collision, the minister was asked whether he felt Canada had enough housing available to accommodate its rising immigrant population.

The minister replied this issue is top of mind with his federal colleagues in Ottawa. Our conversation on housing usually goes as follows. Ahmed, will you be able to build houses fast enough for Canada’s new immigrants? He replies, Sean, will you bring immigrant workers into Canada quickly enough to build the houses?”

Source: Will Canada welcome over 500,000 new immigrants per year?

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Passport delay task force wants something ‘tangible’ within weeks, minister says

2022/06/30 Leave a comment

Pure spin. IRCC and Service Canada are the responsible departments, Minister Fraser and Gould the responsible ministers. Conservative critiques of the task force as “a summer research project for Liberal ministers” is both clever and valid.

However, the broader systemic issue at play is that this government, in particular, but previous governments as well, are less interested in the nitty-gritty of service delivery as Heintzman recounts so well in Kathryn May’s The Achilles heel of the federal public service gives out again with passport fiasco:

The co-chair of a new cabinet committee struck to tackle massive passport processing delays says she’d like to see “something tangible in the next several weeks.”

Speaking at a funding announcement Tuesday in Toronto, Women and Gender Equality Minister Marci Ien said the committee is first speaking to the ministers responsible for files including passports, immigration and air transportation about the issues.

“We take that information and we go, so that process is happening right now, it’s started,” she said. “I would be a very happy camper, and I know my colleagues would be, if we had something tangible in the next several weeks.”

As COVID-19 restrictions are lifted, Canadians are returning to international travel in droves, applying for a passport for the first time or renewing passports that expired during the pandemic. This has sparked long lineups at passport offices. In some cases, the police have had to be called due to altercations.

In response to the delays, the Prime Minister’s Office announced on Saturday the creation of a “task force to improve government services,” made up of 10 ministers and co-chaired by Ien and Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Marc Miller.

Asked about her understanding of the causes for the bottlenecks, Ien said “this is about listening first.

“That’s how I operate: I get the facts, I listen, and then I act, and my co-chair is the same,” she said. “I want Canadians to know that we are there for them, we are there with them, and we will get to the bottom of this.”

Unions representing workers who deal with passport intake and processing said they were flagging concerns to the government last year about imminent delays, partly due to the easing of COVID-19 restrictions.

“They didn’t give us a clear answer on what the plan was,” Crystal Warner, national executive vice-president of the Canada Employment and Immigration Union, told the Star last week.

“There didn’t seem to be a lot of concern or consideration.”

Warner’s union represents Service Canada workers, including those who deal with passport intake.

The task force has not reached out to the union whose members are responsible for processing passport applications, said Kevin King, national president of the Union of National Employees. But he said he’s ready to engage with the ministers “at any moment in time.”

Speaking from Montreal, where the delays have been particularly brutal, King said he was beginning to see some improvements, including extra security personnel and more managers from other departments assisting staff.

“But these are very early days,” King said.

Social Development Minister Karina Gould, who is responsible for the passport file, announced last week that some specialized passport sites in large cities would implement a triage system to prioritize individuals travelling within the next 24 to 48 hours.

The Conservatives blasted the task force as being comprised of some of the government’s “worst-performing ministers,” saying in a statement Monday that more bureaucracy is not the answer to tackling the delays.

“Rather than focusing on resolving the crisis, hard-working public servants will now need to divert their attention to help a task force of Liberal ministers study the problem,” the statement said.

“Canadians need front-line workers processing applications and working through the backlog, not a summer research project for Liberal ministers.”

Source: Passport delay task force wants something ‘tangible’ within weeks, minister says

Filed under Citizenship, Passports Tagged with , , ,

Ontario judge upholds Tamil Genocide Education Week in battle ‘over who gets to write the history of the war’

2022/06/30 Leave a comment

Interesting case and verdict. With respect to Judge Akbarali, any such act can never be purely “educative,” as it reflects politics and relative strength of particular communities:

A court has dismissed a constitutional challenge over Ontario’s proclamation of Tamil Genocide Education Week — concluding that its purpose is purely “educative.”

In a case that cast a spotlight on tension between diasporas, several Sinhalese-Canadian groups took Ontario to court for designating the seven-day period each year ending May 18 — the date the Sri Lankan civil war ended in 2009 — to raise awareness of the Tamil genocide and other genocides in world history.

The Sinhalese applicants claimed that no Tamil genocide has been recognized under international law, arguing that the provincial government didn’t have the authority to adopt the term “genocide” and that the designation would promote hatred for one group over another.

In quashing the claim by the Sinhalese applicants, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice said the 26-year-old civil war ravaged Sri Lanka, but the fight has not ended.

“A new battle has emerged over who gets to write the history of the war,” wrote Justice Jasmine Akbarali in a ruling released Tuesday. “While this new battle does not intuitively seem like an issue for the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, it has in fact become one.”

The Tamil-Canadian diaspora welcomed the decision, saying education is one of the only ways available for the community to pursue justice and healing because the Sri Lanka government has been reluctant to recognize the atrocities and punish those responsible.

“Tamils across the province can now focus on what matters — commemorating and remembering the countless lives lost,” said Katpana Nagendra, a member of the Tamil Rights Group, one of the organizations granted intervener status in this case.

The Tamil Genocide Education Week Act, a private member’s bill tabled by Conservative MPP Vijay Thanigasalam, who is of Tamil descent, was passed unanimously in the Ontario legislature last year.

The preamble of the proclamation of the Tamil Genocide Education Week states that Tamil Ontarians have lost loved ones and have been physically or mentally traumatized by the genocide that the Sri Lankan state perpetrated against the Tamils during the civil war, which lasted from 1983 to the Tamil Tigers’ defeat in 2009.

Akbarali said the court heard evidence from “dueling” witnesses about the Sri Lankan civil war, and specifically, whether or not what occurred amounted to a genocide of Tamils.

“I am not deciding who bears the blame, or who bears more of the blame, for the tremendous suffering and trauma that occurred as a result of the Sri Lankan civil war,” the judge wrote in the 18-page decision.

“Nor am I deciding whether it was wise for the Ontario Legislature to pass the TGEWA. The wisdom of the legislation is a question that belongs solely to the Legislature, and more indirectly, to the voters of the province. The question before me relates only to the constitutionality of the TGEWA.”

While the court agreed with the claim that the proclamation recognizes a Tamil genocide, it said the act is in the spirit of educating the public about the event and other genocides to prevent such atrocities from occurring, and helping create an opportunity for Tamil Ontarians to share their stories and the intergenerational trauma the legislature has recognized.

“The TGEWA does not require any particular educational initiatives to be undertaken by any particular institution,” said Akbarali. “The dominant characteristic of the law is to educate the public about what the Ontario Legislature has concluded is a Tamil genocide.”

The province did not infringe on the federal jurisdiction in relation to the designation of genocide because the act didn’t contain a penalty or claim to determine that genocide has taken place “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

“The perpetrator of the genocide recognized by the Legislature is … to be the Sri Lankan government. A claim or a finding of genocide perpetrated by a government or a state does not tar individuals who may be members of the same nationality, ethnicity, or religious affiliation as those people who dominate the government or state,” said the court.

ation of Tamil Genocide Education Week — concluding that its purpose is purely “educative.” In a case that cast a spotlight on tension between diasporas, several Sinhalese-Canadian groups took Ontario to court for designating the seven-day period each year ending May 18 — the date the Sri Lankan civil war ended in 2009 — to raise awareness of the Tamil genocide and other genocides in world history.

Source: Ontario judge upholds Tamil Genocide Education Week in battle ‘over who gets to write the history of the war’

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

No date set for IRCC to waive Canadian citizenship application fees

2022/06/30 Leave a comment

And so the platform commitment from the 2019 and 2021 election commitments remains unmet along with the earlier commitment to revise the Discover Canada citizenship study guide.

Will see whether the fee commitment is included in the next budget:

The Canadian government needs more time to fulfil its promise to waive citizenship fees for applicants.

Immigration Minister Sean Fraser made this revelation in a recent sit-down interview with CIC News in Toronto.

The Canadian government announced shortly before the pandemic in late 2019 it would waive fees for new Canadian citizenship applicants. The pandemic delayed these plans and then Canada held a federal election last September. After the Liberal Party of Canada won their third straight election, Justin Trudeau asked his new immigration minister, Fraser, to follow through with the promise to waive citizenship fees. This is outlined in Fraser’s mandate letter, which contains his top immigration policy priorities.

When asked by CIC News on when this promise may be implemented, the minister responded “We don’t have a date for you, and I feel it’s best to be open.”

“The reason why is the decision to waive citizenship fees is not something that just exists within our [Immigration Refugee and Citizenship Canada (IRCC] authorities.”

He explained that the authority to do so also exists within the federal budgetary process and no decisions have been made yet for the next federal fiscal year.

Canada has one of the highest citizenship uptake rates in the world with some 85% of permanent residents becoming citizens. Prior to the pandemic some 250,000 people became citizens each year. However, some advocates argued that Canadian citizenship fees created barriers for low-income individuals to go ahead and become citizens. This explains why the federal government went ahead and said it wanted to waive fees altogether. It appears the government believes this policy will prove popular. A 2019 policy document by the Liberals suggested the government expected Canadian citizenship applications to increase 40% by 2024.

The Canadian citizenship application backlog increased significantly during the pandemic, which Fraser explained is a function of factors such as IRCC employees needing to work remotely and the lack of in-person citizenship ceremonies at the start of the pandemic. In April 2020, the citizenship inventory stood at 240,000 persons but it grew to 468,000 persons by October 2021. Recent data suggests IRCC has been making progress, with the backlog now at 395,000 persons.

Permanent residents who which to become Canadian citizens must meet certain criteria, such as physically residing in Canada for at least 1,095 days during the five years before they sign their citizenship application. Canadian citizenship by descent is also available to the first generation born abroad to a Canadian parent.

Fraser provided assurances that he is committed to fulfilling the policy priorities in his mandate letter. “Once we have news on that [waiving citizenship fees], we will be broadcasting it as widely as possible so that people know what to expect and timing for it to actually come into effect.”

Source: No date set for IRCC to waive Canadian citizenship application fees

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Tom Mulcair on Legault’s multiculturalism remarks

2022/06/30 Leave a comment

Of note:

The weather is getting better, the Canada Day long weekend is just around the corner and we could all use a break…so Francois Legault decided it’s the perfect time to attack multiculturalism!

Last weekend, the Quebec premier had this to say: “It’s important that we don’t put all cultures on the same level; that’s why we oppose multiculturalism…We prefer to concentrate on what we call interculturalism, where we have one culture, the Quebec culture…”

Legault, of course, is just repeating something that has become commonplace in Quebec: the notion that multiculturalism is a threat.

That’s one of the reasons why Legault has been fighting for full jurisdiction over the choice of immigrants to his province, especially the family-reunification category.

LANGUAGES SPOKEN AT HOME

Not content to just tell people what language they should speak at work, he’s taken to musing about the language people should speak at home. He apparently doesn’t want families reuniting if they are going to be speaking a language other than French in their own house!

For forty years, Canada has had constitutionally guaranteed official bilingualism within a framework of multiculturalism.

The old “two founding peoples” vision (English and French) was replaced by a view that Canada is enriched by the vibrant diversity of all cultures present, and that irrespective of national origin, certain rights to services in both official languages were to be protected.

Things like access to official language minority schools have been guaranteed. That means, in turn, that the English-speaking community of Quebec and the French-speaking minority of, say, Manitoba both have the constitutional right to control and manage the Boards that oversee the schools their kids can attend.

Other language rights are protected by the Canadian constitution. For example, English and French must be used at all steps of the legislative process in Quebec, Manitoba and New Brunswick (the only officially bilingual province) and the right to use both languages is guaranteed in pleadings before the courts of those provinces.

In order to change the constitution in a way that affects guaranteed language rights, the 1982 Constitution Act says explicitly that you need a joint resolution of the House of Commons and the Senate. That’s what Quebec did when it replaced religion-based school boards with language-based institutions. Lucien Bouchard was the premier, I was in the Liberal opposition and both parties worked together to modernize the system.

Resolutions were obtained in both houses of the Canadian Parliament authorizing the change and It has gone into effect and worked since. Problem is, Legault has also attacked (with Bill 40) the right of the English-speaking community to control and manage its own school boards. The courts have had to intervene to enforce the constitution and stop him.

Since that rebuke, Legault seems to have resolved to never again let the Canadian constitution interfere with his plans to remove minority language rights. With Bill 96, Legault is now claiming to have unilaterally changed the B.N.A. Act, the founding constitutional law from 1867, to remove language guarantees for equality of English and French in official legal documents and before the courts.

No resolution of Parliament was required, in his view, and neither Justin Trudeau nor his Justice Minister David Lametti have stood up to defend the Canadian constitution or the citizens whose rights are being removed.

Those rights have been reinforced through a series of Supreme Court decisions and the bilingual nature of the courts and legislation in Manitoba, Quebec and New Brunswick are constitutionally sacrosanct. Lametti seems to be unaware.

After Bill 96 was enacted at the end of the legislative session in Quebec City, anglophone Quebecers woke up to the fact that they could no longer get a marriage certificate in English and an English birth certificate from B.C. may as well have be from the other end of the world. You need to have both officially translated – at your own expense! Of course this flies in the face of the constitution. But Trudeau and Lametti don’t want to make waves in the province where they both get elected, so they do nothing.

I was working in the legislative branch of the Quebec Justice Department in the late ‘70s when the Supreme Court ruled that the failure to respect the B.N.A. Act’s bilingualism obligations meant that all Quebec legislation could be struck down. A mad scramble ensued and the legislation was all reenacted, in both official languages, the next day.

Manitoba stonewalled but was eventually compelled to produce a full bilingual version of all of its legislation and the forms that come with it. I also worked in Manitoba for a couple of years to oversee that translation.

Imagine for one second that a Manitoba government would claim to be able to unilaterally amend the Manitoba Act, that mandates this official bilingualism! That was in fact a key argument the Manitoba government has tried in the past and it was rejected conclusively by the Supreme Court. If it were tried again, the Federal government wouldn’t waste a second challenging it.

Why then won’t the feds lift their little finger to protect the same right to use English in the courts in Quebec?

WHY THIS INERTIA IN OTTAWA?

When the constitution allows for a difference for one province, it does so explicitly. For example, there is a different rule for access to English school in Quebec which is baked right into s. 23 of the 1982 constitution. There is, however, no difference allowed when it comes to the requirement to enact legislation, every step of the way, in both languages in Quebec. The use of both languages in legal documents before the courts is also guaranteed. So why this inertia in Ottawa?

To find an answer, it’s good to start with Bill 21, the Quebec law that openly discriminates against religious minorities generally and Muslim women in particular.

That law, like Bill 96, is so patently unconstitutional that Legault has preemptively used the notwithstanding clause to say that it applies despite the Charter of Rights.

Since that law was enacted, we’ve had various degrees of dithering from the different Federal parties, including Trudeau’s Liberals. But Trudeau is the Prime minister. Only he can refer these issues directly to the Supreme Court. Problem is, he won’t, because he’s terrified of Legault. As a result, the first time in our history, we have a federal government that refuses to defend the Canadian constitution.

In the meantime, religious and linguistic minorities are being left to fight the discriminatory and unconstitutional Bills 21 and 96 on their own. It’s a shameful abdication of responsibility by Trudeau and Lametti but such is the state of play when it comes to defending the rights of Canadians who happen to live in Quebec.

Against that backdrop, the Trudeau government has introduced language legislation to shore up the ageing Official Languages Act. Quebec has taken to sending in missives to the Feds telling them what changes have to be made to their law to harmonize it with Quebec’s language laws. This is very complex and detailed handiwork that appears to be beyond the grasp of the team Trudeau has tasked with shepherding the file through Parliament.

As a result, the fall session in Ottawa will no doubt see more than its fair share of debates on language.

For now, whether at the lake or in a local park, let’s just give ourselves that break and enjoy this weekend’s celebration of our fabulous country where, despite these ups and downs, we’re all so lucky to live together. Happy Canada Day!

Source: Tom Mulcair on Legault’s multiculturalism remarks

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