Wells: And now, the inevitable Bill 21 fight

2021/12/13 Leave a comment

Usual insightful column by Paul Wells:

Here’s one measure of how little Building Back Better we’re getting done here in the nation’s capital: MPs from different parties and perspectives are having an interesting conversation about important matters. But it’s entirely off-book. It’s spontaneous, the leaders of the various parties didn’t ask for it, and it’s pretty clear they desperately wish it weren’t happening. In Ottawa, saying what you think is an act of rebellion.

The week’s topic is, of course, Quebec’s Bill 21, which forbids hiring public servants, including teachers, who dress incorrectly (“The persons listed in Schedule II are prohibited from wearing religious symbols in the exercise of their functions.”) The bill was introduced in March of 2019 and passed into law soon after. Federal party leaders fielded questions about it in debates during the 2019 and 2021 elections. Each time, Quebec’s premier François Legault got angry at the people who asked the questions. So did federal party leaders, who pay ever-growing hordes of witless staffers to tell them how to move and talk and who cannot for the life of them understand that the rest of us aren’t also conscripts in that effort.

Anyway the inevitable happened. This week news broke that a Grade 3 teacher in the bucolic Quebec town of Chelsea, a stone’s throw from Ottawa, was pulled from class for wearing a hijab. Here’s how it played in one early story: nameless teacher reassigned to “another function” outside the class, school officials shtum on details, shocked community hanging green ribbons.

A chain reaction ensued. Kyle Seeback, a Brampton Conservative MP, kicked it off by tweeting, “I cannot in good conscience keep silent on this anymore… Bill 21 has to be opposed. In court, in the house of commons and in the streets.” Jamie Schmale, Chris Warkentin and Mark Strahl tweeted their agreement.

Seeback’s conscience seems to have gnawed at him after he retweeted a Wednesday-night tweet from the Globe’s Robyn Urback wondering why Catherine McKenna, the former Liberal environment minister, now calls Law 21’s application “appalling” but didn’t, at the time, contradict Justin Trudeau’s milder language in the 2019 and ’21 campaigns. Good for Seeback, actually, for amplifying some snark aimed at a Liberal and then realizing it applied to him too. Soon McKenna and the Conservative MPs had company among Liberals still in caucus: Alexandra Mendes, Salma Zahid, Iqra Khalid, Marc Garneau. Finally a sitting cabinet minister, Marc Miller, called the law’s application “cowardly.” There is also a clip of Chrystia Freeland, the federal Minister of Careful What You Wish For, saying as close to nothing as she can possibly say, a recurring highlight of many recent debates.

I don’t like Bill 21 either. It’s based on silly reasoning—“the state” must have no religion, so nobody who works for the state may be seen to have any religion. This is like saying the state has no particular height, so public servants must be required to hover above the ground. Somewhere around here there’s an old column I wrote patiently explaining this logic and its heritage in the receding role of the Catholic church in Quebec society, a column some of my Toronto colleagues still enjoy mocking, but there’s a difference between understanding the argument and buying it. On a list of the top, say, thousand problems facing modern Quebec, “teachers in head scarves” would not appear. And one of the most obvious things we can say about this law is that the costs it imposes—in personal freedom, economic opportunity, social ostracism—is essentially never borne by people named Tremblay or Côté or Wells. Somehow the burden seems to land reliably on people named—well, in the current instance, on Fatemeh Anvari. About whom more in a moment.

I have also never felt that Bill 21 reveals some universal moral failing of “Quebec.” Every criticism I can level against this law has been levelled, many times, by Quebecers, including several of the Liberal MPs who ran out of patience yesterday; the Quebec Liberal and Québec Solidaire parties, which between them won more votes than Legault’s party did in 2018; an impressive selection of municipal politicians and commentators in, mostly, Montreal; and Judge Marc-André Blanchard of Quebec Superior Court, whose ruling struck down parts of Bill 21 and exclaimed his helplessness with regard to the rest: he plainly doesn’t like the thing, but Legault’s use of the constitution’s “notwithstanding” clause protects most of the law from legal challenge or judicial invalidation. Solid majorities in Quebec have supported the law in polls, but I’m not sure how long that will last, and since the law’s Charter-proofing provisions must be renewed every five years in the National Assembly, I’m not sure the law itself will last long either. I reject the notion that only Quebecers may have an opinion on the thing, because of course everyone can have an opinion on anything. But the conversation among Quebecers is plenty multifaceted already.

A few points of context. First, the provisions of the law, as they apply to the Western Quebec School Board which employs Fatemeh Anvari, have already been struck down. Minority-language education rights are notwithstanding-proof, and Judge Blanchard did to the provisions regarding English school boards what he plainly wished he could do to the whole law. Legault’s government appealed the ruling, and under Quebec law the provisions remain in place pending appeal, but Legault will lose the appeal and by next year, there may be no remaining barrier to teachers in hijabs teaching in Quebec’s English-language schools. This doesn’t help the rest of the province, at least not immediately, but it sets up two cases that parents will be able to observe and compare. Which is a ball that can bounce in many different ways over time.

Second, in interviews Anvari is plainly rattled by a situation she should not be in. But neither is she fired nor banished to the furthest reaches of her school’s steam-pipe trunk distribution venue. As the Lowdown’s excellent story notes, she’s been assigned to lead “a literacy project for all students [that] will target inclusion and awareness of diversity.” This is not as good as simply letting her teach the curriculum would have been, if the law had permitted it, but it shows considerable wit. Again, in a complex society, citizens respond in ways governments often don’t intend and wouldn’t prefer. Governments often don’t take that news well.

Third: those calling on governments to do something, now including members of the federal governing caucus, are sometimes short of ideas about what, precisely, to do. Federal lawyers in a court challenge could make no argument that hasn’t already been made—and, largely, rejected by the frustrated Judge Blanchard. Short of reviving the obsolete powers of reservation and disallowance, a step even Pierre Trudeau declined to take against even Bill 101, there’s not much a federal intervention could add.

Is there therefore no point in simply talking, or simply sending federal lawyers to say what lawyers for civil-society groups have already said? No, I think there’s a point, in that it brings government’s actions more closely in line with what are obviously the opinions of the people who compose the government. (Note that there isn’t a single Liberal MP tweeting, “Guys, Bill 21 is great!”) A reduction in the amount of hypocrisy in a system is always welcome and lately well overdue. But as a practical matter, the feds can’t do much to change the situation.

Finally, less important but still worth mentioning: When four Conservative MPs tweeted within minutes about their renewed love of freedom, it was hard to escape the suspicion that there’s something else going on. Perhaps this: those Conservatives are not, by and large, conspicuous Erin O’Toole fans, and many come from ridings where much of the Conservative voter base is spitting mad at O’Toole for perceived softness on vaccine mandates. When Seeback talks about opposing Bill 21 “in the street,” that sure sounds like an echo of the way a lot of people opposed vaccine mandates. MPs who can’t give their voters much satisfaction on the latter are probably grateful for a chance to blow off some steam on the former. That’s not to dismiss or rebut the Bill 21 Freedom Four; it’s just to note that motives are often mixed or additive.

Here’s the thing: in a liberal democracy you can’t keep a cork in everyone’s mouth forever. You shouldn’t try. It’s been fun watching the leaderships of three federal political parties try to deny simple human feelings over an inherently emotional issue. But the fun’s over. Now citizens are going to act like citizens. Always a scary moment for communications professionals.

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , , , ,

British Labour MP: Children are being priced out of British citizenship – it’s unjust and must change

2021/12/13 Leave a comment

All UK citizenship fees are comparatively more expensive that other EU countries and Australia, Canada and the USA. But the fees for children are particularly high. The previous Conservative government, while increasing adult fees from $200 to $630 (including the right of citizenship), it left fees at $200 for children:

In the 2019 Conservative leadership election, Boris Johnson claimed: “I want everybody who comes here and makes their lives here to be and to feel British”. But government policy is effectively telling hundreds of thousands of children the exact opposite.

The children in question, born here to parents with leave to remain, like me, or born abroad but resident here for most of their lives, like our Prime Minister, are growing up in limbo in the country they call home instead of enjoying their full citizenship rights.

There are between 85,000 to 215,000 children with a legal entitlement to British citizenship who have ended up undocumented due to the extortionate registration fee. Through no fault of their own, they will go on to experience real difficulties in later life as a result, subjected to the same hostile environment measures that caused so much suffering to members of the Windrush generation. Many young people may not even realise they do not have citizenship until they try to travel, get a job, rent a home or are suddenly asked to pay international fees for their university education.

If the £35 fee introduced in 1983 had risen in line with inflation, it would be £120 today. Instead, it is now £1,012 and one of the highest such fees in Europe, doubling in the last decade alone. We are charging British children ten times more to claim their citizenship rights than their counterparts in Spain, France, Belgium, Denmark and Sweden.

Of the current fee, the Home Office reports that £372 accounts for administrative costs and freely admits that the remaining £640 is pure profit. Research by Citizens UK shows that between 2017 and 2020 alone, the government has made a £102,749,216 profit from these child citizenship fees.

When I challenged the Prime Minister on this practice earlier in the year at PMQs, the Prime Minister said there were “costs that must be borne by the taxpayer” and that citizenship was “a prize”. The courts have consistently disagreed with the Prime Minister’s stance, with the Court of Appeal recently upholding the High Court’s ruling that this fee was unlawful and ordering the Home Office to reconsider it.

On questions of citizenship, it’s clear that the government knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. For these children, British citizenship is a legal entitlement, not a prize or an investment. Instead of endlessly appealing, they should accept it’s wrong to set fees so high that it blocks families from applying.

Most of the children priced out of citizenship come from households facing higher levels of hardship and poverty. Many are from Black, Asian and ethnic minority backgrounds. Some come from families slapped with the ‘no recourse to public funds’ condition, preventing them from accessing basic services.

The government continues to justify these fees on the basis of fiscal responsibility but it’s absurd that they believe an effective levy on poorer households is a sustainable way of financing their immigration system. Above all, there’s nothing responsible about creating a situation where children are deprived of their rights for want of money.

It’s also a scandal that many looked after children are emerging from our care system without British citizenship. These children have been entrusted to the care of the state. The state has a responsibility to get the best outcomes for them.

I regularly speak to young people in my constituency who face feelings of worry, alienation and social exclusion as a result of being denied citizenship. The harm of being denied your citizenship rights in the only country you truly know cannot be overstated. It’s not just about the societal barriers you face, it’s about the psychological impact of being constantly treated as a second-class citizen.

You can’t put a price on belonging. Yet that’s exactly what this government continues to do. With the return of the nationality and borders bill, we have a chance to change this. My amendment to the legislation would cut the registration fee down to cost price, scrap it completely for looked after children and compel the government to produce a report on the impact that fees have on children’s right to citizenship.

These children are as British as anyone else. It is immoral and unjust that they continue to be blocked from citizenship and subjected to humiliating treatment as a result. If you grow up in the UK, British citizenship should be your right – not a privilege you pay the government large sums of money to bestow.

Source: Children are being priced out of British citizenship – it’s unjust and must change

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

H-1B Visa Rule About To Die For Good

2021/12/13 Leave a comment

Of note. May reduce the relative attractiveness of Canada:

An H-1B visa regulation that would make it less likely international students can work in the United States appears ready to die for good. Critics asked why the Biden administration was defending an immigration rule championed by Trump adviser Stephen Miller. The answer is the Biden administration is no longer defending the rule.

“Our plaintiffs are thrilled with the government’s apparent, yet belated, decision to no longer defend the H-1B Lottery Rule,” said Jesse Bless, director of litigation at the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), in an interview. “While we wish that the government had not waited until we had completed briefing on cross-motions for summary judgment, we are fully committed to settlement negotiations, which will hopefully ensure that our plaintiffs receive all the relief to which they are entitled.” 

The case is Humane Society of NY, et al. v. Alejandro Mayorkas, et al. “Following the completion of briefing in this case, the parties entered into settlement negotiations,” according to an unopposed motion filed in the case on December 6, 2021. “There is now a good-faith reason to believe that the parties will reach an agreement in the near future that will fully resolve this matter. However, the parties need additional time to confer and fully resolve the issues presented. In light of the current state of play, plaintiffs hereby move for a sixty-day extension of time to file the Joint Appendix of the Administrative Record which is due on December 6, 2021. Plaintiffs conferred with opposing counsel and they expressed support for the requested extension. The parties anticipate that sixty days will allow the parties to exhaust the possibility of resolving this case without further involvement of the court and move for a dismissal of this matter.”

Plaintiffs’ attorneys in the Humane Society case, in addition to Bless, are Greg Siskind (Siskind Susser), Jeff D. Joseph (Joseph & Hall) and Charles H. Kuck (Kuck Baxter Immigration).

Background: On January 8, 2021, the Trump administration published a regulation as “final” to end the H-1B visa lottery and replace it with a system that awards H-1B petitions by highest to lowest salary. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) uses the lottery when companies file more H-1B applications than the annual limit of 85,000 (65,000 plus a 20,000-exemption for advance degree holders from U.S. universities). In 2021, USCIS received more than 300,000 H-1B registrations for FY 2022.MORE FROMFORBES ADVISORBest Travel Insurance CompaniesByAmy DaniseEditorBest Covid-19 Travel Insurance PlansByAmy DaniseEditor

H-1B petitions are essential because they typically represent the only practical way foreign nationals, including international students, can work long-term in the United States.

The H-1B rule would be bad news for international students. “The National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP) found that an international student may be 54% more likely to get an H-1B petition under the current H-1B lottery system than under the Trump administration’s regulation that would end the H-1B lottery,” according to an NFAP analysis of cases of recent international students and filings for H-1B petitions. “The data demonstrate the new regulation would have a significant negative effect on the ability of international students to gain an H-1B petition.”

In its September 20, 2021, motion for summary judgment in Humane Society of NY, et al. v. Alejandro Mayorkas, et al., plaintiffs cited NFAP research on the primary reason why the rule would prevent most international students from gaining H-1B status: “Initial registrations for these freshly graduated H-1B workers are generally assigned a Level I wage.” 

In other words, employers would naturally offer individuals with less experience in the U.S. labor market lower salaries (Level 1 under the Department of Labor wage level system) than more experienced professionals. Adopting the rule would lead the United States to establish a system—unlike any of its competitors for talent in other countries—that favors the most senior foreign nationals over young, promising talent, particularly recent graduates of U.S. universities.

Difficulty in gaining H-1B status and permanent residence contributed to an increase in Indian students at Canadian universities from 76,075 to over 172,000 between 2016 and 2018. At the same time, at U.S. universities, Indian graduate students in engineering and computer science fell 25%. The evidence indicates America is losing talent because it is much easier to work after graduation and gain permanent residence in Canada and other countries—and the Trump administration’s H-1B regulation would exacerbate this problem. 

In its complaint (May 17, 2021) and motion for summary judgment, plaintiffs argued the regulation is illegal because Chad Wolf was not properly serving as acting secretary of Homeland Security when the rule was issued. Also, according to the plaintiffs, “This final rule unlawfully makes the H-1B nonimmigrant visa selection process dependent on wage level and unlawfully gives priority for lottery selection to those H-1B applicants who are paid the highest wages.”

In a defendants’ reply in further support of their cross-motion for summary judgment, filed on November 22, 2021, the Biden administration argued, “The final rule was promulgated by an authorized official, the final rule comports with the INA [Immigration and Nationality Act]” and “DHS [Department of Homeland Security] responded sufficiently to the public comments.”

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Lawsuit: Earlier in the year, the Biden administration lost a different lawsuit over the H-1B rule. In his order on September 15, 2021, issued in Chamber of Commerce v. DHS, Judge Jeffrey S. White agreed with a critical legal argument made by the plaintiffs. 

“Plaintiffs argue the Final Rule must be set aside because Mr. Wolf was not lawfully appointed as Acting Secretary at the time DHS promulgated the rule,” Judge White wrote. “In ILRC, the Court concluded the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits of their claim that Mr. Wolf’s appointment was not lawful. At that time, two other district courts had considered and rejected DHS’s arguments, as had the Government Accountability Office (“GAO”). . . . Since then, a number of other courts also have determined that Mr. McAleenan and Mr. Wolf not acting with lawful authority. . . . Because he was not lawfully appointed, Mr. McAleenan’s subsequent attempts to amend the order of succession and to elevate Mr. Wolf to Acting Secretary also were not valid.”

Judge White ruled against the regulation solely on the DHS appointment issue and did not address other arguments raised by plaintiffs. Paul Hughes of McDermott Will & Emery, representing the plaintiffs (the Chamber of Commerce and others), argued the H-1B rule also violated current law. “First, the Lottery Rule is flatly inconsistent with the text of the Immigration and Nationality Act,” according to the plaintiffs. “The statute provides unambiguously that H-1B visas ‘shall be issued . . . in the order in which petitions are filed for such visas.’ Yet the Rule instead unabashedly institutes ‘ranking and selection based on wage levels,’ such that the relatively highest-paid noncitizens are issued visas first, likely leaving none for those at lower wage levels. Agencies are powerless to thus ‘rewrite clear statutory terms.’”

Department of Justice lawyers representing the Department of Homeland Security filed an unopposed motion for dismissal in the Chamber of Commerce case on November 30, 2021. That action foreshadowed the Biden administration’s willingness to bring the Humane Society case to a close as well.

Now that the litigation on the H-1B rule appears to be finished, one question remains: Will the Biden administration allow the regulation to stay dead, or will it issue a new regulation that critics believe embraces Stephen Miller’s vision of business immigration?

An H-1B visa regulation that would make it less likely international students can work in the United States appears ready to die for good. Critics asked why the Biden administration was defending an immigration rule championed by Trump adviser Stephen Miller. The answer is the Biden administration is no longer defending the rule.

“Our plaintiffs are thrilled with the government’s apparent, yet belated, decision to no longer defend the H-1B Lottery Rule,” said Jesse Bless, director of litigation at the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), in an interview. “While we wish that the government had not waited until we had completed briefing on cross-motions for summary judgment, we are fully committed to settlement negotiations, which will hopefully ensure that our plaintiffs receive all the relief to which they are entitled.” 

The case is Humane Society of NY, et al. v. Alejandro Mayorkas, et al. “Following the completion of briefing in this case, the parties entered into settlement negotiations,” according to an unopposed motion filed in the case on December 6, 2021. “There is now a good-faith reason to believe that the parties will reach an agreement in the near future that will fully resolve this matter. However, the parties need additional time to confer and fully resolve the issues presented. In light of the current state of play, plaintiffs hereby move for a sixty-day extension of time to file the Joint Appendix of the Administrative Record which is due on December 6, 2021. Plaintiffs conferred with opposing counsel and they expressed support for the requested extension. The parties anticipate that sixty days will allow the parties to exhaust the possibility of resolving this case without further involvement of the court and move for a dismissal of this matter.”

Background: On January 8, 2021, the Trump administration published a regulation as “final” to end the H-1B visa lottery and replace it with a system that awards H-1B petitions by highest to lowest salary. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) uses the lottery when companies file more H-1B applications than the annual limit of 85,000 (65,000 plus a 20,000-exemption for advance degree holders from U.S. universities). In 2021, USCIS received more than 300,000 H-1B registrations for FY 2022.MORE FROMFORBES ADVISORBest Travel Insurance CompaniesByAmy DaniseEditorBest Covid-19 Travel Insurance PlansByAmy DaniseEditor

H-1B petitions are essential because they typically represent the only practical way foreign nationals, including international students, can work long-term in the United States.

The H-1B rule would be bad news for international students. “The National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP) found that an international student may be 54% more likely to get an H-1B petition under the current H-1B lottery system than under the Trump administration’s regulation that would end the H-1B lottery,” according to an NFAP analysis of cases of recent international students and filings for H-1B petitions. “The data demonstrate the new regulation would have a significant negative effect on the ability of international students to gain an H-1B petition.”

In its September 20, 2021, motion for summary judgment in Humane Society of NY, et al. v. Alejandro Mayorkas, et al., plaintiffs cited NFAP research on the primary reason why the rule would prevent most international students from gaining H-1B status: “Initial registrations for these freshly graduated H-1B workers are generally assigned a Level I wage.” 

In other words, employers would naturally offer individuals with less experience in the U.S. labor market lower salaries (Level 1 under the Department of Labor wage level system) than more experienced professionals. Adopting the rule would lead the United States to establish a system—unlike any of its competitors for talent in other countries—that favors the most senior foreign nationals over young, promising talent, particularly recent graduates of U.S. universities.

Difficulty in gaining H-1B status and permanent residence contributed to an increase in Indian students at Canadian universities from 76,075 to over 172,000 between 2016 and 2018. At the same time, at U.S. universities, Indian graduate students in engineering and computer science fell 25%. The evidence indicates America is losing talent because it is much easier to work after graduation and gain permanent residence in Canada and other countries—and the Trump administration’s H-1B regulation would exacerbate this problem. 

In its complaint (May 17, 2021) and motion for summary judgment, plaintiffs argued the regulation is illegal because Chad Wolf was not properly serving as acting secretary of Homeland Security when the rule was issued. Also, according to the plaintiffs, “This final rule unlawfully makes the H-1B nonimmigrant visa selection process dependent on wage level and unlawfully gives priority for lottery selection to those H-1B applicants who are paid the highest wages.”

In a defendants’ reply in further support of their cross-motion for summary judgment, filed on November 22, 2021, the Biden administration argued, “The final rule was promulgated by an authorized official, the final rule comports with the INA [Immigration and Nationality Act]” and “DHS [Department of Homeland Security] responded sufficiently to the public comments.”

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Lawsuit: Earlier in the year, the Biden administration lost a different lawsuit over the H-1B rule. In his order on September 15, 2021, issued in Chamber of Commerce v. DHS, Judge Jeffrey S. White agreed with a critical legal argument made by the plaintiffs. 

“Plaintiffs argue the Final Rule must be set aside because Mr. Wolf was not lawfully appointed as Acting Secretary at the time DHS promulgated the rule,” Judge White wrote. “In ILRC, the Court concluded the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits of their claim that Mr. Wolf’s appointment was not lawful. At that time, two other district courts had considered and rejected DHS’s arguments, as had the Government Accountability Office (“GAO”). . . . Since then, a number of other courts also have determined that Mr. McAleenan and Mr. Wolf not acting with lawful authority. . . . Because he was not lawfully appointed, Mr. McAleenan’s subsequent attempts to amend the order of succession and to elevate Mr. Wolf to Acting Secretary also were not valid.”

Judge White ruled against the regulation solely on the DHS appointment issue and did not address other arguments raised by plaintiffs. Paul Hughes of McDermott Will & Emery, representing the plaintiffs (the Chamber of Commerce and others), argued the H-1B rule also violated current law. “First, the Lottery Rule is flatly inconsistent with the text of the Immigration and Nationality Act,” according to the plaintiffs. “The statute provides unambiguously that H-1B visas ‘shall be issued . . . in the order in which petitions are filed for such visas.’ Yet the Rule instead unabashedly institutes ‘ranking and selection based on wage levels,’ such that the relatively highest-paid noncitizens are issued visas first, likely leaving none for those at lower wage levels. Agencies are powerless to thus ‘rewrite clear statutory terms.’”

Department of Justice lawyers representing the Department of Homeland Security filed an unopposed motion for dismissal in the Chamber of Commerce case on November 30, 2021. That action foreshadowed the Biden administration’s willingness to bring the Humane Society case to a close as well.

Now that the litigation on the H-1B rule appears to be finished, one question remains: Will the Biden administration allow the regulation to stay dead, or will it issue a new regulation that critics believe embraces Stephen Miller’s vision of business immigration?

Source: https://e.email.forbes.com/c2/869:5df3a796a806e2781760c8d7:rm202112111300:5e4bc7f55b099ce02faa6b40:1/56c3e6d7?jwtH=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9&jwtP=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&jwtS=Q41VLkxtpbyTDTU7aGedDln-Agp94UQVb-c0_tBKuh0

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , ,

Dutrisac: De grandes ambitions postnationales [Immigration and Quebec]

2021/12/13 Leave a comment

Regarding the medium and longer-term impact of increased immigration in the rest of Canada in contrast to relatively static numbers for Quebec, along with some of the fallacies that characterize the government’s reliance on high immigration levels to strengthen the economy and address an aging population.

Le gouvernement Trudeau voudrait bien que le Québec hausse ses seuils d’immigration pour qu’ils se rapprochent des cibles canadiennes, puisqu’Ottawa compte accueillir un nombre record d’immigrants au cours des prochaines années.


Dans une entrevue accordée au Devoir mercredi, le nouveau ministre fédéral de l’Immigration, des Réfugiés et de la Citoyenneté, Sean Fraser, a voulu encourager le Québec à augmenter le nombre d’immigrants qu’il reçoit. « Je crois que le Québec est conscient du besoin de recourir à l’immigration pour s’assurer que les entreprises trouvent des travailleurs », a-t-il déclaré.

Juste avant l’arrivée des libéraux de Justin Trudeau au pouvoir, en 2015, le nombre d’immigrants admis au Canada, sous le gouvernement Harper, variait entre 250 000 et 260 000 par an. En 2019, avant la pandémie, ce nombre était passé à 341 000. Après une chute à 184 000 immigrants en 2020 en raison de la pandémie, les seuils repartent à la hausse pour atteindre 401 000 cette année, 411 000 en 2022 et 421 000 en 2023. Ces derniers chiffres tiennent compte d’un certain rattrapage, mais l’intention, c’est de devenir le gouvernement canadien le plus ambitieux de tous les temps en matière d’immigration, comme l’a signalé le ministre Fraser.

Au Canada anglais, l’organisme Century Initiative tente de convaincre le gouvernement Trudeau d’admettre graduellement de plus en plus d’immigrants pour atteindre les 500 000 en 2026, avec comme objectif ultime de faire passer la population canadienne de 38,5 millions à 100 millions en 2100. Le Canada serait plus fort et aurait plus d’influence sur le plan mondial, avance ce groupe de pression, les Canadiens seraient plus riches, les coffres de l’État seraient mieux garnis, les pénuries de main-d’œuvre ne seraient qu’un mauvais souvenir et le vieillissement de la population serait stoppé.

Ces représentants de l’intelligentsia canadienne-anglaise ne sont pas les seuls à croire que l’admission débridée d’immigrants contribuera à accroître la richesse du pays et à réduire le vieillissement de la population. C’est le discours que tient généralement le milieu des affaires.

Or, comme l’ont montré les chercheurs Parisa Mahboubi et Bill Robson, de l’Institut C.D. Howe, cités par l’économiste Pierre Fortin, l’effet de l’immigration sur le vieillissement de la population est marginal. C’est plutôt la participation accrue des travailleurs de 60 ans et plus, comme au Japon, par exemple, qui est le moyen le plus susceptible de réduire les effets du vieillissement sur le marché du travail et les finances publiques.

À Ottawa, on n’hésite pas à lier l’immigration à un accroissement de la richesse du pays. À cet égard, il ne faut pas oublier que ce n’est pas la grosseur de la tarte qui importe, mais bien la grosseur de la part qui revient à chacun. Autrement dit, c’est le produit intérieur brut (PIB) par habitant dont il faut se soucier. Ainsi, les Néerlandais, dont le pays accueille relativement peu d’immigrants, sont plus riches que les Allemands, qui en ont admis davantage. Il n’y a pas de corrélation.

Quant à l’idée qu’une forte immigration soulagerait les pénuries de main-d’œuvre, c’est « un pur sophisme », nous dit Pierre Fortin. L’immigration accroît le bassin de main-d’œuvre, mais aussi le nombre de consommateurs de biens et de services du commerce et de services publics. Certes, une sélection précise des immigrants peut aider à pourvoir des postes de travailleurs qualifiés en forte demande. Mais augmenter tous azimuts les seuils d’immigration comme le gouvernement Trudeau l’envisage peut accroître le chômage chez les nouveaux arrivants.

La question de la pénurie de logements commence sérieusement à se poser. Comme les immigrants s’établissent en majorité dans les grands centres urbains, une pression intenable s’exerce sur le marché immobilier, comme on peut le constater à Toronto, à Vancouver et, dans une moindre mesure, à Montréal.

C’est sans compter la situation bien particulière du Québec. La politique d’immigration du gouvernement Trudeau fait fi du poids démographique du seul État à majorité francophone de la fédération. S’il fallait suivre le rythme imposé par Ottawa, qui plus est sans qu’il y ait eu de débat, ce n’est pas 50 000 immigrants par an que le Québec devrait accueillir, mais bien 95 000 et davantage, une impossibilité. Déjà, il n’y a pas suffisamment d’immigrants qui choisissent de vivre en français au Québec. Dans le reste du Canada, ce n’est pas un enjeu : tous les nouveaux arrivants, quelle que soit leur langue maternelle, finissent par parler anglais et vivre en anglais. Y compris les francophones, d’ailleurs.

Cette politique d’immigration, poussée par un élan multiculturaliste et postnational, ne convient pas au Québec, qui ne pourra plus très longtemps se contenter de demi-pouvoirs en matière d’immigration.

Source: https://www.ledevoir.com/opinion/editoriaux/653859/ottawa-et-l-immigration-de-grandes-ambitions-postnationales?utm_source=infolettre-2021-12-11&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=infolettre-quotidienne

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Why Spain’s citizenship test contained a few nasty – and incorrect – surprises for aspiring applicants

2021/12/11 Leave a comment

Oops! Always worried about possible errors in Discover Canada:

According to the handbook to prepare for the official examination to become a citizen of Spain, Mariano Rajoy is still the prime minister (he hasn’t been since June 2018), the death penalty still exists (it was banned in 1978 and completely abolished, including for wartime conditions, in 1995) and the Spanish Constitution is just a secondary law.

The Cervantes Institute, the public cultural institution that drafts and administers the citizenship exam, said it has corrected the mistakes detected in the manual to prepare for the test that checks applicants’ knowledge about Spanish culture, society, history and laws, known as CCSE.

Obtaining citizenship typically requires passing the CCSE and also taking a language test, the DELE A2, unless a high level of Spanish can be proven.

According to the Cervantes Institute, a “computer glitch” is to blame for the erroneous information contained in the handbook to prepare for the 2022 CCSE test. The manual was published on November 29.

The CCSE test, which costs €85, asks applicants 25 questions that must be answered within a 45-minute time frame. In order to pass, it is necessary to get at least 15 questions right. Topics include government and political organization, fundamental rights and obligations of Spaniards and different aspects of Spanish society. Errors were detected in 12 of the 300 questions included in the preparation manual, or 5% of the total.

The multiple-choice questions on the CCSE test give applicants a choice of three answers (A, B and C). The errors were allegedly caused by the fact that the computer program preserved the same letters to represent the correct answers on new test questions that had been changed from the previous test.

The Cervantes Institute has called the incident “an unfortunate mistake” and admitted that it is potentially serious because tests get automatically corrected, meaning that the system could give a failing grade to applicants who check the right answer.

A group called Legalteam that provides legal advice on citizenship issues noticed the mistakes and alerted the public agency, where officials said the errors had already come to their attention through various channels. These sources said that experts have checked the handbook’s answers “one by one” and fixed all the mistakes.

But clearly this work was not carried out before publishing the manual in late November, as anyone with a working knowledge of Spanish society would have known that primary education is free and that driver’s licenses are issued by the traffic authority, the Dirección General de Tráfico (DGT), despite what the preparation manual said. Sources consulted by this newspaper did not specify whether the mistakes were attributable to the cultural institution’s own computer services or to a contractor.

Legalteam has also flagged up the fact that the Cervantes Institute requires applicants to show their TIE card (Tarjeta de Identidad de Extranjeros or Foreign Citizen Identity Card), and accepts no other legal documents in its place. The legal advisors noted that when foreign citizens renew their residency papers, the protection this affords “has full legal effects before any government administration.” Sources at the Cervantes replied that it is up to the justice and interior ministries to determine what documentation is necessary to avoid cases of fraud in citizenship examinations.

Source: Why Spain’s citizenship test contained a few nasty – and incorrect – surprises for aspiring applicants

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Syrian refugees who now call Canada home look to help Afghan newcomers

2021/12/11 Leave a comment

Nice:

The living room at Zoheir and Nadia Darrouba’s home is a hive of activity in the late afternoon – their older children, just back from school, are taking turns carrying around their baby brother as their parents look on.

It’s a simple scene but one that makes Zoheir Darrouba feel at home in the mid-size Ontario city the Syrian refugee family of eight has now put down roots in.

“We have settled here. We cannot live outside Peterborough,” he says. “It’s a good and quiet city. There are not problems here … People are helpful and nice.”

The family is among nearly 46,000 Syrian refugees who were resettled in Canada under a program introduced by the Liberal government in 2015. The first flight carrying Syrian refugees landed in Toronto on Dec. 10, 2015, exactly six years ago.

The Darroubas, who made their way to Canada under the resettlement program in November 2016, used to live in Idlib, in northwest Syria, one of the first regions where local uprisings escalated into widespread violence. The family lived for a period of time in Lebanon before finding themselves settling in Peterborough.

Now, as they consider themselves firmly established locals, the family is looking to help Afghan refugees who’ve started arriving in the city following the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul earlier this year, although the pandemic has made that effort a bit more complicated.

“There are several (Afghan) families here … They are in quarantine, unlike before,” said Darrouba, who wants to offer support because he knows first-hand how hard starting over in a new country can be.

“When we came here, we didn’t know anyone here. If someone showed up to visit us, we would feel it’s great support.”

Darrouba currently works as a driver delivering COVID-19 PCR test samples for local pharmacies in Peterborough to a lab in east Toronto.

The family’s five older children, ranging in age from eight to 16, are all doing well at school, their father says, while their mother is staying home to care for her two-month-old.

Nadia Darrouba says she’s content with her Canadian home.

“In my first days in Canada, I used to look at the snow from the window and cry thinking when the winter will be over,” she recalled. “We are very comfortable now. My children grow up here. They don’t know Syria.”

Two of her daughters, who are blind, say they’re well-supported at school and feel set up for success.

“If I compare where I was and where I’m now, it’s a huge achievement … I used to speak English but it wasn’t so good. Now my English is a lot better … My grades are very good,” said Aya Darrouba.

The 16-year-old, like her father, said she feels drawn to helping Afghan refugees who are now beginning a new chapter, just as her family did.

She volunteers with a local settlement agency that’s helping Afghan refugees and, since the pandemic has made it challenging to meet in person, recently helped it make a video offering advice to the newcomers.

“I just tried to make them feel at home,” she said of the video. “I told them your first days in Canada will be difficult but you will get used to the country.”

The federal government has committed to resettling 40,000 Afghan refugees, with 3,625 now in Canada, including about 80 in Peterborough, according to government data.

Marwa Khobie, executive director at the Syrian Canadian Foundation, said Syrian refugees are well placed to help the Afghan refugees who started arriving in Canada in the last few months.

Her organization, which is based in Mississauga, Ont., launched a campaign this week to raise money for Afghan newcomers and connect them with 100 Syrian refugees.

“Now that Afghan refugees have arrived, it was kind of a way to refresh our memories and remember what we went through five years ago,” she said.

“Many Syrian newcomers were actually asking and telling us: ‘How can we support Afghan refugees? What can we do? How can we meet them?'”

Her organization has partnered with four other groups that are supporting Afghan refugees to provide opportunities for now-settled Syrian refugees to help the newcomers in the Greater Toronto Area, she said.

Khobie said the campaign, called From Syria to Afghanistan, will also have a positive impact on Syrian refugees.

Sharing their success stories, remembering what they went through – this is a way to empower Syrian newcomers and Afghan refugees at the same time,” she said.

“For Afghan refugees, we want them to feel welcomed here in Canada, a sense of belonging, knowing that they’re not alone in the community, and everybody is willing to support in every way possible.”

Source: Syrian refugees who now call Canada home look to help Afghan newcomers

Filed under Immigration, Integration, Refugees Tagged with ,

Raj: Erin O’Toole denounces religious persecution abroad. Why can’t he do it in Canada?

2021/12/11 Leave a comment

Good question. And other political leaders need to step up as well:

“I cannot in good conscience keep silent on this anymore,” Conservative MP Kyle Seeback tweeted Thursday morning. “This is an absolute disgrace. It’s time politicians stood up for what’s right. Bill 21 has to be opposed. In court, in the house of commons and in the streets.#bill21mustgo #cdnpoli”

It was an unusual statement from a Conservative MP, and a risky one. This is not Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole’s position on Quebec’s controversial law, which bars individuals who wear religious symbols from holding certain jobs in public institutions. Since his election as leader, O’Toole has defended Quebec’s right to enact such discriminatory legislation. After his first meeting with Quebec Premier François Legault, back in September 2020, O’Toole pledged not to challenge Bill 21 in court. “We need a government that respects provincial autonomy and provincial legislatures,” he told reporters.

For the MP for Dufferin—Caledon to go out on such a limb publicly, amid a climate of fear and retribution (O’Toole’s team has threatened caucus expulsions to those who don’t toe the party line), is commendable. Behind closed doors, Tory MPs tell me Seeback has been pitching to caucus and to the party leadership that a strong position denouncing Bill 21 is not just the right thing to do, it’s the smart political thing to do.

While his pleas resonate with some of his colleagues, they don’t appear to have nudged his leader.

But Seeback, who declined an interview request, is right. Opposing Bill 21 is a great wedge against the Liberals on an issue where the Tories desperately need to rebrand, and in an area of the country where they need to win.

The Conservatives have a GTA problem and a visible-minority problem. Out of the 56 ridings in the Greater Toronto Area, the Conservatives hold six (although all but two are located on the periphery), while the Liberals have 50. It wasn’t always this way. In 2011, Stephen Harper found his majority in the GTA, sweeping the ethnically diverse areas of Brampton and Mississauga.

But over the past decade, the Tories pursued policies that alienated many of these communities. From immigration minister (now Alberta Premier) Jason Kenney’s niqab ban during citizenship ceremonies, to the barbaric practices snitch-line, to leadership hopeful Kellie Leitch’s values test, to the Tories fervent opposition to M-103, a motion denouncing Islamophobia.

In 2015, Brampton and Mississauga showed Harper the door. Seeback lost his seat in Brampton West. The same happened in 2019, and again in 2021.

Although O’Toole represents a GTA riding, his behaviour suggests he believes the road to government runs through Quebec — where support for Bill 21 remains high. Until the Bloc Québécois craters, however, most francophone nationalists already have a home.

Perhaps O’Toole believes that what works for a francophone Liberal prime minister riding on the coattails of his famous father’s immigration policy will also work for him. Justin Trudeau can get away with much (blackface, a weak position on Bill 21) in part because he’s a known commodity. Few believe he’s racist; fewer, perhaps, believe the leader of the party of multiculturalism won’t eventually step in to defend its prized Charter of Rights and Freedoms at the Supreme Court.

Trudeau’s position on Bill 21 is that he hasn’t ruled out intervening. It’s deeply troubling this is the strongest reaction from a major federal party leader. NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, who as a practising Sikh wears a turban and would have his rights curtailed in Quebec, has said this is a fight that should be waged by Quebecers in Quebec. O’Toole has had the weakest position.

Thursday morning, he sheepishly stood in front of reporters, massaging that position. He is “personally opposed to Bill 21” and would never bring in such a piece of legislation federally, but he will “try and respect provincial jurisdictions.” “This is an important debate that Quebecers will take themselves,” he told my colleague Stephanie Levitz. “I do think we have to try to have these discussions in a way that is respectful,” he added.

What brought the new-found attention on Bill 21 is the case of Fatemeh Anvari, a Grade 3 teacher at Chelsea Elementary School, a municipality just a short drive from Parliament Hill, near the official residence of the speaker of the House of Commons and not too far from the prime minister’s cottage at Harrington Lake. Anvari told the local paper she was removed from the classroom this month because of her hijab.

Last month, the English Montreal School Board lost its bid for a stay from the application of Bill 21. In the spring, a Quebec Superior Court found the controversial law violates constitutionally protected minority language education rights and exempted English boards from the application of the law, but the Quebec government appealed. Until that case is decided, all schools must comply with its rules.

Bill 21 is in complete contradiction to everything we’ve been taught to believe about who we are as a country. No doubt some future prime minister will apologize that Canada allowed this state-sponsored discrimination to flourish, sending a powerful message about the acceptance of racism.

The Conservatives have gone out of their way to denounce religious persecution abroad. As O’Toole tries to expand his party’s tent, it is time he did so at home, too.

Source: Erin O’Toole denounces religious persecution abroad. Why can’t he do it in Canada?

Filed under Islamophobia, Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with , , ,

Quebec teacher removed from classroom because she wears a hijab

2021/12/11 Leave a comment

Hopefully, personal stories like this can shift public discussion in Quebec although doesn’t seem likely:

A teacher in Chelsea, Que., has been removed from her Grade 3 classroom because the hijab she wears contravenes the province’s law on state secularism, sparking an outcry among local families and a range of Canadian politicians who have denounced the legislation as “discriminatory.”

Fatemeh Anvari had been teaching language arts at Chelsea Elementary School since late October. She was reassigned to another role focusing on literacy and inclusion in early December, when the Western Quebec School Board became aware that her presence in class violated provincial law, interim chair Wayne Daly said.

Quebec’s Bill 21 has been in place since June, 2019. It bars a range of public servants in authority roles, including teachers, from wearing visible religious symbols.

Although Ms. Anvari has become a focal point in a long-running debate about religion in Quebec’s public sphere, she said she has been heartened by the response from community members and wants to use this moment to raise awareness about the need to express oneself in the workplace.

“I was sad, but at the same time I find it empowering to get so much support,” she said in an interview. “This isn’t about me so much. It’s a human issue.”

The 27-year-old has worn the hijab since she was young. She previously taught English in Iran and began supply-teaching at the Western Quebec School Board in March. She believed Bill 21 didn’t apply to English schools, and no one raised possible legal issues with her until recently, she said.

“There were no comments, there were no issues, there was no hostility.”

In her new role with the school, she will still be interacting with students, speaking to them about the value of diversity and inclusion. She feels it’s a testament to the board’s support that they offered her the job.

“I think the board is doing this initiative to spread awareness,” she said.

Parents and students have been protesting the decision to remove Ms. Anvari by tying green ribbons to a fence outside the school. Nicole Redvers said her eight-year-old daughter was deeply upset when she learned she would be losing a teacher she loved.

“She said, ‘Mum, she’s only wearing a scarf!’” Ms. Redvers recalled.

It remains unclear how Ms. Anvari was hired with the secularism law in place. Mr. Daly said it “may have been an oversight.”

In April, the English Montreal School Board (EMSB) won a court ruling exempting it from Bill 21 because the law violated the English-language community’s rights. But the provincial government appealed, and the restrictions remained in place. In November, the EMSB was denied a stay of the law while the appeal proceeds.

Federal parties have generally been cautious about denouncing the law, which is popular in Quebec, but Ms. Anvari’s removal caused outrage across the political spectrum. In a statement, the Prime Minister’s Office said “nobody in Canada should ever lose their job because of what they wear or their religious beliefs,” adding that “Quebeckers are defending their rights through the courts.”

“I think it’s cowardly,” said Marc Miller, a Liberal MP and the Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister. “It’s disheartening and it’s picking on someone vulnerable.“

Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole offered a milder response, calling it “an issue that is best left for Quebeckers to decide.” But one member of his caucus, Ontario MP Kyle Seeback, lashed out at the law on Twitter.

“I cannot in good conscience keep silent on this anymore,” he wrote. “This is an absolute disgrace. It’s time politicians stood up for what’s right.”

The Western Quebec School Board, which serves anglophones and opposes Bill 21, has said it had no choice but to comply with the law when it realized Ms. Anvari was teaching in a hijab.

“It was the correct ruling under Bill 21, we cannot have this teacher in our school board if they will not comply with Bill 21,” Mr. Daly said. “She had decided that she would not comply with Bill 21, and in not complying that is justification for termination of a contract.”

The interim chair added that Bill 21 hurts the school board by denying it teachers during a labour shortage, and that the need to apply the law has left the community “outraged.”

“It doesn’t matter what nation you’re from or what race they belong to. If you’re part of that community, you’re part of that community.”

In Quebec City, several politicians put the responsibility for the situation on Ms. Anvari herself. Parti Québécois secularism critic Pascal Bérubé said that she “tried to make a statement wearing a hijab.”

Source: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-quebec-teacher-removed-from-classroom-because-she-wears-a-hijab/

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Le ministre fédéral attend le «go» de Québec pour accueillir plus d’immigrants

2021/12/10 Leave a comment

Of interest:

Il considère que son gouvernement est le plus ambitieux de tous les temps en matière d’immigration, et n’attend qu’une hausse des cibles du Québec pour y faire venir plus de nouveaux arrivants. Le nouveau ministre fédéral de l’Immigration, Sean Fraser, a partagé avec Le Devoir sa vision de ce qu’il compte faire avec le système d’immigration canadien.

Délais colossaux, accumulation de dossiers non traités, qualité des services décriée, règles changeantes : le ministère fédéral de l’Immigration, des Réfugiés et de la Citoyenneté (IRCC) a été l’un des plus critiqués depuis le début de la pandémie. C’est pourtant l’une des fiertés du gouvernement Trudeau, dit M. Fraser, qui convient que « faire croître le système au rythme et à l’envergure que nous souhaitons va créer certains défis ».

Jeune député de 37 ans, ministre depuis octobre, il a grandi dans une communauté rurale de la Nouvelle-Écosse, où le dépeuplement n’a pu être freiné que par un apport de nouveaux arrivants dont les familles regarnissent peu à peu les écoles. « L’immigration va toucher tous les aspects de la vie telle que nous la connaissons ici au Canada, pour tout avenir prévisible. »

Il y a rarement eu autant d’emplois disponibles dans notre histoire, note-t-il à propos de la pénurie de main-d’œuvre. Pour se remettre économiquement de ces derniers mois difficiles, sa solution est donc de miser sur davantage d’immigration.

Hausse des cibles québécoises

Qu’en est-il pour le Québec ? « Je crois que le Québec est conscient du besoin de recourir à l’immigration pour s’assurer que les entreprises trouvent des travailleurs », expose le nouveau responsable du dossier à Ottawa.

Le Québec a diminué ses cibles d’immigration depuis 2019, au moment où Ottawa ambitionne d’accueillir un nombre record de 1,2 million d’immigrants d’ici 2023. La province est en rattrapage après la diminution des arrivées en 2020 à cause de la pandémie, mais accueille quand même moins que sa part démographique.

Sean Fraser se garde de critiquer la province, mais formule quelques encouragements à faire plus. « S’ils veulent augmenter ce nombre, croyez-moi, je suis plus que prêt à collaborer avec eux », dit M. Fraser, qui rappelle que c’est la province qui transmet ses cibles au gouvernement fédéral.

Le ministre Fraser s’apprête justement à rencontrer, jeudi, son homologue québécois, le ministre Jean Boulet, avec lequel il se dit prêt à discuter de « n’importe laquelle de ses priorités ».

Depuis son arrivée au pouvoir, le gouvernement de François Legault a énoncé à plusieurs reprises sa volonté de « rapatrier » la totalité du programme des travailleurs étrangers temporaires. Pour le ministre fédéral, les rôles seront « toujours partagés », mais il garde la possibilité pour Québec de « signaler les candidats prioritaires » pour les postes temporaires.

Réfugiés afghans

Autre dossier chaud dont hérite le ministre Fraser : l’accueil de 40 000 réfugiés afghans, une promesse électorale des libéraux déjà entachée de retards.

Actuellement, à peine 10 % des réfugiés promis sont bel et bien arrivés au Canada. « Aujourd’hui, c’est 4700 [réfugiés afghans arrivés]. D’ici la fin de la semaine, il y en aura 520 de plus », précise-t-il, en disant croire que le programme prendra sa vitesse de croisière.

Pas question, selon lui, de comparer l’opération afghane à celle de réinstallation des réfugiés syriens en 2015. « Nous n’avons pas de présence en Afghanistan », a rappelé le ministre, en évoquant la difficulté de composer avec les talibans. « Ils n’ont aucune expertise en logistique et en déplacement de personnes, ils ne savent pas comment gérer un aéroport de manière professionnelle, l’infrastructure sur le terrain n’est tout simplement pas là. »

Les 25 000 réfugiés syriens réinstallés par un gouvernement libéral précédent étaient pour la plupart dans des camps administrés par les Nations unies. Cette fois, « l’un des principaux goulots d’étranglement est la capacité de nos partenaires sur le terrain à référer des réfugiés ».

Une machine mal huilée ?

Toutes catégories confondues, 1,8 million de dossiers seraient toujours en attente de traitement, selon IRCC. Au Québec, environ 50 000 personnes attendent leur résidence permanente, et les délais sont de trois ans en moyenne, soit bien plus longs qu’ailleurs au Canada.

Ce problème de délais a été exacerbé par la pandémie, avance Sean Fraser. L’une des solutions est le virage numérique du système, qui traite encore des dossiers sur papier à l’heure actuelle. Il souhaite également embaucher encore plus de personnel pour traiter les dossiers.

« Mais on ne fait pas pivoter un navire de 90 degrés en 10 secondes », insiste le ministre. « Vous devez le prendre centimètre par centimètre et vous déplacer aussi rapidement que possible, de manière à maintenir la capacité de fonctionnement du système. »

Immigration francophone

Encore faut-il que le pays réussisse à faire venir des immigrants francophones. Plus de 75 000 d’entre eux auraient été nécessaires pour maintenir le poids des francophones hors du Québec, a récemment souligné le commissaire aux langues officielles.

Plusieurs politiciens québécois ont aussi vu une « discrimination » dans la hausse du taux de refus de permis des étudiants africains francophones, comme Le Devoir l’a révélé.

« Ce n’est certainement pas une décision délibérée de réduire l’immigration francophone, mais il est clair que nous avons un problème sur lequel nous devons travailler », concède le ministre Fraser. Avec l’énergie du nouveau venu dans ces dossiers, il dit cependant y voir « une opportunité » : les étudiants étrangers s’intègrent bien, tant sur les plans linguistique que professionnel, mentionne-t-il.

Une autre avenue pour augmenter cette immigration est de se tourner vers des bassins de réfugiés francophones, dit M. Fraser.

Le nouveau ministre refuse de brosser un portrait pessimiste du système d’immigration canadien. Il défend les critères « objectifs » utilisés pour juger les candidats à l’immigration, mais il convient que ceux-ci engendrent « un résultat systémique » envers les ressortissants des pays les plus pauvres. Il faut donc aller au-delà de ce résultat, dit-il, sans compromettre la protection du système en place.

« Il n’y a pas, à travers le monde, de pénurie de gens qui veulent devenir Canadiens, et nous restons une destination de choix », conclut-il.

Source: Le ministre fédéral attend le «go» de Québec pour accueillir plus d’immigrants

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Korean Prime minister’s message: For more diverse, inclusive society

2021/12/10 Leave a comment

Interesting signal given long-standing ethnic-based citizenship:

Greetings, beloved children. I’m Kim Boo-kyun, prime minister of the Republic of Korea.

You are receiving very special awards today.

Yang Geun-mo, Noh Yeon-kyeong, Jun Blessing, Lee Yu-rim, Wu Zhengxiu, Lee Jeong-in, Ban Jun-hwi, Jo Un-ol, Pak Olga, Han Ga-in and Pyo Yoon-seo ― I congratulate all of you 11 award winners.

I also congratulate and express gratitude to your parents and teachers who have led you as students to these achievements.

I also thank President-Publisher Oh Young-jin and staff at The Korea Times which has provided children with special and meaningful memories for the last 10 years.

On this happy day, I wish I could shake hands with you in person, and it is regretful that I can’t do so but instead send my message through this video because of the COVID-19 social distancing rules.

Dear children, Korea now has more than 1 million people from multicultural families. Korea has become an international society of diverse cultures and races. You are citizens of Korea and also citizens of the world.

Despite the changes, you still face many hardships in society. I learned some multicultural families had difficulties in responding to COVID-19 due to the language barrier in the early stages of the pandemic. I heard many students had problems in taking online classes.

We, the government, will make more efforts. We’ll take a closer look at such hardships, to create a social atmosphere where difference is respected and where all of you can benefit under the government’s policy on multiculturalism.

Thanks to you, the inclusivity and diversity of our society is growing. So each and every one of you are precious for society. The life of children from multicultural families, including you award winners, is a precious gift to society.

The awards you receive today are an expression of gratitude and respect from adults. It is okay for you to be happy and proud of yourselves.

Dear children, you are proud citizens of Korea. Please remember that your happiness is key to the happiness of the whole nation.

We hope you’ll grow with more confidence. The Korean government and society will do our best to support you. Congratulations again.

Kim Boo-kyum is the prime minister of the Republic of Korea.

Source: Prime minister’s message: For more diverse, inclusive society

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

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