Korea: Court denies dual citizenship application, citing ‘birth tourism’

2025/02/25 Leave a comment

Of note:
A Seoul court has supported the rejection of an application for dual US-South Korean citizenship because their parent’s residence in the US was for the purpose of their child gaining US citizenship.The Seoul Administrative Court said Monday that it had ruled in favor of the Seoul Southern Immigration Office, which rejected the plaintiff’s February 2024 application to retain the citizenships of both countries.

South Korea’s Nationality Act states that a child of a citizen obtains citizenship at birth, and the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution grants citizenship to anyone born inside its territories. This means that someone born in the US to parents who are Korean citizens — as in case of the plaintiff — is granted dual citizenships at birth.

Dual citizens at birth are usually allowed to retain the nationality of South Korea and another country by pledging to the government not to exercise the rights of foreign citizenship before the age of 22, or within two years of completing their mandatary military service in the case of men. This is to prevent dual citizens from dodging duties mandated for South Koreans, such military service.

But the immigration office refused to allow dual citizenship to the plaintiff, saying that the plaintiff’s mother is thought to have lived in the US only for the explicit purpose of obtaining US citizenship for her child — sometimes referred to as “birth tourism.” The Nationality Act states that in cases where the parent is “deemed to have resided in a foreign country for the purpose of having the person acquire the nationality of the foreign country,” the child can retain his or her South Korean citizenship only after renouncing the other nationality.

The plaintiff’s mother went to the US in 2003 just before giving birth to the plaintiff, staying in the country for a month and a half. She went back to the US in 2011 and lived for four months since then.

“There are substantial grounds to believe (that the plaintiff’s mother) gave birth in a foreign country, with the intent to have the child gain the citizenship there,” the court said in its verdict.

The plaintiff denied that the mother’s stay in the US was for the purpose of ensuring her child had US citizenship, saying that she lived for four years in the country overall.

The Article 17-3 of the Enforcement Decree of the Nationality Act does state that a person who lived for two or more years in a country and gave birth there cannot be considered as having conducted birth tourism. But the court said this clause applies to parents who stayed for two consecutive years at the time of the birth of the child.

“The Nationality Act of this country had applied strict single nationality principle, and has only allowed dual citizenship on a limited number of cases since 2010. If the court interprets the article (Article 17-3) as the plaintiff claims, we cannot achieve the act’s goal of preventing birth tourism,” the court went on to say.

Source: Court denies dual citizenship application, citing ‘birth tourism’

Filed under Birth Tourism, Citizenship Tagged with ,

FIRST READING: Immigration minister says Canadian universities bringing in too many Indian students

2025/02/24 Leave a comment

Ongoing pivot. Takes some political courage to deliver these remarks in Brampton, given its large Indo-Canadian population, but the issues of exploitation of Indian students, by colleges, consultants and others are clear:

Immigration Minister Marc Miller accused Canadian universities of sourcing too many students from India, and said he expects a better “diversity” of international students in future.

He also said Canada needs to return to relying on “quality” over “quantity” of immigrants. “I think we do need to make sure that the Canadian brand does focus on excellence, on quality, and less quantity,” he said.

The comments were delivered at a media roundtable in Brampton, Ont., one of the Canadian cities most impacted by an unprecedented spike in immigration overseen by the Trudeau government since 2021. Miller was hosted by Brampton Centre MP Shafqat Ali.

In just the last three years, Canada’s population has grown by 2.9 million — an average influx of 81,000 new people every month. Many of those have come in on temporary visas; as per a November report by Statistics Canada, there are now three million non-permanent residents in Canada.

Brampton has experienced this immigration wave more acutely than anyone else, with immigration making it the country’s fastest growing big city. In just a single year between 2021 and 2022, the city’s population jumped by a record 89,077.

This has also made Brampton the home of Canada’s fastest-growing rents. And it’s made the city a focal point for a new phenomenon of job fairs being utterly overwhelmed by applicants. In one example from 2023, a mid-sized Brampton grocery store advertising open positions attracted a line-up of several hundred applicants snaking around the block.

In October, Miller introduced a package of reforms to “pause population growth,” including stricter quotas on both permanent and non-permanent immigration.

Miller opened the Brampton event by saying that he expected “hopes will be dashed” as many of Canada’s millions of temporary residents see their visas expire without having secured permanent residency.

“It’s going to be a rough ride; part of cleaning up this challenge that we see will mean that people’s hopes will be dashed to some extent,” said the minister, adding that “no one was guaranteed automatic permanent residency.”

He also said, “The solution is not to give visas to absolutely everyone simply because they don’t want to leave.”

Miller also maintained that none of the massive increase in immigration was his government’s fault, placing the blame instead on colleges, provincial governments and other “bad actors” who sponsored outsized numbers of international migrants, sometimes under fraudulent grounds.

Although he allowed that there “probably should have been better oversight, but that’s water under the bridge.”

Miller also accused schools of relying too heavily on students from India – who at times have comprised up to half of all international students in the country.

“I would say universities and colleges have been going to one or two source countries, and constantly going back to the well on that — we expect diversity of students,” he said.

The minister said he’d asked universities and colleges to “put a little more effort into the price of acquisition.”

“You have to be able to invest more in the talent you’re bringing here, and that includes going to more countries,” he said.

The event was held just as Miller’s office published information showing that in 2024 alone, 50,000 people entered Canada on study permits and then never showed up to class.

Canada has also been seeing rising rates of students claiming asylum in an apparent bid to stave off deportation. In just the first nine months of 2024, 14,000 people who entered Canada on student permits claimed asylum.

“It doesn’t make sense that you come here, spend a year, and that if you didn’t have the conditions in your home country to cause you to be an asylum seeker on day one … that you should be entitled to (the asylum) process,” he said, adding that any exceptions are “rare.”

The current waiting list just to have an asylum claim reviewed is up to three years — during which time the claimant can stay in Canada and even secure work permits and government benefits. Miller said that if Parliament wasn’t currently prorogued, he would introduce a bill to ensure that student asylum claims were dealt with in a “more efficient” fashion.

The Feb. 8 roundtable occurred just a few days after Canada was given a reprieve from tariffs threatened by the United States over the issue of border security.

Miller mentioned that Canada receives far more illegal border-crossers from the U.S. than vice versa, but said that the Americans had a point in that security along their northern border keeps intercepting foreign nationals who “have come through airports at Montreal and Pearson (Toronto).”

“That’s not right, we need to have proper control over the issuance of our visas,” said Miller.

Source: FIRST READING: Immigration minister says Canadian universities bringing in too many Indian students

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

Saunders: Canada’s border is broken, but not the way Trump thinks. Here’s how the next government can fix it

2025/02/24 Leave a comment

Good long and thoughtful commentary:

…There has to be a sensible Canadian space between Trumpist mass deportations and closed borders on one hand, and on the other the current reality of a set of policies and institutions that make Canadian governments unable to control who enters the country.

Luckily, there seems to be an awkward political consensus around this. Both the federal Conservatives and the major Liberal leadership candidates appear to be united (though they might not admit it) around a common set of aspirations: a return to a focus on permanent, citizenship-focused immigration of intact families and a reduction of temporary migration to a minimum; immigration targets tied to economic conditions and population-growth needs; a refugee policy driven by genuine humanitarian need and not by irregular border crossings or opportunism.

Those goals won’t easily be attained with mere tinkering of the sort that governments this century have engaged in. Rather, they require a set of systemwide reforms. After interviewing a dozen former immigration officials and experts, I found a strong consensus on the changes that would make the system work:…

Source: Canada’s border is broken, but not the way Trump thinks. Here’s how the next government can fix it

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , , , , ,

Petition asking PM to revoke Elon Musk’s Canadian citizenship garners support

2025/02/24 Leave a comment

Although this has a good feel, largely virtue signalling as no grounds for revocation. Avoiding Musk companies such as Tesla, Starlink makes more sense. Twitter/X harder one given that it still has usefulness in sharing information and opinions among both serious persons and the Trump/Musk followers.

That being said, I signed:

Thousands of people have electronically signed a parliamentary petition calling for revocation of Elon Musk’s Canadian citizenship over his role in the Trump administration, which is pointedly threatening Canada’s sovereignty.

The petition, making its way through the House of Commons process, was initiated by Qualia Reed, a Nanaimo, B.C., author.

New Democrat MP Charlie Angus, an outspoken critic of Musk, is sponsoring the petition, which had more than 34,000 signatures from across Canada as of Saturday evening.

Musk is a native of South Africa but he has Canadian citizenship through his Regina-born mother.

The petition says Musk, a billionaire businessman and adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump, has engaged in activities that go against the national interest of Canada.

Trump has threatened to impose widespread tariffs on Canadian products and has openly mused about Canada becoming the 51st state, drawing the ire of millions of Canadians.

The petition asks Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to revoke Musk’s citizenship and Canadian passport.

An electronic petition must have 500 or more signatures to receive certification for presentation to the House of Commons, opening the door to a formal government response.

The House is Commons is slated to resume sitting March 24, but many expect a general election to be called before MPs return.

Source: Petition asking PM to revoke Elon Musk’s Canadian citizenship garners support

Filed under Citizenship, Revocation Tagged with ,

Iranian women’s growing defiance to hijab law grows too loud for a troubled regime to silence 

2025/02/24 Leave a comment

Good long read and reporting:

…Despite the rebellion on the street, Iran’s rigid system of religious rule has never been formally liberalized. Women today are still reprimanded, arrested and even imprisoned for their defiance. Surveillance cameras on the streets are calibrated to detect women in cars who fail to wear a headscarf – and they are routinely ticketed and fined. Warning signs in building entrances sternly order women to obey Islamic rules and cover their hair.

But what’s new is that an increasing number of women are willing to accept this risk and pay the price. And the authorities have been unable to stop them. “The police don’t have enough handcuffs for all of them,” says Keywan Karimi, a Kurdish filmmaker in Iran. “The system is the same, the police are the same – but what’s changed is the level of resistance. People are pushing more against the system, and they’re accepting the cost of resistance. Where once it was one person, now it is thousands.”

The growing defiance by fearless women is just one of the mounting pressures on the Islamic regime that has ruled Iran since the overthrow of the monarchy. After a wave of large-scale protests over the past decade, social unrest continues to ferment. Political uncertainty has worsened the situation: Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, is now 85 and lacks a clear successor. The election of a new reformist president, Masoud Pezeshkian, has sparked frictions inside the ruling elite as Mr. Pezeshkian tries to placate the population with some limited easing of traditional restrictions….

Source: Iranian women’s growing defiance to hijab law grows too loud for a troubled regime to silence

Filed under gender Tagged with , ,

Qaidari: As a new immigrant to Canada, I know it will survive Trump’s threats

2025/02/24 Leave a comment

A note of optimism, perhaps overly so, but hopefully not:

…Apologies are strength, not a weakness 

Canada’s identity bridges thousands of years of Indigenous history with the contributions of immigrants from around the world. Few nations possess Canada’s capacity for introspection and growth. Our willingness to apologize for past wrongs and our commitment to reconciliation have enabled progress and unity despite past mistakes. 

Yes, Canada faces economic challenges such as inflation and unemployment. However, no nation sells its identity for short-term economic relief. 

History teaches us that resilience, unity and cultural strength are the true pillars of survival. Canadians – regardless of race, religion, gender or political affiliation – have shown unwavering resolve against Trump’s neo-imperialist rhetoric. 

Canada will emerge stronger from this critical juncture in its history. The unity of our people and the richness of our cultural and social fabric will ensure its continued success. As the saying goes: “What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.” 

Shoulder to shoulder, Canadians will preserve our identity and sovereignty, proving to the world the unquantifiable strength of a united nation. 

This shared resilience has left me deeply moved, particularly as I’ve observed Canadians from all walks of life voicing their opposition to Trump’s threats. History will once again remind politicians that the essence of nationhood cannot be quantified or undermined. Canada will endure and thrive, as it always has. 

Abbas Qaidari is an international security analyst and former senior fellow at the Center for Strategic Studies in Tehran. His analyses have appeared in Al-Monitor, the Atlantic Council and many U.S.-based media. 

Source: As a new immigrant to Canada, I know it will survive Trump’s threats

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

German study: Immigration does not raise crime rate

2025/02/22 Leave a comment

Of note, similar to other countries:

Immigrants or refugees do not have a higher tendency to commit crime and there is no correlation between the proportion of immigrants in a given district and the local crime rate, according to a new analysis of the latest German crime statistics carried out by the renowned ifo institute.

The Munich-based institute correlated the latest national crime stats from 2018 to 2023 with location-specific data in the new study to show why the fact that immigrants are overrepresented in crime statistics had nothing to do with where they came from.

Migrants tend to settle in urban areas, where there is more population density, more nightlife, and more people in public spaces at all hours of the day. That means the general crime rate is higher, and crime suspects are just as likely to be German as of foreign background. In other words, districts with higher levels of “immigrant” crime also have higher crime rates among Germans.

“These places increase the risk of becoming perpetrators for residents, regardless of nationality, due to the infrastructure, economic situation, police presence or population density,” the study said.

The researchers pointed to other reasons why immigrants tend to be overrepresented in crime figures: Immigrants are generally younger and more often male than the German population — but those, according to the researchers, were less important contributing factors.

Studies contradict the populist narrative

The supposed propensity of immigrants to commit crimes has become the dominant narrative in the current German election campaign. In a recent Bundestag debate on restricting immigration, Friedrich Merz, chancellor candidate for the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), spoke of “daily occurring gang rapes in the asylum seeker milieu.”

Those words echoed the narrative now routinely propagated by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). In early February, the AfD’s Beatrix von Storch told German public broadcaster ARD, “We have two gang rapes a day, we have ten normal rapes a day and we have had 131 violent crimes a day on average over the last six years — by immigrants, primarily Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis.”

“We have skyrocketing crime statistics. We have skyrocketing crime among foreigners, youth crime, migrant violence,” AfD co-leader and chancellor candidate Alice Weidel said in 2024. “Rapes are high, knife crimes are high, 15,000 in the last year.”

The numbers were found to be false by media outlets’ fact-checking teams.

Much-reported attacks by people of immigrant background in Munich, Aschaffenburg, and Magdeburg have fueled this popular narrative, but statistical studies draw a very different picture.

“Even for violent crimes such as homicide or sexual assault, the study shows no statistical correlation with an increasing share of foreigners or refugees,” the ifo researchers said.

Source: German study: Immigration does not raise crime rate

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

The death of data: Under Trump, key information is disappearing

2025/02/22 Leave a comment

Hard to see how the USA is going to recover any time soon of the impact of the Trump/Musk administration with so few guardrails and a totally subservient Republican Congress neglecting its broader and constitutional responsibilities:

…Statistical agencies in the U.S. and elsewhere have struggled with weaker survey participation for many years. In one notable example, only about one-third of businesses approached to fill out the BLS’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey do so – about half the proportion in the 2010s.

The BLS and other agencies contend that data quality remains high, although critics point to non-response bias – the idea that non-respondents may be inherently different than those who continue to fill out questionnaires, which would skew the numbers.

If response rates continue to fall, there is a greater likelihood that economic data will become less reliable. The danger is that reports “will stop telling us about who’s doing well and who’s not well by any degree of disaggregation,” said Armine Yalnizyan, a Canadian economist and Atkinson fellow on the future of workers.

Funding is another concern, particularly as the Trump administration makes sweeping cuts. These include the termination of roughly US$900-million in Education Department contracts, spelling an end to various research projects on academic performance.

When data disappear or become less reliable, it becomes tougher to challenge the policies of the Trump White House, Ms. Yalnizyan said. “You can’t see what is really happening, so you cannot dispute what they say.”

Ms. Jarosz said the public has paid for data produced by the government – and that information should remain in the public domain.

“I think part of what is so concerning about this is it sets a really dangerous precedent that any administration could delete data they don’t like for any reason,” she said.

Source: The death of data: Under Trump, key information is disappearing

Filed under Government Tagged with , , ,

Meggs: L’immigration : Quels sont nos objectifs?

2025/02/22 Leave a comment

Good general set of questions that apply to Canada and Quebec alike from former senior Quebec immigration official:

Il y en a certains qui aiment poser la question « pourquoi de l’immigration? » Comme nous avons pourtant souligné dans la chronique précédente, la migration humaine existe depuis le début des temps; elle est normale et inévitable. L’important est de bien la gérer pour s’assurer qu’elle demeure une force positive.

La vraie question donc est « De l’immigration pour quoi? » « Quelles sont nos attentes relatives à notre gestion de l’immigration? »

C’est la question la plus importante et la plus complexe à résoudre lors des consultations à venir ce printemps au Québec sur la planification pluriannuelle d’immigration. Les objectifs de cette planification seront très spécifiques au Québec compte tenu de sa situation géopolitique, linguistique et culturelle.

Convenons d’abord que l’immigration n’est pas la seule réponse aux défis québécois, ni la seule cause de ceux-ci. Elle constitue un élément qui peut aider à régler certains problèmes actuels, mais qui peut aussi les exacerber. D’où l’importance de bien la gérer et de trouver l’équilibre nécessaire.

La planification de l’immigration au Québec comprend traditionnellement deux types d’objectifs, des objectifs sociétaux et ceux du nombre et du rythme des arrivées1.

Objectifs sociétaux complexes

Les objectifs sociétaux incluent les enjeux, tels que la démographie, la langue française, l’économie et le marché du travail, les considérations humanitaires et familiales. Ces objectifs font appel aux caractéristiques ou aux critères de sélection des personnes qui arrivent (âge, langue, expérience de travail, domaine de formation, région de destination) ainsi qu’à la proportion de l’immigration permanente qui sera accordée à chaque catégorie — économique, humanitaire et familiale.

La démographie, par exemple, comprend plusieurs volets – le vieillissement de la population, le taux de fécondité et même les déplacements internes et externes.

Quels sont nos objectifs sur le plan de la démographie? Voulons-nous augmenter la taille de la population du Québec, la maintenir à peu près telle quelle, ou sommes-nous à l’aise avec une baisse de la population? Quelle priorité faut-il donner à l’enjeu du poids démographique du Québec au sein du Canada? Quelle structure des âges visons-nous? Quelle est l’importance de la rétention des personnes immigrantes et de la répartition de la population sur le territoire?

Les réponses à ces questions détermineront notamment l’importance de l’âge et de jeunes familles parmi les critères de sélection, ainsi que la connaissance du français. La connaissance du français et la présence de jeunes enfants sont deux facteurs qui jouent sur le taux de rétention des personnes qui arrivent.

De plus, les enfants d’âge scolaire contribuent à la pérennité de la langue française grâce à l’obligation de fréquenter des écoles françaises. Il est également à noter qu’il y a plus d’enfants de moins de 15 ans parmi les admissions de la catégorie familiale.

En ce qui concerne les objectifs économiques, comme notés dans l’Énoncé en matière d’immigration et d’intégration adopté en 1991 à la suite de la signature de l’Accord Canada-Québec, ils « permettent de concilier à la fois les motivations de l’immigrant et les intérêts de la collectivité québécoise. En effet, l’immigrant veut pour sa part améliorer son sort et celui de ses descendants; la société d’accueil, quant à elle, veut faire appel au potentiel de l’immigrant en fonction de ses besoins. »

Pour y arriver, d’une part, les économistes prônent la sélection des personnes hautement qualifiées qui travailleront dans les industries de pointe et qui pourront s’adapter à l’évolution des exigences du marché du travail. Les critères de sélection importants sont donc l’expérience de travail et la formation recherchées.

Ces personnes apportent de l’innovation et contribuent au développement et, avec des salaires plus élevés, elles paient plus d’impôts, contribuant ainsi au filet social qui sert à l’ensemble de la population.

D’autre part, le patronat signale que ces personnes sont souvent surqualifiées pour plusieurs des secteurs qui sont en pénurie de main-d’œuvre actuellement, particulièrement en région. Il ne faut pas oublier cependant que les personnes peu éduquées à bas salaire, immigrantes ou nées au Québec, ont besoin de soutien pour améliorer leur sort. L’intégration socioéconomique réussie est plus longue.

Quelles sont les priorités économiques au Québec qui détermineront le rôle que jouera l’immigration et les critères de sélection à favoriser? Quelle est la proportion à donner à la catégorie économique de l’immigration en équilibre avec les catégories familiales et humanitaires?

Enfin, en matière de langue, les bassins de recrutement à l’étranger des personnes qui utilisent déjà le français sont assez limités. Quels arbitrages sommes-nous prêts à faire entre les objectifs démographiques, économiques et linguistiques?

La capacité d’accueil

Avant d’établir les objectifs en ce qui concerne le nombre et le rythme des arrivées, il est crucial non seulement de clarifier les objectifs démographiques, mais également d’identifier et de mesurer les facteurs constituant la capacité d’accueil, et ce, idéalement par région administrative.

La plupart des composantes de la capacité d’accueil touchent la vie quotidienne de l’ensemble de la population et déterminent la qualité de vie tant des personnes arrivant de l’étranger que celle des personnes déjà établies.

Donnons quelques exemples : la disponibilité de logements abordables, les places dans les écoles et les garderies, l’accès à un médecin de famille, le temps d’attente dans les cliniques de première ligne et les hôpitaux ou pour une consultation avec un psychologue, la disponibilité des transports en commun, les services d’insertion en emploi, le taux de chômage, l’utilisation du français au travail et en public.

La capacité d’accueil inclut également l’accès aux services spécifiques au milieu d’immigration, tels les services de francisation, d’accueil et d’intégration socioculturelle.

La plupart de ces facteurs n’ont jamais fait partie du calcul des seuils de l’immigration permanente, encore moins de l’immigration temporaire dont la planification a été inexistante jusqu’à cette année.

Dans chaque cas, il faudrait déterminer quels indicateurs sont les plus pertinents à mesurer et quel seuil permet de dire qu’on est capable d’accueillir un certain nombre de nouvelles personnes.

Par exemple, en ce qui concerne la disponibilité du logement, il y aurait des indicateurs comme le taux d’inoccupation des logements en location, le prix moyen des loyers en fonction du salaire moyen des personnes immigrantes nouvellement arrivées, les mises en chantier. Chaque secteur de service public a déjà ses indicateurs pour mesurer le niveau de fonctionnement optimal.

Pour y arriver, une idée serait de créer une unité d’expertise à l’Institut de la statistique du Québec chargée d’élaborer une mesure de la capacité d’accueil, alimentée par les données administratives des divers ministères et organismes, ainsi que les données socioéconomiques, qui serait suivie en continu. Idéalement, les coûts associés à ces diverses composantes seraient également estimés et suivis.

La planification des niveaux et du rythme des admissions au Québec, et même par région, serait basée sur ces données. Les mesures à prendre, par exemple en matière de construction de logements ou de places en garderie, pour pouvoir accueillir convenablement les personnes nouvellement arrivées, seraient claires, ainsi que les coûts afférents.

Un tel chantier de recherche prendrait plusieurs mois à opérationnaliser et d’autres formules sont sûrement envisageables. L’important est de fixer les seuils d’immigration sur la base des données probantes et de retirer cet aspect de la planification de l’arène partisane.

Une planification de l’immigration basée sur les objectifs sociaux qui font consensus et sur des données probantes relatives à la capacité d’accueil serait un modèle inédit dans le monde. Elle aurait aussi le grand avantage de rassurer notre société que nous sommes bien capables d’accueillir des gens de partout pour bâtir le Québec de demain ensemble.

Anne Michèle Meggs is a former director of planning and accountability at the Ministère de l’Immigration, de la Francisation et de l’Intégration, and former director of research and evaluationat l’Office québécois de la langue française.

Source: L’immigration : Quels sont nos objectifs?

There are some who like to ask the question “why immigration? As we pointed out in the previous column, human migration has existed since the beginning of time; it is normal and inevitable. The important thing is to manage it well to ensure that it remains a positive force.

The real question then is “Immigration for what? “What are our expectations for our immigration management? ”

This is the most important and complex question to be resolved during the upcoming consultations this spring in Quebec on multi-year immigration planning. The objectives of this planning will be very specific to Quebec given its geopolitical, linguistic and cultural situation.

Let us first acree that immigration is not the only answer to Quebec’s challenges, nor the only cause of them. It is an element that can help solve some current problems, but that can also exacerbate them. Hence the importance of managing it well and finding the necessary balance.

Immigration planning in Quebec traditionally includes two types of objectives, societal objectives and those of the number and pace of arrivals1.

Complex societal objectives

Societal objectives include issues, such as demographics, the French language, the economy and the labour market, and humanitarian and family considerations. These objectives rely on the characteristics or selection criteria of arriving persons (age, language, work experience, field of training, region of destination) as well as the proportion of permanent immigration that will be granted to each category — economic, humanitarian and family.

Demography, for example, includes several aspects – population aging, fertility rate and even internal and external displacements.

What are our demographic goals? Do we want to increase the size of Quebec’s population, keep it pretty much as it is, or are we comfortable with a decline in the population? What priority should be given to the issue of Quebec’s demographic weight within Canada? What age structure are we aiming for? What is the importance of the detention of immigrants and the distribution of the population in the territory?

The answers to these questions will determine in particular the importance of age and young families among the selection criteria, as well as knowledge of French. Knowledge of French and the presence of young children are two factors that play a role in the retention rate of people who arrive.

In addition, school-age children contribute to the sustainability of the French language through the obligation to attend French schools. It should also be noted that there are more children under the age of 15 among the admissions of the family category.

With regard to the economic objectives, as noted in the Statement on Immigration and Integration adopted in 1991 following the signing of the Canada-Quebec Agreement, they “make it possible to reconcile both the motivations of the immigrant and the interests of the Quebec community. Indeed, the immigrant wants to improve his fate and that of his descendants; the host society, for its part, wants to appeal to the potential of the immigrant according to his needs. ”

To achieve this, on the one hand, economists advocate the selection of highly qualified people who will work in advanced industries and who will be able to adapt to changing labor market requirements. The important selection criteria are therefore the work experience and training sought.

These people bring innovation and contribute to development and, with higher wages, they pay more taxes, thus contributing to the social net that serves the entire population.

On the other hand, employers point out that these people are often overqualified for many of the sectors that are currently in labor shortages, particularly in the regions. We must not forget, however, that people with little educated and low pay, immigrants or those born in Quebec, need support to improve their fate. Successful socio-economic integration takes longer.

What are the economic priorities in Quebec that will determine the role that immigration will play and the selection criteria to be favored? What is the proportion to be given to the economic category of immigration in balance with the family and humanitarian categories?

Finally, in terms of language, the recruitment pools abroad of people who already use French are quite limited. What arbitrations are we prepared to make between demographic, economic and linguistic objectives?

The reception capacity

Before establishing objectives with regard to the number and pace of arrivals, it is crucial not only to clarify the demographic objectives, but also to identify and measure the factors that make up the reception capacity, ideally by administrative region.

Most of the components of the reception capacity affect the daily life of the entire population and determine the quality of life of both people arriving from abroad and those already established.

Let’s give some examples: the availability of affordable housing, places in schools and daycare centers, access to a family doctor, waiting time in front-line clinics and hospitals or for a consultation with a psychologist, the availability of public transport, job placement services, the unemployment rate, the use of French at work and in public.

The reception capacity also includes access to specific services for the immigration environment, such as francization, reception and sociocultural integration services.

Most of these factors have never been part of the permanent immigration threshold calculation, let alone temporary immigration, the planning of which was non-existent until this year.

In each case, it would be necessary to determine which indicators are most relevant to measure and which threshold allows us to say that we are able to welcome a certain number of new people.

For example, with regard to the availability of housing, there would be indicators such as the vacancy rate of rental housing, the average price of rents based on the average salary of newly arrived immigrants, construction starts. Each public service sector already has its indicators to measure the optimal level of operation.

To achieve this, one idea would be to create an expertise unit at the Institut de la statistique du Québec responsible for developing a measurement of reception capacity, fed by administrative data from the various ministries and organizations, as well as socio-economic data, which would be monitored continuously. Ideally, the costs associated with these various components would also be estimated and monitored.

The planning of levels and pace of admissions in Quebec, and even by region, would be based on this data. The measures to be taken, for example in the construction of housing or daycare places, to be able to properly accommodate newly arrived people, would be clear, as well as the related costs.

Such a research project would take several months to operationalize and other formulas are surely possible. The important thing is to set immigration thresholds on the basis of evidence and to remove this aspect from the planning of the party arena.

Immigration planning based on consensual social objectives and evidence of reception capacity would be an unprecedented model in the world. It would also have the great advantage of reassuring our society that we are capable of welcoming people from everywhere to build tomorrow’s Quebec together.

Anne Michèle Meggs is a former director of planning and accountability at the Ministère de l’Immigration, de la Francisation et de l’Intégration, and former director of research and evaluation at the Office québécois de la langue française.

Filed under Immigration, Integration Tagged with ,

In appeal to Muslims, Freeland pledges to scrap controversial CRA division

2025/02/22 Leave a comment

Hard to justify given the recent foreign interference enquiry. Disbanding the RAD could impede efforts to track other groups. Irresponsible to do so pending the results of the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency (NSIRA) investigation:

Should she win the current federal Liberal leadership contest, Chrystia Freeland is pledging to scrap a controversial division of the Canada Revenue Agency that Muslim charities and civil liberties advocates have long accused of discriminatory auditing practices, CBC News has learned.

Her campaign has yet to make an official announcement, but Thursday morning she signed and sent a letter about her plan to the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM), one of Canada’s larger Muslim advocacy groups, about her plan to get rid of the Research and Analysis Division.

The RAD has been criticized by Muslim groups for unfairly targeting their work as it looks for sources of terrorism financing in the country. An intelligence review body, the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency (NSIRA), undertook a review of its activities in 2023, a probe that has yet to be completed.

In the letter, Freeland writes: “No charity serving Canadians in good faith should operate under a cloud of unwarranted suspicion. There is well-documented evidence from civil society organizations and independent experts suggesting that the Review and Analysis Division has a bias against racialized charities.”

“This is why, if I become Prime Minister, I will dismantle the Review and Analysis Division of the CRA,” she adds.

She is also pledging to establish an independent CRA oversight body “to ensure that audit and compliance processes are conducted fairly.”

And she said she would implement both these measures before the next federal election. …

Source: In appeal to Muslims, Freeland pledges to scrap controversial CRA division

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , , , ,

← Older posts

Newer posts →