Maybe the first big clue on Ottawa’s trucker occupation should have been the Confederate flags.
Or maybe the tip-off was former U.S. president Donald Trump calling Prime Minister Justin Trudeau a, “far left lunatic … who has destroyed Canada with insane Covid mandates,” — this from the guy whose administration oversaw the deaths of 412,000 Americans in the pandemic he once claimed, “Is going to disappear.”
Certainly, there were people claiming from the get-go that the trucker convoy had been hijacked by far right-wing U.S. factions.
A week ago, police in Ottawa said they were working with the FBI and had voiced concerns that there was a hefty U.S.presence in the funding of the trucker protest ensconced in Ottawa.
The GoFundMe kitty had crossed $10 million when the platform was asked to take a closer look; GoFundMe did indeed shut down the “freedom convoy,” stating that evidence from law enforcement and “reports of violence and other unlawful activity” made it clear that the fundraiser for the truckers was in violation of their own terms of service.
The trucker convoy organizers then went to GiveSendGo , a platform that bills itself as the No. 1 free Christian fundraising site.
The Guardian did an expose of GiveSendGo after a data breach last year revealed the platform’s alt-right associations with vigilantes and hate groups such as the Proud Boys — groups banned from other platforms for hate speech and violence.
CNBC reiterated Sunday that Ottawa police said they were investigating threats against public figures jointly with the FBI.
They reported, “The well-organized blockade, which police say has relied partly on funding from sympathizers in the United States, saw protesters bring in portable saunas on Saturday to combat frigid temperatures.”
Twitter was full of bizarre material on Sunday from U.S. Republicans, with Attorney General Ken Paxton, of Texas, for example, tweeting:
“Patriotic Texans donated to Canadian truckers’ worthy cause using GoFundMe. This BLM-backing company went woke, froze the funds, & failed to deliver Texans’ money. Today, I assembled a team to investigate their potential fraud & deception. Texas donors will get Justice! #GoFundMe.”
This retort from “Unbranded” (@unbranded63) is fairly typical of the outraged responses: “American Trumpists, tired of losing, turned their efforts to upending their northern neighbor. A few million dollars raised by insurrectionist Americans, and they thought they could topple the democratically elected government of Canada in a week. They’re deluded as always.”
It says a lot that the most talked about moment in the leaders’ debate since Brian Mulroney nailed John Turner in 1984 for not rescinding Pierre Trudeau’s patronage appointments, had nothing to do with anything the leaders said.
Instead, it was the controversy over a question asked by debate moderator Shachi Kurl, president of the Angus Reid Institute, to BQ leader Yves-Francois Blanchet about Quebec’s controversial language and secularism laws.
The essence of their exchange was this:
Kurl: “You deny that Quebec has problems with racism. Yet you defend legislation such as Bills 96 and 21, which marginalize religious minorities, anglophones, and allophones. For those outside the province, please help them understand why your party also supports these discriminatory laws.”
Blanchet: “The question seems to imply the answer you want. Those laws are not about discrimination, they are about the values of Quebec … we are saying that those are legitimate laws that apply on Quebec territory … which is again, by itself, for Quebec.”
So, asked and answered. Except in Canada.
The post debate reaction — the criticism being that by even asking the question Kurl was falsely suggesting Quebecers are racists — was a sight to behold.
Everybody was upset. Blanchet was upset. Quebec Premier François Legault was upset. Pundits were upset. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Conservative leader Erin O’Toole and NDP leader Jagmeet Singh were upset — albeit belatedly since they didn’t raise any concerns when the exchange occurred.
Never mind that a Quebec judge had previously ruled Bill 21 is discriminatory, cruel and dehumanizing to Muslim women and others, but constitutionally valid due to the province’s use of the Charter’s notwithstanding clause.
Recently in the Globe and Mail Kurl wrote a column sensibly refusing to apologize.
But the most interesting part was Kurl explaining that, “every question was reviewed by the debate’s editorial team, which included representatives from all the networks that organized and produced it — CBC, CTV, Global and APTN. More than a dozen senior journalists and news executives had seen and vetted the questions I asked …”
Knowing that makes the spectacle of everyone running for the hills after the question was asked downright hilarious.
Ongoing conservative theme, one that has a certain resonance given the importance of perceptions of border management to public support of immigration (polling responses depend in part on how the question is formulated as illustrated by this famous Yes, Minister episode 1:38Survey (Yes, Prime Minister S1E2).
And while the “hectoring” of the PM is not helpful, neither is some of over-hyped rhetoric of the Conservatives, as both understand some of the complexities involved and the lack of simple solutions:
Canadians have largely been supportive of immigration for many years. How can they not be? So many Canadians are either immigrants themselves or have parents or grandparents who were born elsewhere.
So it’s concerning that public support for immigration has started to slip.
A new Ipsos Global Public Affairs poll shows that while Canadians back immigration more broadly, they’ve have significant concerns about how immigration is being managed.
The poll reveals 44% of people say that there are now too many immigrants coming to Canada. And a majority of respondents believe Canada is too welcoming to new arrivals.
Where is this coming from? What drives this perspective?
Brian Lilley explained in a Sun column that “a full 57% of Canadians agree with the statement that “immigration has placed too much pressure on public services in Canada.” That includes 77% of Conservative voters but also 51% of Liberal voters and 48% of NDP voters.”
In other words, at a time when people are anxious about issues, such as their economic future and the rising cost of living, they also worry about the economic costs and tax burdens that come with increased immigration.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has taken to hectoring those who express such concerns, last month divisively rejecting as immigration concerns as “fear-mongering” and anti-immigrant bias.
This is a naked, political smear tactic — aimed in an election year primarily at federal Conservatives — because the Trudeau Liberals have so utterly botched the care and settlement of refugees who are arriving daily at our borders.
But whether it’s the various measures the Liberals have taken to make it easier to get citizenship to Canada or their failure to take financial responsibility for migrants, Canadians increasingly are losing confidence in our immigration system.
We highly doubt frustrations with immigration are about the immigrants themselves. It’s about the way things are being done. It’s not about people but process.
One of the best ways we can enhance the popularity of immigration in Canada is being enhancing the integrity of the immigration system in Canada.
If the system has holes, if it looks like it’s easy to game, if the government acts like borders don’t matter, confidence will erode.
Let’s have a welcoming but well-managed immigration system that will make everyone proud.
Article has attracted considerable interest on Twitter and in the media.
In the Toronto Star:
The number of so-called “anchor babies” — children born to non-residents for the purpose of gaining citizenship — is at least five times higher than Canadian officials had estimated, new research suggests.
Birth tourism in Canada, where women late in pregnancy fly in to deliver their babies here, is controversial because the newborns are automatically Canadian citizens and enjoy full citizenship rights such as free education and lower university fees, even though their foreign parents aren’t taxpayers.
Statistics Canada has, since 2013, counted 1,561 babies — about 312 annually — born here to mothers, whose place of residence was listed outside Canada, based on figures from provincial birth registries.
However, a new study from the Institute for Research on Public Policy released Thursday suggests the number of “anchor babies” born here every year is likely in the 1,500 to 2,000 range.
The study mined the Canadian Institute for Health Information discharge database, and according to researcher Andrew Griffith, the figures — based on hospital financial data that codes services provided to non-residents under “other country resident self-pay” — give a clearer picture of the extent of the problem.
The data shows the number of births to non-resident mothers (including all provinces but Quebec, which refused to release the data) skyrocketed to 3,628 last year from just 1,354 in 2010, said the report by the Montreal-based think tank. It showed the Richmond Hospital in British Columbia with the highest volume of babies born to non-resident mothers.
Of the top 10 hospitals where such births were recorded, six are in the GTA.
The numbers are not perfect because they don’t break down how many of the births were to mothers with temporary status in Canada, which include Canadian expatriates returning to give birth, corporate transferees or international students who didn’t come here to specifically to have children. But Griffith says a conservative estimate is that 40 to 50 per cent of the non-resident mothers were birth tourists.
“How the (delivery) services are paid for is a more representative and realistic measure than the provincial registries,” said Griffith, a retired director general with Immigration Canada, adding part of the discrepancy can be attributed to birth tourists using their temporary Canadian address on birth registration forms and hence not being counted as non-residents.
“The concern has always been these people are exploiting the loophole in the law to obtain citizenship for their children when they are not entitled to that. There’s also the financial liability and responsibility on Canadian taxpayers for the child’s benefits.”
Currently, immigration officials cannot refuse a visitor visa application on the basis of the applicant’s intent to give birth in Canada, though they can assess if the person has enough money to visit Canada, if they will abide by the visa’s departure date and if they have a criminal record and should be barred from entry.
In 2012, the then-Conservative federal government, under Stephen Harper, had considered a crackdown on birth tourism but discarded the idea because the relatively small number of incidents — based on an estimate of 500 cases a year — did not justify the anticipated costs of enforcement.
However, with immigration and refugees expected to become a wedge issue in next year’s federal election, the Conservatives voted this summer at the party’s convention to end the birthright citizenship policy that gives citizenship to babies born in Canada even if their parents aren’t citizens or don’t have legal status in Canada. The motion is non-binding but could be part of their campaign platform next year.
Griffith said any policy decision must be based on evidence and that’s what prompted him to seek out the most reliable data on the issue of birth tourism.
“Is it a widespread problem or is it just a phenomenon at the Richmond Hospital?” asked Griffith, referring to the B.C. hospital cited by the media as the epicentre of birth tourism. “We need data for informed decisions.”
He said birth tourism, currently accounting for roughly 0.5 per cent of the total annual live births in Canada, is not a huge problem but should be monitored closely.
“Using this as a starting point, if we see any further increase or a trend line, then we need to take another fresh look at it,” he said.
The study offers three options for policy-makers to tackle the problem if birth tourism gets out of control:
Amend immigration laws to make it an offence if a female visitor fails to disclose the purpose of her visit to give birth or declare her pregnancy to officials. The child’s citizenship would then be deemed fraudulently obtained due to misrepresentation by the mother.
Follow Australia’s move by adopting a “qualified” birthright approach specifying a person born in Canada would only be a Canadian citizen if the parent is either a Canadian citizen or permanent resident and the child lives in the country for 10 years after birth.
Introduce regulations prohibiting rooming houses and consultant and support services for birth tourists, substantially increasing the financial deposits required by hospitals from non-residents and ordering the provinces to require proof of payment prior to issuing birth certificates for children of non-resident mothers.
The CP article quoting Minister Hussen’s reactions to the findings along with other commentary:
With new research showing that more babies are born in Canada to foreign residents than Statistics Canada realized, the federal government is studying the issue of “birth tourism” in the hope of better understanding how many women travel to Canada to have babies who are born Canadian citizens.
Using numbers from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), which captures billing information directly from hospitals, researcher Andrew Griffith found over 3,200 babies were born here to women who weren’t Canadian residents in 2016 – compared with the 313 babies recorded by Statistics Canada.
The finding suggests not only that the numbers are higher than previously reported, but that it’s a growing trend, Griffith says.
“(The data) shows the steady growth in the number of babies born in hospitals to women who are residents of other countries, by absolute numbers and percentage, for all provinces except Quebec,” Griffith wrote in an article in Policy Options, published by the Institute for Research on Public Policy. “These births total just over one per cent of all live births in English Canada.”
A petition tabled recently in the House of Commons by Liberal MP Joe Peschisolido calls on Canada to take stronger measures to end birth tourism, saying it abuses Canada’s social-welfare system.
Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen responded by saying his department has commissioned research to get a better picture of the scope of the issue in Canada.
“While these statistics indicate that this is not a widespread practice, the government of Canada recognizes the need to better understand the extent of this practice as well as its impacts,” Hussen said in his response, tabled in Parliament.
The department has commissioned CIHI to perform this research.
The issue of so-called birth tourism has been polarizing in Canada, with the Liberals defending the current law that gives automatic citizenship to anyone born on Canadian soil except for children of foreign diplomats.
Conservative party members passed a policy resolution during their biennial convention this summer calling on the government to end birthright citizenship “unless one of the parents of the child born in Canada is a Canadian citizen or permanent resident of Canada.”
Leader Andrew Scheer said at the time one of the goals would be to end the practice of women coming to Canada simply to give birth to a child that will automatically have Canadian citizenship.
Other countries have ended or modified their birthright-citizenship laws, including the United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, India, the Dominican Republic, Thailand and Portugal. Recently, U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to end birthright citizenship in the United States, although critics have argued such a change could violate that country’s constitution.
Canada did explore changing Canada’s existing birthright policy under Stephen Harper’s Conservative government. This work ultimately found any change to the law would have significant impacts, according to a senior government official who spoke to The Canadian Press on background.
Many Canadians – 40 per cent or more – don’t have passports and use birth certificates to prove their citizenship. A change in birthright-citizenship rules would mean they’d need new forms of identification to prove their citizenship and get government services.
A 2013 estimate pegged the cost of changing the rules at $20 million to $30 million, plus $7 million in extra costs for the federal government every year, the senior official said. He further noted this did not include costs to the provinces and territories, which would be even higher because they’re responsible for more personal documents than the federal government is.
The Conservatives did not change the policy. Nor will the Liberals, said Mathieu Genest, a spokesman for Hussen.
“The birth-on-soil principle has been enshrined in our legislation since Canadian citizenship first came into existence in 1947. A change to this principle was planned by the Harper Conservatives, but abandoned after listening to the advice of experts,” Genest said. But the Immigration Department still wants a better understanding of what’s going on.
Griffith said he was inspired to delve into the question of how prevalent birth tourism is in Canada after he noted the number of non-resident births reported for Richmond Hospital in B.C. were disproportionate to the rest of the country, as calculated by Statistics Canada.
The data he collected from CIHI captured the number of mothers who paid out-of-pocket for their hospital bills, which was at least five times higher. He acknowledged this would include Canadian expatriates and foreign students whose hospital expenses were not covered by Canadian medicare.
Ontario immigration lawyer Gordon Scott Campbell said he’s had several clients in recent years who have given birth while in Canada while in the middle of legitimate refugee or immigration processes.
For example, he said some women with visitor status live with their spouses while applying for spousal sponsorship, and some refugees arrive pregnant or become pregnant while waiting for their claims to be processed.
“It would seem extremely punitive, even misogynistic, arguably, to say that no woman should be able to become pregnant or be pregnant if you’re not a permanent resident or a citizen of Canada,” Campbell said.
“Are we talking about three people a year, four people a year, flying into Canada (to give birth)?” he asked. “I’m not sure we even have any proof of that. There might be anecdotal proof out there in media articles, but if we’re talking two or three people a year, it’s hardly a national crisis justifying legislation.”
Vancouver Coastal Health, the authority that oversees the Richmond Hospital, said Thursday that taxpayers don’t pay for non-resident births. The agency provided its own statistics, which differed slightly from Griffith’s findings but which were also out of keeping with the numbers of non-resident births in Canada reported by Statistics Canada.
Statistics Canada says it generates its data from demographic information provided by vital-statistics registries in the provinces and territories. Parents complete these registry forms and are responsible for filing them with local registrars, the agency said. Griffith believes Statistics Canada might record lower numbers of non-resident births because parents put local addresses on these forms that aren’t their real permanent addresses.
As part of his response to Parliament, Hussen said Canada does not collect information on whether a woman is pregnant when entering Canada, nor can a woman legally be denied entry solely because she is pregnant or might give birth in Canada.
Brian Lilley in the Toronto Sun who also wrote an earlier piece on surrogacy and birth tourism:
When it comes to hot tourism spots in Canada, few would put suburbs like Richmond, British Columbia or Scarborough, Ontario up there with the CN Tower or the Rockies.
But to a certain kind of tourist, these suburbs, and specifically their hospitals, are all the rage.
Written by Andrew Griffith, the former director general of Immigration Canada, the paper reveals significantly more women than thought are coming to Canada to deliver their babies and leave with a Canadian passport for their child.
“The level of birth tourism nationally is at least five times greater than the 300 births captured by Statistics Canada in 2016,” Griffith writes.
Instead of the Statistics Canada number, Griffith estimates that there were 3,628 babies born to foreign parents in 2017, and that doesn’t include numbers from Quebec.
“The impact of this practice can no longer be described as insignificant given its effect on the integrity of citizenship and public perceptions that birth tourism is a fraudulent shortcut to obtaining citizenship,” Griffith writes.
These figures don’t include landed immigrants or refugees, this is simply people who are simply visiting Canada when they give birth.
While some would be people visiting on a work or student visa, Griffith says that even with a conservative estimate of 40% to 50% the number is too high.
His search for better data on birth tourism was sparked by reports earlier this year showing more than 20% of births at the Richmond Hospital just outside Vancouver were due to birth tourism.
Of 2,145 births at this hospital in 2017-18, 469 were non-resident births.
The second highest hospital tracked by Griffith for the paper is Scarborough and Rouge Hospital — Birchmount site in Toronto’s East End and St. Mary’s Hospital in Montreal.
Both of those sites saw more than 9% of all births involve non-residents.
One thing all the hospitals on the list have in common is easy access to a major airport and direct flights in and out of Canada.
A petition sponsored by Liberal MP Joe Peschisolido, who represents the Richmond area, calls on the government to study the problem of birth tourism and take steps to end it.
So far the petition has garnered almost 11,000 signatures.
The previous Harper government considered taking action to stopping birth tourism but with StatsCan saying there were only a few hundred cases a year, the cost to enforce any new measures was deemed too high.
The numbers tracked by Griffith show the number of births to non-resident mothers has just about tripled between 2010 and 2017.
None of this includes the numbers I revealed in this paper a week ago showing 44% of surrogacy births in British Columbia in 2016 and 2017 were for foreign based parents using a Canadian surrogate.
Each of those children, regardless of the status of the parents, gets full Canadian citizenship and all the benefits that entails. Even if the mother only flew into Canada and checked into the hospital for the express purpose of giving birth.
Isn’t that making a mockery of our system?
Doesn’t that debase Canadian citizenship?
There are lawyers, consultants and “global mobility solutions” experts offering services on having a baby in Canada in order to get a Canadian passport for the baby.
The Conservative Party passed a resolution at their convention this past summer to end the practice of birth tourism.
That move was instantly attacked by Trudeau’s top aide Gerald Butts as, “a deeply wrong and disturbing idea.”
You’ll recall that Trudeau famously campaigned to give back Canadian citizenship to convicted terrorists who had dual citizenship and who had taken up arms against Canada.
His mantra was that a Canadian, is a Canadian, is a Canadian.
It’s a handy catch phrase and useful when the real purpose is to try and sound compassionate and scare immigrants.
The truth is that under Trudeau Canada has still stripped many people of citizenship. From former Nazis to people that lied on their applications to come here.
The simple fact of the matter is that Canadians get to decide who gets citizenship, and we do that all the time.
Changing the law to end birth tourism, a growing and disturbing trend, would hardly be controversial for most Canadians.
Let’s hope someone in the political world has the courage to take up this issue.
An article in The Breaker on the formal government response to the petition by MP Peschisolido (written before my article came out):
The federal Liberal government says it will undertake further research into birth tourism.
That, according to Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen’s Nov. 19 response to an electronic petition initiated by Richmond activist Kerry Starchuk and sponsored by Steveston-Richmond East Liberal MP Joe Peschisolido.
Starchuk’s petition, which was supported by 10,882 people, was brought to the House of Commons on Oct. 5 by Peschisolido. It called upon the government to state it opposes birth tourism, commit public resources to determine the full extent of the practice and implement concrete measures to reduce and eliminate the practice. Under federal law, MP-endorsed electronic petitions that gain 500 or more supporters within four months are tabled in the House of Commons.
Citizenship acquired through birth on soil has been in place since the first Canadian Citizenship Act of 1947, though it does not apply to children of anyone representing or working for a foreign government. Richmond Hospital averages one foreign birth a day and there have been cases where local mothers have been transferred to other hospitals to make way for foreign mothers. Petitioner Starchuk is also concerned with the potential future health and education costs to taxpayers.
The 354-word response said the government does not collect information on whether a woman is pregnant when entering the country, and a person cannot be deemed inadmissible or denied a visa if they are pregnant or if they may give birth in the country. But foreign nationals are required to state the purpose of their visit.
“Applicants must always be honest about the purpose of their visit. Providing false information or documents when dealing with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada or Canada Border Services Agency is considered misrepresentation and has significant consequences,” said the official response.
The response quoted from 2016 Statistics Canada data that said only 300 children were born to foreign women among the 385,000 babies born in the country that year. But that data has been discredited in media reports which found public agencies do not harmonize their research and there are loopholes that prevent accurate data collection.
The Richmond News reported in June that many non-resident women who give birth at Richmond Hospital list their address as a birth house or birth hostel where they are temporarily staying. Richmond Hospital saw a jump in self-pay births from non-resident mothers from 299 in 2015-2016 to 379 a year later. Most were from China.
RICHMOND HOSPITAL (MACKIN)
“Should the birth house operator list the address of their home business at the hospital’s registration desk, the ministry would not count the baby as a non-resident,” the newspaper reported. “Only when the true address of the mother is registered, does the birth become a non-resident in the eyes of Vital Statistics B.C.”
The response said the federal government “recognizes the need to better understand the extent of this practice as well as its impacts. IRCC has commissioned research from the Canadian Institute for Health Information, which also show the number of children born to non-residents who were required to pay hospital expenses to be less than 1% of total births in Canada, and will undertake further research in this regard.”
Starchuk said the response lacks details about the government’s next steps.
“There’s no deadline, they’ve left it open-ended,” Starchuk told theBreaker. “How long are they going to take to do it?”
She was also perplexed why such a multifaceted issue attracted a response from only the immigration minister, but not the ministers of public safety (Ralph Goodale) or border security (Bill Blair).
The response also said the government is “committed to protecting the public from fraud and unethical consulting practices and protecting the integrity of Canada’s immigration and citizenship programs,” so it is undertaking a comprehensive review aimed at cracking down on unscrupulous consultants and those who exploit programs through misrepresentation.”
In 2016, Starchuk also petitioned the federal government to end birth tourism, but the December 2016 reply from then-Immigration Minister John McCallum dismissed the issue. McCallum was later appointed Canada’s ambassador to China.
Lastly, an op-ed by Jamie Liew of University of Ottawa law faculty written before my analysis, quoting my comments dismissing the issue as insignificant given the previous numbers (my position has evolved :):
There’s been a lot of talk about getting rid of birthright citizenship in Canada and the United States. U.S. President Donald Trump announced that he’ll issue an executive order to do so, and the Conservative Party of Canada passed a motion that, should they form the next federal government, birthright citizenship will be no more.
In the U.S., the president will have to contend with the fact that he can’t just unilaterally eliminate a right granted in the 14th Amendment of their constitution.
In Canada, birthright citizenship can be eliminated simply by amending or repealing parts of the Citizenship Act.
In both countries, the preoccupation with ending birthright citizenship is tied to the argument that migrants are engaging in “birth tourism” and challenging the integrity of citizenship. But the facts say otherwise.
As Andrew Griffith, former director general at Citizenship and Immigration Canada, points out, fewer than 0.1 per cent of total births in Canada in the past 10 years (except 2012) involved births of children to foreign mothers. Griffiths concludes, “An impartial observer would conclude that there is currently no business case for changing Canada’s birth policy.”
Aside from the business case, what’s not talked about is how the elimination of birthright citizenship would affect not just migrants, but all of us. Undoubtedly, such a policy would increase the number of stateless persons in Canada.
Every person born in Canada to non-citizen parents would have to apply for citizenship. More tax dollars would be needed to process the applications. Clerks would suddenly have the power to make substantive and legal determinations about the status of every person who applies for citizenship. Like any administrative system, mistakes would be made. Bad or wrong decisions would be challenged in the courts at great expense to both the state and people affected. People would struggle with the fact that they are stateless in the interim.
Being stateless has serious implications.
Stateless persons have difficulty accessing education, employment, health care, social services and freedom of movement. Simple things such as getting a bank account, cellphone account or registering birth, marriage or death are complicated, if not impossible. Stateless persons would be subject to arrest, detention and potential removal to places they may never have been to.
The elimination of birthright citizenship would have the greatest effect on the most vulnerable: the indigent, the less educated, those with mental illness, children in precarious family situations or wards of the state. These are the people who may not have the appropriate paperwork or proof that they do qualify for citizenship or they won’t have support for obtaining citizenship.
This one policy would create an expensive social problem for the state.
The elimination of birthright citizenship is, then, not an act to preserve or protect the integrity of citizenship. The policy is a dividing tool that fuels discrimination against those of different races and socioeconomic classes. It’s a tool to delegitimize persons who have a genuine and effective link to Canada. It would create barriers to important rights that come with citizenship, including the right to vote.
We only need to look at how stripping citizenship and the denial of citizenship in other places of the world have encouraged discrimination, persecution and violence against stateless persons. For example, the oppression of and the genocide against Rohingya people was precipitated by denial of their citizenship in Myanmar, a country they called home for generations.
Canadians should be cautious when considering the idea to get rid of birthright citizenship. It wouldn’t stop migrants from coming. Instead of making it harder to get citizenship, we should trust our well-oiled immigration system to deal with the entry of persons within our country.
Such a policy would not build confidence in the integrity of Canadian citizenship. Instead, citizenship would be more precarious than ever before.
Canadians should also be mindful that Canada has signed onto the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, both of which obligate Canada not to create situations of statelessness.
My father was born stateless because the state he was born into didn’t confer birthright citizenship. It affected his opportunity for education, employment and his mental health.
Being a child of a previously stateless person, I’m proof enough that welcoming stateless persons to Canada with the conferral of citizenship is the best way to build a nation.
There were 102 babies born to surrogate moms in British Columbia in 2016 and 2017.
Of those, 45 were babies for parents from other countries.
Parents who travelled here to have their child delivered in Canada, who before they left picked up a Canadian citizenship for their child and who left Canadian taxpayers with the bills for the pregnancy of their surrogate mom as well as costs for the delivery and postnatal care of their newborn.
We know this thanks to reporting by freelance Globe and Mail writer Alison Motluk, who earlier this month wrote about Canada increasingly becoming a destination for international surrogacy.
It’s understandable that foreign parents, especially those who may need to turn to surrogacy to have a child, would find Canada and a bonus Canadian citizenship for their child attractive.
Surrogacy is prohibited in many countries and few countries permit surrogacy for non-residents, let alone pay for costs associated with the surrogate mom’s pregnancy, delivery and postnatal care costs.
Without doubt, some of those parents are likely desperate to have children and may have few options. On compassionate grounds, their desire to seek surrogacy here may be compelling.
However, an open-door policy for birth tourism is also troubling.
Why is citizenship being handed out to the children of birth tourists as a going away prize?
Citizenship is a privilege, something often earned at great cost and difficulty for the many millions of Canadians who immigrated to this country and made it their home.
Why on earth should Canadian taxpayers foot the hospital bills for foreign couples who want to have their babies in this country – $3,000 to $6,000 for uneventful births to potentially more than $90,000 for premature babies with complications?
Is birth tourism something we should be encouraging?
And although B.C. tracks residency data on parents, other provinces don’t.
So we’re not even sure of the scope of birth tourism in this country, let alone its costs.
As Brian Lilley wrote in the Sun on this issue, Real Women of Canada wants Ottawa to close loopholes that permit taxpayer subsidization for foreign surrogacy – something many European countries have already done.
Without such change, there’s little doubt Canada increasingly will become a destination for birth tourism.
We’ve all heard stories about mothers arriving in Canadian cities just in time to give birth so their child can get Canadian citizenship.
But what about foreign parents having a kid in Canada via surrogacy?
It is happening and it is growing.
In 2016 and 2017 there were 102 babies born to surrogate mothers in British Columbia. A shocking 45 of those babies were born to parents from outside of the country.
Here is the crazy part, you are paying for it and the baby that is quickly whisked off to a foreign land is granted automatic Canadian citizenship.
The numbers, first reported by freelance journalist Alison Motluk in the Globe and Mail, show what experts believe to be a growing issue in Canada.
While surrogacy is tightly regulated in Canada, we are one of a handful of countries that allow foreign parents to find a surrogate within our borders. We also have “free” health care, meaning the “intended parents” of the child born by surrogacy aren’t on the hook for the bill.
Estimates for the cost of an uneventful birth range from $3,000 to $6,000, not including any prenatal or postnatal care. With 45 births in B.C. to foreign parents, that means taxpayers were out $135,000 to $270,000 in health care costs for the birth alone.
If there are complications those costs skyrocket. Estimates say care for a premature baby could top $90,000.
All of that paid for by Canadian taxpayers for a baby that will be shuffled home to a foreign country as soon as all the paperwork is complete.
Those numbers I’ve given you are for B.C. alone. Other provinces either do not keep or will not release stats on the number of surrogate babies for foreign parents.
Whatever the number in other countries, expect this to grow in Canada.
As other countries crackdown on foreign surrogate parents or don’t allow the procedure for non-residents, Canada has no such rules. We also offer complete health-care coverage for the Canadian surrogate and citizenship for the child upon birth.
That means a Canadian passport for life and easier entry, maybe even sponsorship of the parents later in life.
Other countries also make you pay to use their facilities.
One American company offering surrogacy charges a low of US$39,400 in Mexico to a high of US$64,900 for the “Guaranteed Baby” program in Ukraine.
With prices like that, no wonder Canada is becoming a more attractive destination for this kind of birth tourism.
The group Real Women of Canada, which is outright opposed to surrogacy, says the federal government should at least be looking to close this loophole allowing couples from other countries to have their child’s birth subsidized by Canadian taxpayers.
In a submission to Health Canada, which is looking at modernizing rules and regulations around surrogacy, the group calls for non-Canadians to be barred from using Canada as a surrogacy destination, something many European countries already do.
Any discussion of such a ban would be a sticky one for the government, in fact any discussion of the issue is sticky.
Emotions will run high, claims of targeting specific groups will be made.
Here’s an idea though, let’s get better information on this.
It’s understandable that foreign parents may want to give their child the privilege and advantages of a Canadian passport. That’s why we have an immigration system.
But let’s find out from each of the provinces how often this is happening.
Are Canadians paying for the hospital care for babies born to foreign parents?
Are we paying for expensive neonatal care or even IVF treatments so foreign couples can have a child?
Are we handing out citizenship to children that will not live here? And if so, how often is this happening?
This looks like the type of thing people didn’t think of when the current regulations were devised.
More than a decade in, maybe it’s time we had some honest conversations about what we want to allow, who is going to pay for it and who should actually get a Canadian passport.
Doing some further work, based upon more accurate (and higher) numbers than those collected by StatCan and the vital statistics agencies, that will form the basis of an upcoming article in the next month or so.
Canadians on social media recently clued in to a curious blog from Nigeria that encourages the practice of birth tourism.
“Top Tips for Having Your Baby in Canada from Nigeria” is the name of an actual blog post on the popular Nigerian travel site, Naija Nomads, that encourages people to give birth while on a trip to Canada to secure Canadian citizenship for their child.
The author discusses her own experiences giving birth in Canada and why she did it. “Canada offers more benefits for its citizens (immigration policies are better, free health care + college education is cheaper)” and that “Canada is cheaper to have your baby.”
The author offers detailed advice ranging from visa applications to where in the country to plan the birth. “Ontario is where most people have their babies but who knows, Quebec or Nova Scotia might be better for you.”
The blog posted a series of tweets further discussing the issue, but appears to have deleted them after Sun columnist Anthony Furey drew attention to them.
But this incident brings renewed focus on an issue that has become increasingly concerning in Canada.
A Postmedia report from June revealed that the number of babies born at Richmond Hospital in British Columbia now account for about 20% of all deliveries.
“We are reaching a tipping point,” said Liberal MP Joe Peschisolido, who represents the riding of Steveston – Richmond East. “Nurses have told me that this is displacing folks from giving birth in Richmond.”
Peschisolido created an e-petition to back his efforts to get his government’s cabinet to clamp down on the issue.
“In response to birth tourism, Australia and New Zealand changed their laws, granting citizenship to babies only when at least one parent is a citizen or a legal resident,” Postmedia reported.
Canada ought to consider something similar. It’s difficult to blame people like the Nigerian blogger for taking advantage of something that is allowed by law.
The Conservatives recently voted in favour of a policy resolution put forth at their annual convention to end birth tourism.
It was a tight vote and a controversial one. But the integrity of our immigration system matters.
If the issue is also straining our resources, as reports suggest, then that too must be addressed.
Good commentary by Goldy Hyder of Hill+Knowlton Strategies and board member of the Century Initiative.
Perhaps more important is that this appeared in the Toronto Sun to provide a different perspective than their usual contributors (just as the Star and Globe could benefit from a broader range of views):
Over 25 years ago, I wrote my master’s thesis on how the crisis label applied to public policy is both an opportunity for governments and a problem for its citizens.
The example I used to make the point was the “refugee crisis” generated by the dramatic boat arrival of 174 Sikhs off the coast of Nova Scotia in August 1986. This was preceded in equally dramatic fashion by 155 Tamils also arriving on a boat a year earlier.
In the first case, the government of the day responded with openness, generosity and willingness to embrace those who claimed to be fleeing persecution.
The public response was less generous, particularly upon learning that the boat and its occupants were in fact arriving not from India (hardly a refugee producing country) but in fact a safe country (Germany) that could have and should have applied its own refugee laws to determine legitimacy of the claims.
An RCMP officer standing in Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, Que., advises migrants that they are about to illegally cross from Champlain, N.Y., and will be arrested, Monday, Aug. 7, 2017.
When fate afforded the government a do-over upon the next boat arrival, the response by the same government — clearly feeling both duped by the circuitous manner in which the first boat arrived, and with the full knowledge of public sentiments on such arrivals — was to label the issue as a “refugee crisis.”
This dominated headlines, debate in Parliament and the public’s attention. It allowed a government under pressure on other issues to leverage the advantages that a “crisis” label affords any government: Namely the public’s demand and expectation that the government will — as a matter of priority — focus on and put an end to the “crisis.”
In 2018, history is repeating itself.
It was no more a crisis in the aforementioned incidents than there is one today from a purely statistical perspective. But that didn’t matter then and it doesn’t matter now.
There are many reasons we stand to be worse off if the debate heads in the direction it currently is driven by emotion, stoked by political agendas on both sides.
Canadians, I believe, are smarter than that. But, they must be heard.
We know our history. Unless Indigenous, we are all immigrants. What we cherish as a value is fairness and rule of law. We do not like our generosity and compassion to be abused.
While much attention goes to how the so called “alt-right” or those labelled racists, the fact is that masks what is taking place much more broadly in society albeit less overtly.
In the modern era, these debates cannot be suppressed, nor do they function uncomfortably underground. Rather, they play out in the open and that, frankly, is an opportunity.
Migration in all its forms has long been used as an issue to debate because it is deeply personal and goes to who we are as a people and as a nation. We need to be reminded from time to time about the role immigrants, refugees and migrants (not all the same thing) have played in making Canada what it is today.
We know study after study has proven time and again that immigrants put more into the system than they take out of it. Yet, people here in Canada, and in many other countries, are reaching a point of saying either “no more” or “not so many.” Whether there is a crisis or not (there isn’t), this is an opportunity to hear the voices of Canadians, left and right and those in between to understand what is driving their emotions.
If there is one thing I have learned about we Canadians, it is this: Given the right information, provided an opportunity to speak and be heard, there is a collective wisdom in the Canadian public consciousness that usually gets the answer right in the end.
Unfortunately in the era of social media, immediate responses are required. However, the suggested disclaimer – “If what has been alleged is true” – is sound advice:
Since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne and Toronto Mayor John Tory didn’t say it, we will.
The problem with Toronto’s now infamous hijab hoax is that it will make Muslims and others who are actual victims of hate crimes more afraid to come forward for fear of not being believed.
And it will make the public more cynical about the reporting of hate crimes.
We aren’t going to fault the prime minister, the premier or the mayor for assuming the initial report of an 11-year-old child describing how she had been attacked by an “Asian man” who twice tried to cut her hijab with scissors was true.
Many people believed it was true. We reported it on our front page.
But once Toronto police said, following their investigation, that no attack had occurred, it was incumbent on Trudeau, Wynne and Tory to stress the dangers of anyone falsely claiming to be the victim of a hate crime, or for that matter any crime.
Instead, they ran for cover, saying only that they were glad that no attack had occurred but that it was important to continue to be vigilant about fighting hatred and racism.
Of course it’s important to fight hatred and racism, but that’s not the lesson to be learned from what happened in this case.
The lesson in this case is that when a school board and municipal, provincial and federal politicians leap to conclusions before all the facts are known, the revelations of those facts can lead to the very thing they hoped to avoid — public cynicism about the reporting of hate crimes.
When the media wrongly identify a member of a minority group as the perpetrator of a crime, politicians are the first to condemn them.
Why then their silence when they wrongly identify a member of minority group as the victim of a crime?
The next time a crime of this nature is alleged, we suggest our political leaders say words to the effect of: “If what has been alleged is true, it’s completely unacceptable in our city (or province, or country) and we are confident the police will treat this matter seriously and investigate it thoroughly.”
Bob Hepburn on the citizenship oath and some of the silly commentary regarding those who oppose the current oath to the Queen:
“Forget the legalese,” wrote Naomi Lakritz, a Calgary Herald columnist. “Here’s a little populist language: If you don’t want to follow a basic rule for becoming a citizen of this great country — the best place in the world to live — then, don’t come here.
“And if you insist on coming here, don’t think you’re entitled to dictate how you are to become a citizen,” she added. “Go home, all three of you, because it’s not the oath that’s repugnant, it’s your attitude.”
A Toronto Sun editorial wailed about people who, like me, don’t like having the Queen as Canada’s head of state or who don’t like seeing the Queen’s face on our stamps and coins.
“If you don’t want to be a citizen of such a country, this may not be the place for you,” the Sun said.
Such attacks are unjustified and unwarranted, given that so many Canadian-born citizens are as outraged and disgusted as the three court challengers that Canada, which brags of its independence, still maintains ties with the British monarchy.
While judges may have decided they can’t change this law, there is nothing stopping Parliament from amending the Immigration Act.
One of the sillier arguments around. Canadian multiculturalism came from a long history of living together among aboriginal Canadians, French Canadians, English Canadians, further enriched by Ukrainian Canadians who settled the West and successful waves of European and other immigrants. Not without debates, not without tensions, but not artificial like the deep and long-standing sectarian divisions in many of the artificial borders of the Mid-East.
Multicultural Meanderings 