Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney speaking in Burnaby yesterday. Photo by David P. Ball.
Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney was in Burnaby, B.C. yesterday to explain changes to how would-be newcomers connect with employers in Canada, and to answer questions about the controversial Temporary Foreign Workers Program, which has come under scrutiny this week over 200 Chinese coal mine workers in B.C.
The minister told the crowd gathered at the Executive Hotel that his immigration crackdown -- from marriage fraud to human smuggling and what he called the "abuse of Canada's generosity" -- is not driven by ideology or racism.
"One thing that is unique about Canada is that this is the only developed democracy in the world in which there is no serious or organized anti-immigrant or xenophobic sentiment in our public discourse," he told a crowd hosted by the Burnaby Board of Trade and the Immigrant Employment Council of BC. "I want to keep it that way.
"I'll be blunt with you: Because government and politicians didn't want to take any risks, didn't want to be accused of tampering with Canada's tradition of immigration, no one was willing to address the problems we all know exist in our system... Why? Because we Canadians are so polite! We don't like saying no to anyone. There's an infinite number of people around the world who would love to come and pursue opportunity in Canada. But as open as we are, there's obviously a finite number of people we can admit."
For one of the activists outside the speech, Kenney's claims of no serious xenophobia in Canada were hard to stomach. Citing the case of refugee claimant Veronica Castro, who was beaten to death in Mexico this April five weeks after her deportation from Canada, Lee Williams said Kenney is hypocritical.
"We're talking about immigrants coming here, people of colour exploited for labour, being sent out of the country, denied status, who cannot have their spouses come over, who can't have access to health care. I'm curious to know how that's not xenophobic," said Williams, a member of the migrant justice organization No One Is Illegal.
Williams claimed she was inexplicably blocked from attending the event, despite having registered for the $35 reception on Wednesday. The Burnaby Board of Trade insisted it had no record of her registration, leading some activists to suggest attendees were being politically screened by Kenney's office. Another activist was dragged out of the hotel lobby by her arms and legs after she was denied entry to the talk and refused to leave the building.
The minister was in Burnaby to discuss his plan to revamp the overseas application process for immigrants, with a push towards evaluating professional and educational experience and encouraging those who have jobs lined up here already.
One concern raised by No One Is Illegal -- a group Kenney characterizes as "hard-line, anti-Canadian extremists" -- is a new policy forcing spouses to remain married for two years after immigration to Canada.
After facing criticism from women's and immigrant groups who warned the rule could trap women in abusive relationships, Kenney added an exception whereby immigration officials could evaluate claims of domestic abuse.
"We get a lot of fake marriages, which victimize some Canadians who get duped into sponsoring someone from abroad -- then they get really hurt emotionally by the whole situation," Kenney told The Tyee. "It's created an industry of commercial marriages, where tens of thousands of dollars change hands in order to do a fake immigration marriage.
"That's why we brought in the policy. We did listen to concerns by groups that deal with immigrant women... Our officers will receive specialized training to identify cases of domestic abuse. We have no intention of denying permanent residency to people who have had to leave their spouse because of abuse."
But Williams said that even with the abuse clause, the marriage fraud policy is a threat to women's safety, and many could be hesitant to come forward in case they risk deportation.
"The question becomes: how do you prove the abuse that you're in?" she said. "The burden is on the woman to provide this proof.
"Also, who is she speaking with, and in what situations is it safe or even possible to disclose this information? What kind of language barriers are there? There are a number of things that put the burden and onus on the woman to prove her situation."
Kenney said his reforms are simply common sense, and help protect Canada from being taken advantage of.
"We're trying to reinforce the integrity of our system -- to respond to various forms of abuse of Canada's generosity and fraud in the system," he said. "It's a unique situation that we have broad public support for immigration in general, but that support is not unqualified. It's not a blank cheque."
David P. Ball is a freelance journalist based in Vancouver and regular contributor to The Tyee.
17
Login or register to post comments
Skywalker
27 weeks ago
Nope not xenophobic?
"...we are trying to enforce the integrity of the system" but if your name in Conrad Black we make an exception. Those people we send back just don't have enough money. Anyone who disagrees is just a "hard-line, anti-Canadian extremists". Bringing in foreign worker to undercut Canadian worker wages is not anti-Canadian?
Hakuin
27 weeks ago
umm..
[EDITED FOR DEPICTION OF VIOLENCE - MODERATOR]
Hakuin
27 weeks ago
ya know
the bitter and hilarious irony in all this is how the CONS and their political ilk have always exemplified the streak of racism that runs through Canadian history. [EDITED FOR UNACCEPTABLE COMMENT. - MODERATOR]
hg
27 weeks ago
well,well
Our open and transparent government discussing dispassionately their immigration policy based on pure science in front of an audience, vetted for its nonpartisanship
Rolly-polly
27 weeks ago
pfff
This country is full of xenphobia, christ East and West Can't even get along, then you throw in the French...
snert
27 weeks ago
Nope
[COMMENT REMOVED. -MODERATOR.]
But it is infantile.
Hakuin
27 weeks ago
Where there's smoke
http://www.canada.com/reginaleaderpost/news/story.html?id=01bbc304-6a89-481a-8184-2cb2c4bef98d
"Of the 14 federal constituencies in Saskatchewan, 13 are currently occupied by members of the Conservative Party of Canada"
snert
27 weeks ago
Hakuin
You are starting to sound like what it is you think you are trying to prevent. Never a good sign.
Skywalker
27 weeks ago
This is what it has come to.
The Harper Tories only talk to their own like the boards of trade. All others have to be weeded out. That way they never have to hear from anyone except those how sing from the same song sheet. No doubt he heard lots about how great trade deals are and how they need to stick it to BC labour by letting in foreign workers.
They all do it now even Christy Clark makes sure that her audience is always friendly. At least she can't always control who sneaks in because some of her own want to see her out the door. You can always tell when the ship is sinking.
Hakuin
27 weeks ago
wonder what it would look like here?
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/11/where-americas-racist-tweets-come-from/265006/
dorothy
27 weeks ago
Xenophobia?
Whom should we be xenophobic towards? I mean, we're all strangers, aren't we? Nobody can really claim to be 'the real people', can they? Everybody has some people who are more 'indigenous' than they are. Even the indigenous people, right? So, who is really in a position to regard somebody else as 'strangers' and themselves as 'us'? Just asking...
Hakuin
27 weeks ago
The real people?
Those are the ones with the guns.
sunshine coast girl
27 weeks ago
"We get a lot of fake marriages?"
How many is that Jason? Let's see some numbers. You can't jsut throw comments like that out there without some backup. Let me see the numbers.
OwlRol
27 weeks ago
What a pile of...
Kenney and Toews are among the worst of a bad bunch.
A friend married a lady in and from Mexico. Her family and financial status were far ahead of his, whatever that means, but even though he could go there, she could not join her husband here for three years. His friends who went to Mexico for the wedding could not sponsor her and during that time they had to submit their eMails to each other to Kenney's department.
No, we don't want people who would twist and falsify their credentials and reasons for wanting to come to Canada, as they may then continue to scam Canadian society to all our detriment.
But this mad method of "security" is akin to trawling the bottoms to catch a few select fish while damaging all the others. Oh so painful and unjustified. And dictatorial. Papers please and don't forget the financial bribe.
As if we didn't already have those who would twist and falsify the truth, embedded in our corporate boardrooms and their political lackeys.
Anyone notice the massive increase in Enbridge, Capp and Harper government TV, BS PR ads lately? Now there's twist and falsification, far worse than anything the Roma, Mexicans or other non "Canadians" could ever produce.
Yet wealthy Chinese state corporate reps are heartily welcomed, not so average Shanghai residents, the former nearly begged for, even if Beijing may have sent them as spies. Money, money, money.
kasi_visvanath
27 weeks ago
talk about ministerial crap!~
Kenney said:(Canada)"...is the only developed democracy in the world in which there is no serious or organized anti-immigrant or xenophobic sentiment in our public discourse,..."
this is an outright LIE. i read comments all the time to news stories, and there is a very LARGE segment of the Canadian population which is Xenophobic....or more like Xeno hating....i've seen so many anti immigrant comments...so many anti-brown people comments....so many comments telling immigrants they should go back home to their original countries...so many comments expressing outright intolerance and hatred for strangers, so many comments expressing white supremacy racism....so many comments complaining that the "white" people will be a minority soon...and they don't like that....
so don't go on, Minister Kenney, trying to tell me that public discourse is not Xenophobic and anti-immigrant...
you yourself are a good representative of xenophobia, Minister Kenney...after all it is you and your government which has made so many negative comments about immigrants of various kinds...your negative comments that refugee claimants are "illegal immigrants"...jumping the "queue"....you might not recognise Xenophobia and racism, Minister Kenney, because you are a shining example of same yourself. because the Conservative/Fascists are themselves so xenophobic and immigrant haters the rest of the bigoted population feels quite free to let out their racist crap...
G West
27 weeks ago
It may be true
It may be true that Canadian citizens are neither racist nor xenophobic, that's not my impression of at least a large minority of people from the parts of the country I've lived in for extended periods of time - Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec - but lets look on the bright side.
Canada, willy-nilly, is becoming more and more diverse and that may, in the long term, create a more accepting and less prejudiced society. We'll have to wait and see.
On the other hand, the statement from Kenney , as quoted in the article... "(that Canada)...is the only developed democracy in the world in which there is no serious or organized anti-immigrant or xenophobic sentiment in our public discourse,..." is utterly laughable.
The man is, without question, the most out of touch member of Harper's cabinet - and that's a difficult contest to win when one considers the makeup of his peer group.
Paul Forseth
26 weeks ago
Immigration
No system is perfect, but at least the Conservatives, over the last couple of years, are finally starting to deal with the abuses that have been pointed out by immigration support groups, who deal honestly and fairly with the system. Those who are in the business, know of the long-standing problems that are gradually now being addressed. Canada is among the few countries left that has a generous immigration system. It takes political courage to act and do the right things to protect the integrity of immigration law and make the rules work for our society. A quick review of the comments in this section, reveals the extent of contrarian elements within Canada, who are relentless to hurt what is good about our country.