PinoyWatchDog Joel Bander Law Canada is shaping into a less welcoming country for immigrants

1. Canada is shaping into a less welcoming country for immigrants, says
report
By Rene Villaroman, Managing Editor
TORONTO, December 6 – A study released here today points to Canada as shaping into a less
welcoming country for immigrants from all over the world. The study, titled “Shaping the Future,”
was written by public policy professor Naomi Alboim of Queen’s University and Karen Cohl, a
former Ontario assistant deputy minister for citizenship. The study is critical of the changes in
Canada’s immigration and refugee policies that were instituted during the Conservative
government’s administration from 2008 until 2012.
“While no single change would make Canada an unattractive destination, the cumulative impact
may create the impression that Canada is no longer as welcoming as it was,” the study said.
The 96-page report said some of those changes are potentially positive, such as refocusing the
federal skilled worker program, an initiative to bring in skilled trades-people, an appeal process
for selected refugee claimants, increased protection for refugees and transition to permanent
resident status for eligible visa students. But other changes are “problematic,” including a
decision to wipe out immigration application backlogs legislatively, the report said.
The report was released just days after Minister of Immigration Jason Keeney announced that
he had suggested changes in a bill that is now in the House of Commons. These measures
include changes in Canada’s family immigration laws designed to combat marriage fraud. If
passed by the Legislature, the new law would require newlyweds who bring a spouse to Canada
to live together in what the government calls a “legitimate relationship” for two years or the
sponsored spouse could lose permanent resident status. The rule will apply only to those who
have been married less than two years and have no children together at the time of their
application.
Kenney also tabled legislation in the House that would make it easier for the government to
deport refugees, permanent residents and visitors for “serious criminality,” crimes where the
punishment is six months or more in jail. “If you are a foreign national and you want the privilege
of staying in Canada, don’t commit a serious crime…I don’t think that’s too much to ask people,”
Kenney announced.
Speaking at a public affairs show here last week, Kenney warned, “We will not tolerate people
who seek to abuse Canadians who’ve sponsored them in or violate Canada’s laws and to treat
marriage like some cynical, commercial transaction just to bring people in to Canada into what
constitutes a form of human trafficking.” The conditional status will be waived in cases where
there is evidence of abuse or neglect or where the spouse already in Canada dies, according to
a Kenney spokesman.
But there was more to the Kenney bill, including a measure that would allow the Immigration
Minister to decide who can enter the country. One measure would give the Immigration Minister
the power to deny someone entry or temporary residence status for up to three years on the
basis of public policy considerations, and another would let him override the rules to allow entry

2. to someone the minister wants to be allowed in. The example provided in a background
document is for a head of state who satisfies the minister that the visit is not contrary to the
national interest, but who would otherwise not be allowed in.
But the Canadian Council for Refugees is unhappy with regards the family immigration laws
provisions, saying the exemption will not solve the problem. “Making permanent residence
conditional for sponsored spouses gives power to the sponsor who may use the threat of
deportation to manipulate their spouse,” lamented Loly Rico, President of the organization. “In
situations of domestic abuse or violence, the measure will be a gift to an abuser,” she said in a
statement.
These changes being proposed would give new powers to the Minster of Immigration, including
the ability to deny entry to visitors for public policy reasons and to override the rules to let
otherwise inadmissible people come to Canada. “I think you can call them dangerous, you can
call them serious,” Kenney stated. “We don’t want them in Canada anymore, and that’s the
bottom line,” he told Chris Hall of CBC News Network’s “Power and Politics.”
The rules were developed over two years of consultation during which the government heard
concerns from dozens of groups that victims of domestic violence could be unfairly penalized.
“Sometimes, fraudulent immigration marriage facilitates violence against women,” Kenney said,
citing cases of women being brought over by gangs for bogus marriages and possibly then
pressed into sexual slavery.
The new rules will be complaint-based, meaning it will be up to those caught up in fraudulent
marriages to report possible violations to the Canada Border Services Agency. “The CBSA is
not going into people’s bedrooms,” Kenney said
Jinny Sims, an immigration critic, said she had serious concerns about the bill because of the
power it gives to the minister and because the House immigration committee is studying the
issue now but won’t finish the study until the fall. “We have concern about the growing
concentration of power and control into the hands of the minister,” Sims said. “We raised
concerns about that in C-31 (the refugee reform bill) and those concerns are now accentuated
as we give more power to the minister,” Sims added.
“Shaping the Future,” the report, contends: “It’s the way the changes are made, the speed and
breadth of these changes. It’s too much, too fast,” argues Professor Alboim, who is a senior
fellow at Queen’s University’s Maytree Foundation, which focuses on community integration and
diversity issues. “We haven’t really had the opportunity to understand what they all mean, how
they will interact with each other, and what potential impacts these changes will have. We need
to make these changes carefully,” Alboim advised.
The report is highly critical of the Conservative government’s use of undemocratic methods to
bring about these changes, for example, embedding them in omnibus and budget bills, and
endowing the immigration minister with strong power to set policies with little public or
parliamentary oversight. “It didn’t help that Ottawa decided to do away with a mandatory long-

3. form census, a source of useful statistics for immigration outcomes and impacts,” Alboim
pointed out.
She concludes the report, saying: “I hope this (report) will spur discussions in the public
discourse, and in the government, so we can have an informed conversation about the kind of
future that we want for Canada.”