Les immigrants qui ont demandé la résidence permanente via certains programmes humanitaires pourraient ne jamais l’obtenir de leur vivant. Devant la baisse des cibles d’admission d’Ottawa, les délais d’attente ont explosé, allant jusqu’à dépasser les 50 ans dans certains cas, a constaté Le Devoir.
De tous les programmes, c’est celui visant les Ukrainiens qui présente la pire attente : en juillet dernier, le délai de traitement des dossiers était de plus de 55 ans. Pour les ressortissants de Hong Kong, pour lesquels le Canada a mis en place une mesure humanitaire extraordinaire visant à faciliter l’obtention de la résidence permanente, il est de 50 ans. Et dans d’autres programmes humanitaires, l’attente varie entre quelques mois et… plusieurs décennies….
Demandes nombreuses, cibles faibles
L’avocat en immigration Steven Meurrens, à l’origine de multiples analyses de données d’Immigration, Réfugiés et Citoyenneté Canada (IRCC), n’est pas étonné de voir les délais exploser. « Je ne suis pas tellement surpris par les délais de traitement élevés », a-t-il souligné au Devoir.
En plus des données qu’il a récoltées au moyen de ses demandes d’accès à l’information, Me Meurrens pointe les données du cahier de transition de la ministre canadienne de l’Immigration, Lena Metlege Diab, publiées sur le site d’IRCC en mai dernier. Le temps d’attente pour les nouveaux demandeurs de la catégorie « motifs humanitaires et politiques d’intérêt public » varie de 12 à 600 mois (de 1 à 50 ans). « Les délais de traitement de nombreuses politiques d’intérêt public et demandes fondées sur des motifs d’ordre humanitaire au Canada augmentent en raison de la forte demande, des contrôles d’admission limités et des objectifs d’admission peu élevés », lit-on sur le site….
The plight of the “Two Michaels” might seem a distant memory for most Canadians.
Yet barely two years after China released these two high-profile hostages from prison, Canadians have reason to fear a repetition of Beijing’s strong-arm tactics — through the heavy hand of Hong Kong.
Where once Canadian citizens on the mainland were considered fair game for domestic hostage-taking — notably Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor — now it is Hong Kong dissidents seeking sanctuary in Canada who are being targeted for bounties both exorbitant and extraterritorial.
For a reward of $1 million in local currency (about $170,000 in Canadian funds), Hong Kong has put a rapacious price on the heads of those who dare to defy its will — and that of its mainland masters. Once a colonial outpost of the British crown, handed back to Beijing in 1997 with a promise of autonomy and democratization, this port city has since reincarnated itself as a vassal of the old Middle Kingdom.
Hong Kong’s chief executive, John Lee, boasted that these activists will be “pursued for life,” presumably to the death. In Beijing, where the draconian and anti-democratic National Security Law was first conceived and imposed from a distance, spokesperson Mao Ning accused Canada and other Western nations of “meddling” by “providing a safe haven for fugitives.”
Beijing once protested bitterly over the arrest of accused Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou at the Vancouver airport, per the terms of an extradition treaty with the U.S. Back then, China lambasted the arrest as an exercise in extraterritoriality, only to use its own territory for the incarceration of our two citizens as leverage for Meng’s eventual release.
Ottawa has already repudiated Hong Kong’s hostile act, saying it was “gravely concerned.” But there is more Canada can do.
And there is even more that one especially high-profile Canadian should do to help.
As a former chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, Beverley McLachlin is known as the “Right Honourable” — an honorific reserved for those who serve at the very highest levels. Upon her retirement in 2017 from Canada’s highest court, she leapfrogged across the Pacific to an appointment to Hong Kong’s highest court, the Court of Final Appeal.
Even at the time, it struck me as a curious cross-pollination of Canadian jurisprudence with Hong Kong’s intolerance. When I spoke briefly with McLachlin — after she accepted one of the innumerable awards conferred upon her for a distinguished career on the bench — she seemed unfazed by my prediction that she would soon find herself in an impossible position.
I told her I had covered Hong Kong’s struggling democracy movement for seven years, and later watched the narrowing margin of manoeuvre as Beijing went back on its written promises. Did she know what she was getting into?
McLachlin gave me a polite hearing, but she had already reached a career decision. Her verdict was not open to appeal.
The subsequent unravelling of Hong Kong’s system of law could not have been worse. What began as a crackdown followed by a suffocation has become an eradication of democracy.
Yet all these years later, McLachlin serves indefatigably — if not faithfully — on Hong Kong’s highest court, insisting that she is doing her duty to law and order even after the law has been weaponized and distorted into a tool of disorder and repression. Our retired chief justice argues she is a bulwark against arbitrary rule, yet in reality she is a fig leaf for autocracy.
Two other foreign judges recruited to a similar role on the high court have long since bailed out, concluding that the system was broken beyond repair. The two British judges resigned in early 2022 when the writing was on the wall.
McLachlin resisted, persisting in her view that “The court is completely independent and functioning in the way I am used (to) in Canada the courts functioning.”
That seems an awfully obtuse, legalistic and sophistic view of the reality of democracy inside and outside the courtroom. McLachlin seems oblivious to the way in which China and Hong Kong use the prestige of her position to camouflage their malfeasance on the streets of their territory — while imposing extraterritoriality on her home country of Canada.
Ottawa has traditionally opposed foreign overreach on our soil, and should single out this brazen overreach — which encourages bounty hunters to apprehend people on our territory. Other Western nations went further by singling out the “transnational” abuse of authority.
A more fitting riposte to such extraterritoriality would be to renounce extradition to Hong Kong once and for all. Canada suspended its extradition treaty when the national security crackdown began, but it should go further by abolishing it entirely.
There cannot be any pretence of legal co-operation with Hong Kong when there are such flagrant abuses of legal norms at home and abroad. Not when there is a lifetime bounty on Hong Kong’s expatriate democracy dissidents if they can be caught here, so soon after the “Two Michaels” were incarcerated by those who call the shots in Beijing.
That conclusion should be self-evident to Canada’s foreign ministry. That reality should also provoke self-reflection by Canada’s freelancing former chief justice.
Starting with the overall picture and good commentary on the negative impact on productivity by Rupa Banergee:
Canadian companies are ramping up their recruitment of foreign workers to fill a variety of low-wage roles in the service sector, including cooks, cleaners and retail clerks.
In the first quarter, employers were approved to fill about 22,000 positions through the low-wage stream of the Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) program, an increase of roughly 275 per cent from four years earlier, according to figures recently published by Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC).
From January through March, employers were approved to hire more than 2,800 cooks, making it the most sought-after role in the low-wage stream. Companies were seeking thousands of other workers for the food-service sector, such as cashiers. Construction labourers and nurse aides were also in high demand.
To hire a TFW, companies must submit a Labour Market Impact Assessment to the government, showing they can’t find local workers to fill vacant positions. If those roles are approved, foreign workers must obtain the appropriate permits to begin their employment. The ESDC numbers reflect the first part of this hiring process.
The figures are even higher than presented: ESDC excludes some employers – such as business names that include personal names – from its data set of approvals by company.
Regardless, the figures show a dramatic rise in demand for TFWs.
Not only have employers faced historically tight labour markets in recent years, but the federal government has made it easier to hire through the program. Ottawa overhauled the TFW program last year, with some moves allowing employers to hire a greater proportion of their staff through the low-wage stream.
While these changes were cheered by business lobby groups, they were also criticized by migration experts.
The TFW program “disincentivizes employers from making the effort to reach out to underutilized segments of the labour market, and also to improve wages and working conditions,” said Rupa Banerjee, a Canada Research Chair in immigration and economics at Toronto Metropolitan University.
Instead, the TFW program provides employers with a “cheap, flexible and frankly vulnerable source of labour to fill gaps in the labour market,” she said.
Recent program announcements highlight the difficulties for the government in having coherent immigration policies. The recent removal of education requirements for Hong Kongers undermines skill levels and productivity, along with demographics given that the change will result in a shift towards older immigrants.
This is not to discount the very real humanitarian objectives behind these two programs, or the political pressure behind most, but to note the overall incoherence:
Vancouver resident Calvin Wong says he can finally start picturing a future in Canada after the federal government announced it was dropping educational requirements for Hong Kongers seeking permanent residency in the wake of the Chinese city’s crackdown on dissent.
Wong, 28, had graduated from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology with a computer science degree in 2017 before moving to Canada on a work permit in 2021, looking for a life where he could enjoy “political freedom.”
But immigration pathways for Hong Kong residents that have allowed thousands to settle permanently in Canada excluded Wong because it has been more than five years since he graduated.
That will change from August 15, after Ottawa announced on Tuesday it would remove all educational requirements for people with at least a year of work experience in Canada.
Immigration consultants say the move effectively opens pathways for Hong Kongers of all ages, instead of the current focus on students and recent graduates. They said they had been flooded with inquiries since the announcement.
“It’s a very great move by the Canadian government and I can eventually get permanent residence here, contribute and live in Canada safely,” said Wong, his voice breaking with emotion.
The store clerk said the chance to secure permanent residency came as a “huge relief,” and his decision to move to Canada was something he would “never regret.”
In 2021, the federal government created two immigration pathways for Hong Kong residents who had either worked or studied in Canada.
The pathways were in response to a crackdown on political dissent after protests drew millions onto Hong Kong’s streets in 2019, followed by the introduction of a harsh new national security law in 2020.
Stream A applies to former Hong Kong residents who graduated from a post-secondary institution in Canada within three years. People with at least one year of work experience in Canada who graduated from a foreign or Canadian institution within five years could apply for Stream B.
The changes open up Stream B to anyone with a year of work experience in Canada, regardless of education.
Sean Fraser, minister of immigration, refugees and citizenship, said the change was a “win-win situation.”
“(It) means that we can welcome more Hong Kongers to Canada who need our support, while simultaneously helping Canadian businesses fill labour gaps with workers who already have work experience here,” he said in a statement.
The announcement by Fraser’s ministry said Canada “continues to stand by Hong Kong residents, and supports their freedom and democracy.”
Canada has welcomed 3,122 permanent residents under the two pathways as of April 30, 2023.
Wong said that being excluded under the current rules had left him depressed.
“I felt it was really difficult to plan my future at that time. I was thinking: where should I go? Should I try my best to stay in Canada or go to the United Kingdom?” said Wong.
Wong said he can now make plans for the future and would submit his immigration application as soon as he completes his one year of work experience in Canada.
Vancouver-based Immigration consultant Peter Pang said the move is a “huge change,” opening up more opportunities to Hong Kongers to contribute to Canada.
Richmond, B.C., immigration consultant Ken Tin Lok Wong said that while the current rules do not ban older people, the time limits since graduation had effectively set a bar.
To have graduated in the past five years generally meant applicants to Stream B were not particularly old, and were “of working age,” he said.
Wong said he had some clients who were ready to pack their bags and leave Canada. But they now felt like they had “hit the jackpot.”“The announcement feels like Canada is helping to retain Hong Kongers regardless of their education,” he said.
“So, if you happen to be a legal worker in Canada, if you happen to obtain one year of work experience, then you are through.”
Similarly, hard to see how the new pathway for Ukrainians will contribute to productivity or demographics:
The federal government has launched a new immigration program for Ukrainians fleeing their embattled country, allowing those in Canada with family to receive permanent resident status.
“We continue to extend unwavering support and a lifeline to families separated by this conflict, including through this family reunification pathway that will help Ukrainian families stay together as they rebuild their lives in their new communities in Canada,” said Immigration Minister Sean Fraser in a statement released Saturday.
Eligibility will be extended to Ukrainians living in Canada with temporary status and with one or more family members in Canada.
The government said more details will be released closer to when the program launches on Oct. 23, 2023. The program will have no cost attached to it and will be in place for one year.
The announcement Saturday comes on the day the government’s initial emergency immigration program was set to expire.
Under the Canada-Ukraine authorization for emergency travel (CUAET), launched in March 2022, Ukrainians were able to come to Canada and live and work for up to three years. They benefited from a variety of measures meant to speed up the visa process, including prioritized processing and waived fees.
Roughly 166,000 Ukrainians have come to Canada through the special visa program. That’s about 21 per cent of the 800,000 emergency visas granted, from around 1.1 million applications, according to the government.
‘We’re just asking for lots of flexibility’
In an interview Saturday, the head of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress said the details to come would be key to their response to the program. But in general, he said his organization is pushing for more options for Ukrainians coming to Canada.
“We’re just asking for lots of flexibility on the pathways for people as they make their way through what is a very uncertain situation,” said Ihor Michalchyshyn, the UCC’s CEO.
“The war has not ended, we have to keep options open for people.”
One key unknown was what set of questions the government would be using to determine eligibility and approvals throughout the process, he noted.
Ukrainians approved under the CUAET will still be able to travel to Canada up until March 31 of next year. Afterward, they will be subject to the standard immigration measures available to others around the world.
“Once in Canada, temporary residents will be eligible to apply for an extended stay of up to three years through study permits and open work permits, all of which will be prioritized. They will also have access to settlement services, such as language training and employment services. These measures will help them thrive in communities across the country,” the government release said.
Canada has the largest diaspora of Ukrainians outside of Ukraine and Russia, with over 1.4 million people of Ukrainian descent living here, according to government statistics.
Michalchyshyn said while immigration programs and settlement services are important for people coming to this country, the priority push from his organization is still aid to Ukraine itself.
“The sooner that Ukraine wins the war, the sooner peace and normality can resume and this massive refugee crisis will come to an end.”
Thousands of Hong Kong students are choosing to come to Canada over countries like the U.K. and Australia, with more and more of its citizens applying for study permits abroad and contributing to a mounting exodus amid China’s growing control over the region.
This year, Canada has approved 7,920 study permits to students coming from Hong Kong, up from about 6,300 in 2021, according to Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) data. Historically, Canada issued less than 3,000 annually — numbers that were eclipsed in the month of August 2022 alone.
The Hong Kong government’s increasing hard line against mass protests and China’s growing control over the region has coincided with more than 100,000 people leaving the region in the past two years, mostly to the United Kingdom, Australia, Singapore and Canada.
U.K. data shows just over 5,000 study permits were issued to Hong Kong students between January and September this year, while Australia issued just over 2,000 by Oct. 31.
“One country, two systems definitely never delivered,” said Ken Tung, president of the B.C.-based Civic Education Society.
“Hong Kongers realized that, and you can see people started moving.”
Pathway to permanent residency through education
Protests erupted across Hong Kong in 2019, sparked by an extradition bill that many of the city’s residents vehemently opposed, saying it would give the government powers to arbitrarily extradite anyone in Hong Kong to China to face the legal system there.
“You can see the freedom of Hong Kong, the democracy, the justice system, collapsing,” said Tung. “You can see all the talented people, all the people with resources, leaving Hong Kong. And I think Canada understands the situation.”
In 2021, Canada opened an expedited pathway for Hong Kong residents to receive Canadian permanent residency if they graduate through a designated post-secondary program. It will last until 2026.
In a statement, IRCC said it expects “this increased opportunity to remain in Canada permanently has encouraged many Hong Kongers to study here.”
Tung says Metro Vancouver and the Greater Toronto Area are the main regions where students are settling, with the pathway attracting people of all ages pursuing varying degrees of education.
“But even professionals, they can actually come to study a masters degree and strengthen their knowledge, and many of them, with a professional job, they’d like to learn something else,” he said.
“If that helps them to stay in Canada to contribute, I think that strengthens both sides — for them, and also for Canada.”
Ken Tung says he recently helped a new arrival from Hong Kong find a basement unit in Metro Vancouver for only $500 rent per month, thanks to a discount by a sympathetic landlord.
“It’s a good price,” said Tung, who said he has helped at least 100 young people from Hong Kong settle in Canada over the past three years.
But Tung said he’s playing a relatively limited role resettling Hong Kongers compared to Vancouver-based groups, including churches, that have helped thousands.
“I know many churches and their people are helping Hong Kong newcomers .… People are donating furniture and lowering the rent to help them out,” said Tung.
Tung and others like him are facilitating a shift that shows up in new Canadian census figures.
The data released this week shows the Hong Kong-born population of Canada is on the rise, with a large majority settling in the Vancouver region, reversing a return-migration trend that had previously seen thousands of Hong Kongers leaving Canada.
Experts say the shift is being propelled by a political crackdown in Hong Kong, which came under a sweeping national security law in 2020 after anti-government protests.
The 2021 census shows a 6.1 per cent increase of Hong Kong-born people in Vancouver’s census metropolitan area in the past five years, bringing the total population to more than 76,000. It had previously been falling for decades.
The increase of 4,395 accounts for 90 per cent of the Canada-wide increase of Hong Kongers since 2016, when the previous census was conducted.
Many more are on the way, using new migration pathways that Canada opened up to Hong Kongers last year.
Tung said he wasn’t surprised by the census numbers.
He said Hong Kongers arriving in Metro Vancouver recently mainly fell into four categories — returnees who already hold Canadian citizenship, people arriving on new work permits, students and some asylum seekers.
He said their motivations were largely the same. “The answer is simple — they can’t see a future in Hong Kong,” Tung said
The national security law has been used to target protesters and political opponents of the Hong Kong government and the Chinese Communist Party.
Tung said those leaving Hong Kong did so after watching Hong Kong go from being “open, modernized” to “hardcore communism.”
Hong Kong was Canada’s biggest source of immigrants in the lead-up to the 1997 handover to China, but Hong Kongers’ presence in Canada had been shrinking steadily for years as thousands moved back to the former British colony.
The crackdown in Hong Kong was followed by the establishment of new Canadian migration pathways in response.
But while the census shows 2,385 recent Hong Kong immigrants to the Vancouver census metropolitan area in the preceding five years, that number is outstripped by the actual increase in the Hong Kong-born population, suggesting more than 45 per cent of newcomers already held Canadian citizenship or some other status.
One such newcomer, a financial analyst who declined to be named for safety reasons, said he was born in Hong Kong but immigrated to Canada with his parents and finished his studies here.
His parents brought the family to Canada in the wake of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown in Beijing, which triggered an exodus from Hong Kong and Taiwan.
But in the mid-2000s, he went back to Hong Kong for work. It wasn’t until last year he decided to reverse direction again, returning to Vancouver with his wife and son.
“I used to have the freedom to speak my mind, have choices in reading different news media and discuss in public without any repercussion. This is really valuable to me .… And therefore when it’s gone, Hong Kong is no longer Hong Kong,” he said.
He said he was making a good living in Hong Kong and enjoying the low-tax environment there, but decided there is “something more important than the money.”
“I have a kid and it’s not only for myself but also for his future. I can’t stand living in that environment,” he said.
“It’s a very tough journey to go through. Seeing young people getting oppressed and intellectuals being jailed and detained. It’s definitely a saddening journey.”
Kennedy Chi-Pan Wong is a PhD candidate in sociology at the University of Southern California who has studied Hong Kong migration patterns.
Wong said his research showed many recent migrants were Hong Kong political prisoners’ relatives, friends or colleagues.
The U.S.-based Hong Kong Democracy Council says there are 1,163 political prisoners in Hong Kong as of September 2022.
“That actually creates a large pushing force, (as we call it) in migration studies, that really push people out of the country,” said Wong.
In addition to the political unrest, other factors have also come into play, such as Hong Kong and mainland China’s strict pandemic rules, said Wong.
He said the COVID rules that had inhibited mobility had created concern about doing business in Hong Kong, and the city’s future prosperity.
The influx looks set to accelerate, with more than 20,000 permits for study, permanent residency and work granted to Hong Kongers last year after Canada launched a new open work permit pathway last year for Hong Kong residents who are recent graduates of post-secondary institutions.
Some of those pathways only came into effect after the May 2021 census.
Wong agreed that the peak of newcomers from Hong Kong hasn’t arrived in Canada yet.
Meanwhile, the financial analyst who returned to Vancouver said he hoped the new arrivals would help capture some of Hong Kong’s previous spirit.
“(We) will connect with them and make sure the culture and values are preserved,” he said.
But with the program needing to be renewed in February, the pair say they’re worried there is no pathway for them and others in their situation to remain in Canada once their work permit expires in 2024.
They’re hoping the Canadian government will extend their stay.
“We are lucky we were not both arrested,” said the 28-year-old woman of their time in Hong Kong. The couple requested anonymity due to concerns about their safety should they have to return.
“We were marked by the Hong Kong police already,” she said, explaining the police “marked” their identifications when they were caught putting up pro-democracy posters once.
Legislators are among those joining the chorus now asking the federal government to extend and expand the program in question. According to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, about 12,800 people had been granted work permits through the program as of June 30.
The pressure comes as increasing numbers of Hongkongers are looking to get out of that city due to concerns about the government’s curtailing of civil liberties — with Canada being one of the favoured destinations.
Hong Kong residents have used the open-work permit to get out of the city as the local government enacts the will of the Chinese Communist Party by arresting pro-democracy activists.
Since the National Security Law was imposed by Beijing in 2020, hundreds of democracy activists have been arrested. Thousands of residents have left Hong Kong, heading to a variety of destinations, including the United Kingdom and Australia.
Figures provided by IRCC show a massive increase in the number of people applying to come to Canada via various streams, including study permits and work permits, since Beijing’s grip began tightening on Hong Kong.
From 2016 to 2021, applications ballooned from almost 6,000 to more than 29,000a year. As of June of this year, 18,000 applications had been received.
Canada’s work permit offered some Hong Kong residents a “lifeline.”
The couple that spoke to the Star applied for the program the day after they were married. Only one of them was eligible thanks to a job offer from an Ontario boutique. It was the only way they could both leave Hong Kong quickly and safely, they say, and they arrived in Canada in July 2021.
Other streams of the program aren’t an option for them now.
The open work permit requires the applicant to have graduated from post-secondary within five years of applying. The woman cannot apply for a stream that would give her a path to permanent residency because that five-year period has subsequently passed for her. Her husband did not attend a post-secondary institution.
“We are eligible for the work permit, but we are not eligible for the permanent residence,” the woman said, “this is kind of ironic.”
Advocates for Hong Kong democracy activists say Canada should extend current permits and expand the program so that more potential targets of the Hong Kong authorities can find refuge in Canada.
Katherine Leung of Hong Kong Watch says she is concerned there doesn’t seem to be a plan in place for when the program expires in February of next year.
“If it’s not extended, the scheme ends,” Leung said.
Meanwhile, there are still many hoping to get out of Hong Kong, and the program’s requirements are too narrow, particularly the requirement to have graduated within five years, critics say.
Though other countries have programs of their own meant to help Hongkongers, Leung said many residents of the city have no program they can access to leave.
“A lot of those facing charges for protest-related offences do not qualify for the scheme,” she said. “Often these are normal people who have contributed a lot to the pro-democracy movement.”
Last month, 19 MPs and senators signed a letter asking Ottawa to expand the open work permit. The letter also suggested adding a “human rights defender” category to the scheme. It urged giving those using the program access to the same mental health and career training as other refugees.
Toronto-area Liberal MP John McKay signed the letter.
“These folks could use a few visa breaks,” McKay said. “These people have been tremendous assets to the country.”
He said under the current environment it’s hard to imagine the Canadian government won’t act to help those seeking refuge through the program.
In a response to whether the program will be expanded, IRCC told the Star it is monitoring the situation.
Also monitoring the situation is the young couple who sacrificed the life they knew to fight the rise of authoritarianism in Hong Kong.
Relieved and grateful to have been granted a lifeline to Canada, they say they now only want to stay.
“We are not planning to go back anymore,” the woman said. “We don’t want to be in prison.”
It wasn’t an inherently risky choice — he just heeded calls on social media to attend a public gathering to mark a student’s death at the height of anti-government protests.
However, it was a decision that may have wrecked his future in Canada.
Clad in all black, he ventured out to join the event but as soon as he and four friends got off the bus in Hong Kong’s Central District, police stopped them. Authorities found a laser pointer in his backpack and charged him in 2019 with possession of a weapon with the intent to assault.
After serving seven months in a youth rehab centre in Lantau Island, the 20-year-old was released last June and planned to start his undergraduate study in Toronto, where he finished high school as an international student.
However, more than five months since he applied for a student visa and submitted thousands of pages of translated legal documents, the Hong Konger is still waiting for a decision from the Canadian visa post in the former British colony, now part of China.
Pro-democracy advocates in Canada say they have started to see visa-seekers from Hong Kong whose applications — a first step to access asylum in this country — have been stalled or refused, despite Ottawa’s public commitment to ease their passage here in light of the alarming human-rights situation there.
“These youngsters have been charged and imprisoned for wearing a mask or carrying laser pointers during demonstrations … arrested and convicted with trumped-up charges. To us, they’re political prisoners,” said Winnie Ng, chair of the Toronto Association for Democracy in China.
“The Canadian governmenthad stated quite clearly that protest is a right and that convictions of these offences will not be a ground for inadmissibility to Canada.”
In 2020, after a new national security law took effect in Hong Kong, Ottawa announced a string of new initiatives to welcome students and youth to “quickly” come to Canada on work and study permits as well as introduced new pathways for them to stay here permanently.
Marco Mendicino, then Canada’s immigration minister, expressed deep concerns about the imposition of the new law in Hong Kong, which critics say has reduced judicial autonomy and restricted freedoms for dissent.
“Taking part in peaceful protests is not considered an offence in Canada. As such, arrests or convictions outside of Canada for taking part in peaceful protests are not grounds for inadmissibility to Canada,” Mendicino told a parliamentary committee meeting then.
“No one will be disqualified from making a legitimate asylum claim in Canada by virtue alone of having been charged under the new national security law, and neither will they be hindered in any way from availing themselves under any other immigration route.”SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Calling himself a supporter for “peace, reason and non-violence,” the young man who was found guilty of possession of a weapon by carrying the laser pen said he is disappointed that Canada hasn’t followed through its commitment.
“We have translated all the legal documents into English and explained to the visa officers the circumstances of the arrest and conviction,” said the man, who studied for three years in high school in Toronto and returned to Hong Kong for the summer in 2019.
“We were told to bring a torch light or laser point to commemorate the death of a protester who died two days earlier. And police called the laser pointer a weapon. But there was no confrontation or violence.”
According to the immigration department, at least 10 Hong Kong residents have been refused a visa on criminal grounds to date under the special measures — but many have successfully taken advantage of those initiatives for a shot to settle in Canada.
By the end of last year, 668 Hong Kong nationals who have studied or worked in Canada had been granted permanent residence, 7,950 others issued a three-year open work permits and 7,786 visitors, students and work-permit holders had their temporary status extended.
However, it’s the applications that are stalled or refused on “protest-related” criminality that advocates are concerned about.
Data collected by Toronto Association for Democracy in China showed Hong Kong police charged 2,605 people in the 2019 pro-democracy protest movement. The top charges were rioting, conspiracy with the intent to cause riot, face covering, unlawful assembly and possession of offensive weapons and items with the intent to destroy or damage property.
One of those arrested and convicted of facial covering was Ken, a 23-year-old university graduate, who took part in a protest against police violence in late 2019. He was acquitted of one count of rioting but was sentenced to a two-month jail term for violating the anti-mask law.
He said he wore the gas mask for self-protection because police had previously used tear gas and pepper spray on protesters. As a result of the prosecution, he said he and his family became targets of cyberbullying and he was shunned by potential employers for his association with the political movement.
“I didn’t see a future for myself in Hong Kong. We were harassed online and I didn’t feel safe there. I just wanted to start a new chapter in life,” said Ken, who fled Hong Kong to an undisclosed country after his application to travel to Canada was recently refused.
“How can you seek political asylum in Canada if you can’t even get into the country? I understand Canadian officials need to feel safe about someone coming to their country and they do need to screen out criminals. I’m just disappointed that they don’t take a more lenient, humanitarian approach in handling our cases.”
Toronto immigration lawyer Barbara Jackman said immigration officials can deem someone criminally inadmissible if they assess and find Canadian equivalency of the offences. However, an officer also has the discretion to look to the facts behind the case.
“It all depends on how they’re going to look at them in terms of whether China has overreacted and is actually prosecuting lawful dissent and protest,” said Jackman, who is involved in both the young Hong Kongers’ cases.
“The Canadian government has announced all these programs for Hong Kong residents. Theyare all parts of the news releases and bulletins that they come up with. It’s an expression of the government’s views on the matter. Visa officers are supposed to take it into account.”
The immigration department could not comment on the two specific cases but said inadmissibility decisions are made on a case-by-case basis.
“Security screening and the overall complexity of a case are some factors that can result in higher processing times. Other factors include delays associated with requests for additional information from the applicant, and how easily information can be verified and whether the application is complete,” said department spokesperson Jeffrey MacDonald.
Alison Lai’s grandfather arrived as a refugee in Hong Kong seven decades ago, trading the chaos of 1950s China for the safety of what was then a British colony.
In 2020, China made a refugee of Ms. Lai, too.
The pro-democracy activist fled Hong Kong, the city of her birth, for Canada last year as Beijing tightened its grip over the territory it acquired from Britain in 1997. She was part of an exodus that has only expanded since China enacted a draconian national security law to silence critics in the city it had once promised would be allowed to retain Western-style civil liberties.
Ms. Lai, 32, is one of thousands of Hong Kongers looking to build a new life in Canada. Like her, some have been granted asylum as political refugees. Others are applying for immigration programs designed to attract well-educated foreigners.
In March, 2020, Ms. Lai’s life was turned upside down in a matter of hours after a friend warned that the Hong Kong police were looking for her. A veteran of the protests that rocked the city when citizens demanded accountability from the Beijing-backed government, she had been tear-gassed, beaten with batons and followed for days by police.
Her friends were being arrested, and it was time for her to leave. By the next day, she was on a flight out of Hong Kong.
She headed for Canada, claiming asylum upon arrival – just days before Canadian authorities closed the border as a pandemic measure.
It took a year for the government to officially recognize her under the United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees: someone who cannot return to their home “due to a well-founded fear of persecution based on race, religion, political opinion” or other factors.
She has begun building a life in Calgary. Educated as a journalist, she now works in retail. She and other Hong Kong activists have also founded a non-profit organization, the Soteria Humanitarian Institute, to help resettle Hong Kongers, Tibetans and Uyghurs fleeing persecution in China. In Greek mythology, Soteria is the goddess of safety and preservation from harm.
But as with many Hong Kong activists, a fresh start in Canada does not mean an end to harassment and attacks from the Chinese Communist Party and its proxies.
Each day, Ms. Lai is subjected to a torrent of abuse when she opens up Soteria’s social-media accounts.
She is the first Hong Kong refugee to allow The Globe and Mail to publish their name and city of residence, hoping to draw attention to what is happening to critics of China’s authoritarian government who now live in Canada.
As the spokesperson for the group, Ms. Lai is the main target of the anonymous harassers. She receives dozens of missives daily full of foul words and misogynistic attacks. She has been sent video clips of beheadings. “You are such a shame for a Hong Konger. … Be careful you don’t die in an accident,” one recent message said.
They have found out where she works and know her daily routine. They often threaten to pay her a visit.
Her tormentors even know when she has taken part in a protest outside the Chinese consulate in Calgary. This summer, while protesting the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, Ms. Lai saw men with telephoto lenses taking pictures of the rally participants from the balconies of neighbouring buildings.
Soon after, the harassment referred to her participation in the demonstration. “Why don’t you go back to Hong Kong and protest the Winter Olympics there?” one said.
Ms. Lai’s friends have taken the matter to the RCMP and the Calgary police. Last year, Ottawa urged anyone being targeted in such a manner to speak to law enforcement.
Martin Seto, a Calgarian with the New Hong Kong Cultural Club, which also supports asylum seekers, said he spoke to the RCMP’s Integrated National Security Enforcement Team, but they told him it’s difficult, if not impossible, to trace harassment online – particularly if it’s coming from another country.
The RCMP did not respond to a request for comment.
Cherie Wong, the executive director of Alliance Canada Hong Kong, an umbrella group for Hong Kong pro-democracy activists in Canada, said they and their supporters are particular targets for intimidation. “Harassments of dissidents in the diaspora never stops,” she said. “The Chinese Communist Party in Beijing has identified these folks as clearly disobeying the interests of the Hong Kong and Chinese governments.”
Ms. Lai said she refuses to give in to the harassers. “They sound like Chinese uncles,” she said, using a term for older men.
Nevertheless, the stress of starting over about 11,000 kilometres from home sometimes weighs heavily with her. She left behind a well-paying job – and parents who as recently as this spring received a visit from Hong Kong police officers looking for her.
On rare occasions, the enormity of what she has taken on is too much to bear.
“Last winter – it was the first winter in Calgary. I was so cold after I took a shower. And I couldn’t stop crying,” Ms. Lai recalled.
If she had not chosen this life, she could still be enjoying warm weather in Hong Kong, taking afternoon tea or shopping.
But she remains committed to her path and motivated by two goals: supporting other exiles from China and telling the story of what the Chinese Communist Party has done to her people. “When you find something wrong, it is a citizen’s responsibility to tell the government they are wrong.”
Of interest (Canada is focussing on younger Hong Kongese):
On a sunny afternoon hundreds of Hong Kongers, many so new to Britain that they have not lost the habit of outdoor mask-wearing, have gathered in Beddington Park in the south London borough of Sutton. Trish Fivey, the mayor, gives a short speech welcoming them. Sutton is already multicultural, she says. She looks forward to another group joining the mix.
It is a fine sentiment. But the Hong Kongers are quite different from other immigrants, including other ethnic Chinese. Many have a distinct legal status and are socially atypical. They live in specific places, which they chose in a novel way. They have created distinctive self-help groups. In just a few months, they have begun to rewrite Britain’s immigrant story.
Cantonese speakers have settled in Britain for decades, though not in great numbers. Some early migrants ran Chinese restaurants, which were ubiquitous enough by 1945 to let George Orwell describe them as standard destinations for natives seeking good cheap meals. But the latest rush began recently. In June 2020 Beijing passed a national-security law that criminalised much political activity in Hong Kong. Seven months later the British government created a new visa that enabled many Hong Kongers to settle. By the end of June this year 65,000 people had applied.
Most new migrants globally are young and unencumbered. In 2019 more than two-thirds of immigrants to Britain were aged between 15 and 29, according to the International Passenger Survey. A survey by Hongkongers in Britain, a self-help group, however, found that the average age of Hong Kong residents intending to come to Britain was 37. More than two-thirds are university-educated, and the majority have children.
One reason for the odd demographic is that the new visas are designed for people born before 1997, when Britain relinquished control of Hong Kong, and their dependents. Another is that parents are especially keen to flee. In February Hong Kong’s government ordered schools to curtail “political or other illegal activities” and cultivate “a sense of national identity” and “law-abiding awareness”—all code for obedience to the Communist Party.
Middle-class Hong Kongers’ anxieties about the suppression of democracy and civil liberties are mixed with a desire to give their children more options in life. British citizenship, which they can obtain after six years, will provide that. One recently arrived Hong Konger in Bristol, who wishes to remain anonymous, says that she began to think about living abroad several years ago, when her daughter was born. She left in a hurry as the political situation in Hong Kong deteriorated.
The 2011 census of England and Wales found 102,000 people who had been born in Hong Kong. They were concentrated in cities such as Manchester and in inner-London boroughs like Camden and Westminster (which includes Chinatown). The new arrivals, by contrast, are heading straight for suburbia. They favour unexciting London boroughs such as Kingston upon Thames and Sutton.
They flock to such places because they rely on the same advice as each other. Richard Choi of the Sutton Hongkongers Group says that many listen to online influencers known in Hong Kong as “key opinion leaders”, or kols. In Cantonese-language YouTube videos, kols discuss the relative merits of British cities and districts, as well as school-inspection reports, rail fares and how to find reliable builders.
They can be frank. One YouTuber, Ophelia Chan, recommends Milton Keynes partly because it is modern (which, along with its suburban character, is what some Britons find objectionable about it) and points out that you can take a bus directly to Bicester Village, a shopping outlet. She calls Birmingham crime-ridden, underlining her point with a graphic of a masked bandit. Like others, she is keen on Sutton.
Perhaps the most extraordinary thing about the Hong Kongers is the speed with which they have organised themselves. In little more than a year, several well-run groups have sprung up to help migrants settle in and to lobby on their behalf. They have conducted surveys, arranged housing, legal advice and English courses, organised walking tours, testified in Parliament and much more besides.
Sadly, this self-reliance is not a choice, but a necessity. Newly arrived Hong Kongers often fear recently established Chinese community groups that are aligned with the government in Beijing. Jabez Lam, a veteran organiser at the Hackney Chinese Community Service, says that most Hong Kongers who ask him for help will not give their names. They are right to worry about hostility from other Chinese people, he says. He was roughed up in Chinatown after defending pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong.
Hong Kongers’ groups have two ambitions. First, they want migrants to integrate rapidly. Hence the English lessons, an enthusiasm for working with churches and gatherings like the one in Sutton, which brought Hong Kongers together with locals. “If Hong Kongers just get together with Hong Kongers, it doesn’t help—it’s another Chinatown,” explains Mr Choi. The groups stress that the migrants’ values, such as a belief in freedom and democracy, are also British ones.
Second, they want Hong Kongers to think of themselves as a community in exile. “Hong Kong is not only a place any more. It’s a diaspora, sharing values,” says Simon Cheng of Hongkongers in Britain. However comfortable and integrated they become, he thinks, Hong Kongers must remember why they had to flee. Asked if he has a model in mind, he points to British Jews. The newest group to arrive in Britain wants to emulate one of the oldest.
Of note from the citizenship-by-investment industry:
Hongkongers moving abroad have bought at least US$100 million worth of property since 2019, a year marked by unprecedented social unrest, according to a Hong Kong-based law firm.
The Harvey Law Group (HLG) found that Hongkongers’ preferred destinations are the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Their interest in finding a residency overseas or a scheme that paves the way to citizenship through investment has increased fourfold in the last two years.
“From our clients worldwide, since 2019, they have bought about US$1 billion worth of properties under various residency or citizenship-by-investment programmes, and Hong Kong contributed about 10 per cent of that,” said Jean-Francois Harvey, global managing partner and founder of the firm. Since 1992, HLG, which has 18 offices worldwide, has served about 12,000 clients and families who sought mobility via residency or citizenship schemes.
“This demand had been sustained. Pre-1997 we had a small wave of Hongkongers, but in 2019 we had a perfect storm, and easily there was fourfold growth,” he said. Each time the city faced a political crisis, there was a marked uptick in inquiries.
The type of person seeking a second passport or a residency abroad has shifted over the years too.
“The profile has changed a lot. Before 2019, a typical Hong Kong client would be in their 50s with kids aged in their late teens. Now, we’re looking at young 40s with kids between two and seven years old,” Harvey said.
“Before 2019, Hong Kong was never a passport market, because the Hong Kong passport is quite convenient to travel with, but lately we’ve seen a very big increase in the number of people asking for a new passport and to acquire new citizenship because they want security.”
The alternative passport option became more popular still after Beijing imposed a sweeping national security law seen by many as an erosion of Hong Kong’s autonomy and the freedoms afforded its citizens under the Sino-British treaty.
The various residency and citizenship schemes on offer have boosted the housing markets of destination countries, as buying property is typically one of the ways to gain permission to stay in a country.
“There are many benefits to the host country, including to the property market. In fact, since the outbreak of the pandemic, many more countries have been designing and setting up residence and citizenship-by-investment programmes to attract affluent investors and talent,” said Denise Ng, head of North Asia at Henley & Partners.
For Hongkongers, the top residency programmes are those offered by Thailand, the UK and Canada, while for citizenship, the preferred schemes are in Malta, Grenada and Dominica, according to the immigration consultancy.
“For international investors, wealthy families and entrepreneurs based in Hong Kong, citizenship diversification through investment migration will continue to be a robust solution to navigating ever changing circumstances. [It is] a win–win for sovereign states and investors alike.”
It is estimated that about 50,000 Hongkongers chose to leave the city in 2020, though this year the number is likely to decline by 4.6 per cent, according to UK-based Astons, which helps clients buy real estate and obtain residency and citizenship via investment.
“For many Hongkongers, emigration is being considered with a long-term view and so the real estate component of residency or citizenship through investment can be particularly preferable,” said Arthur Sarkisian, managing director at Astons.
“It provides a tangible asset that can bring a further return on their investment in addition to residency or citizenship. Or, in the case of the residential path, it can provide them with the firm foundation of a home when starting their new life.”
Multicultural Meanderings 