The Conservative Party and Jason Kenney Exploit Immigrants While Appeasing Base

For anyone following the Reform movement from its inception to it's new transformation under the Conservative Party of Canada banner, hearing them describe themselves as friends of immigrants, is both amusing and chilling.

In the early 1990's, when it was discovered that Neo-Nazis had infiltrated the Party, those ousted claimed not to understand the problem. They had been drawn to Reform because of their anti-immigration policies. According to Al Overfield of the Heritage Front: "The attraction of Reform for Overfield and like-minded persons, he said was that it was strictly white bread, 100 percent white Canadians, really anti-immigration; there was really no difference between those people and them [Heritage Front]."

When Bill Dunphy of the Toronto Sun exposed the fact that Heritage Front leader Wolfgang Droege and four other Heritage Front activists had memberships in Toronto area Reform Party riding associations, Preston Manning expelled the group.

"The expulsion enraged the Heritage Front, which saw the Reform Party's policies as very similar to, if not indistinguishable from, its own. How could a party that went on record opposing immigration policies that "radically alter" Canada's ethnic make-up turn around and shun a group like the Heritage Front, Droege asked, when the Heritage Front supports the very same approach? Privately, spokesmen for B'nai Brith and the Canadian Jewish Congress admitted that Droege had a good point." (1)

I'm not suggesting that Harper or his Reform Party were neo-Nazis, but their stance on immigration drew in the wrong kind of people and helped to inflame hatred.

So I find it rather curious that the party is running ads that so many Canadians are finding offensive.



What Michael Ignatieff and Gilles Duceppe oppose is the incarceration of refugees for up to a year, including women and children.

the National Council of Canadian Tamils has strongly criticized the Conservative ad and demanded it be pulled off the air. "This election ad is xenophobic and borders on racism," said Krisna Saravanamuttu, a council spokesman. It appeals to the "worst instincts of Canadians to score political points and votes."

"It is reminiscent of the political rhetoric used to turn back Sikhs and Hindus on board the Kamagata Maru in 1914, and Jewish refugees on board the MS St. Louis fleeing persecution in 1939," Saravanamuttu said. "In these cases, refugees fleeing persecution were labelled 'criminals' and vilified by politicians appealing to the worst instincts of Canadians to score political points and votes."

And as Bill Tieleman says of the mock ballot employed by the Conservatives in their ads:

... shows three items with checkmarks -- "Strong leadership" and "Lower taxes" (but no mention of Harper and Campbell imposing the Harmonized Sales Tax increase on B.C.), followed by "Tough on human smuggling. Huh? Is that Canada's third most important issue in this election?

The pleasant female voiceover explains that Harper has "taken action to protect our borders -- not from those who are welcome but from human smugglers who take advantage of our generosity." The Conservative ad also shows film of a ship being taken into custody by the Canadian navy. Oh, I see. It's coded language only true Tories understand. But let's unscramble the message: "Conservatives will keep refugees on boats out of Canada."

It doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure this one out. Last August a ship called the MV Sun Sea carrying 492 Sri Lankans of Tamil origin claiming refugee status after that country's civil war arrived off the B.C. coast. They were detained and questioned. About 39 remain in custody. The year before another ship carrying 76 Tamil passengers, the Ocean Lady, entered B.C. waters. Let's also make a wild guess. The Conservatives have noticed that these refugee claimants were not, shall we say, Scandinavian-looking.

Some things never change. The Conservatives are tapping into the worst of human nature.

Harsha Walia writes in the Vancouver Sun: Federal Elections and Canada's Immigration Policy, reminding us of Kenney's abysmal record on immigration:

A recent United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees report indicates that the number of asylum applications to Canada has fallen 30 per cent. The number of refugees granted permanent residence dropped by 25% under Jason Kenney; in fact according to Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s own 2009 report, the number of refugees who had their asylum claims approved dropped by 56% in 2008 from 2005. In 2010, there were 8,466 Pre-Removal Risk Assessment applications made by asylum-seekers facing removal orders. Only 89 were approved.

Instead of immigration and providing refugee status, Kenney has been promoting the migrant worker system. In fact during the three years when Canada saw massive unemployment, Kenney allowed record numbers of migrant workers into the job market.


If we reward this party with another mandate, it means that we accept this new direction and Harper's transformation of Canada will be complete.

Are we really prepared for this?

On May 2, vote and vote wisely.

Sources:

1. Web of Hate: Inside Canada's Far Right Network, By: Warren Kinsella, Harper Collins, 1994, ISBN: 0-00-255074-1, Pg. 243-44

Canada Drops Again in Quality of Living

Canada has dropped to eighth place in a United Nations index that measures quality of life in countries around the world. That follows Canada’s fourth-place showing in the 2009 UN Human Development Index.

What kills me is that this gang believe that Canada should only be accepting immigrants of ... hmmm .... Anglo persuasion.

But what are they offering? Our healthcare is on life support. Good jobs are on the decline.

Who in Europe would want to come here now? They can do better at home.

And if getting beat up by police for the simple act of protesting, is their thing, they could move to a third world dictatorship.

They never think things through.

How Will Harper's UN Loss Affect the Immigrant Community?

I always find it interesting when I read how the immigrant communities are now supporting the Harper government.

The Reform Party was notoriously anti-immigration and Stephen Harper has referred to multi-culturalism as a "weak nation strategy".

But they realized that if they wanted to make any gains outside of the West they would have to at least publicly, tone it down a bit.

You could still buy C-Far memberships at their conventions, but c'mon. They allowed one Asian woman in that room full of white faces. That was progress.

But despite their exploitation, we've learned this week that India voted against Canada's UN bid. That's significant after Harper dancing there and all.

But then refusing to answer questions, smashing cameras and roughing up the Indian Press, didn't exactly win them friends.

But when they suffer such a defeat on the International stage, this could have a snowball effect. There were reasons for that rejection and since many immigrants maintain ties with their homeland, will they see the Harperites in a different light? A natural light?

If Obama Can Exorcise Bush's Evils We Need to Exorcise Those of Kenney and Van loan

In June of 2009, I posted a story on Peter Van Loan and Jason Kenney, who had teamed up to create our own home-grown Gestapo, in dealing with immigrants and migrant workers.

Gerald Keddy recently suggested that migrant workers were necessary because Canada's unemployed were "no good bastards"; and this tyrannical twosome are making sure these migrant workers behave or else.

To top off this (Jason Kenney's) vicious policy shift, immigration enforcement teams (Canada Border Services) carried out the largest workplace raids in Canadian history in Southern Ontario on April 2-3, 2009.

... A worker who dropped out of status when she left the employment of a sexually abusive boss was arrested in the raids. Though she is part of a pending criminal investigation against her employer, the fact that she was working outside the terms of her employer-dependent visa means she was scheduled for deportation on 19th April which was only stopped by community and labour mobilization.

In an illegal move, 41 of the nearly 100 arrested were tricked into signing waivers that removed their right to a PRRA hearing and a chance at protection from deportation, ... These workplace raids target temporary foreign workers who have now become the new majority in the Canadian immigration system ... Just as they want other workers to accept concessions around job security, this government wants to force people looking to come to Canada for precarious employment to work under the slave-wage temporary worker programs.”

Pierre Poilievre may have turned to U.S. Republican Jim Sensenbrenner to learn how to pretend to have an accountability act; and Stephen Harper may have turned to Republican James Inhofe to learn how to make a fool of himself with climate change denial; and Jason Kenney may have learned how to wrongly accuse the opposition of being anti-Semitic from Joe Lieberman; but this kind of sadism, is pure George Bush.

Fortunately, President Obama has called in a political exorcist and this was one of the first evils eradicated south of the border. I'm going to call him up and get the name of his exorcist.

Obama Quietly Changes U.S. Immigration Policy
The New American Media
by Edward Alden
December 30, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO - The Obama administration quietly announced last week that it would overturn one of the harsh immigration enforcement measures enacted by the Bush administration following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Beginning next month, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said, those who arrive in the United States fleeing torture or persecution abroad will no longer automatically be welcomed with handcuffs and months in a jail cell. Instead, many of those seeking protection will again be permitted to live freely in the country while their applications for permanent asylum are considered by an immigration judge.

The measure is the latest in a string of little-noticed initiatives by the Obama DHS to reconsider some of the most controversial enforcement policies of the past decade. The administration in August launched an overhaul of the immigration detention system, which had grown out of control as the number of detainees doubled in just five years to more than 440,000 annually. Some of those were simply lost in the system, while others fell ill and died due to poor medical care, and the administration has pledged to stop such abuses. That same month, it moved families out of the notorious T. Don Hutto immigrant detention facility in Texas, which had become a national disgrace after revelations that pregnant women and small children were being held there in prison-like conditions.

The administration has also largely halted workplace raids that resulted in jailing, deportation and even criminal charges for many unauthorized workers, and is focused instead on in-depth audits of companies suspected of hiring those workers. And DHS has curbed the authority of state and local police forces to demand immigration documents from anyone stopped for minor offenses like traffic violations, saying that such checks should be done only for those jailed on criminal charges, particularly for serious criminal offenses. To drive home the point, DHS in October stripped the notorious Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona of federal authority to make immigration-related arrests.

The administration is walking a narrow line. The White House believes it must hold tough on enforcement if there is any hope of assembling a political coalition in Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform next year. Janet Napolitano, the DHS secretary, says the administration has done what Congress sought on everything from the U.S.-Mexico border fence to the E-Verify system for authorizing workers, and that the time has come to enact other elements of reform, including a legalization program for many unauthorized immigrants. If Congress does not believe her claims on enforcement, the rest of the package will likely be dead on arrival.

But at the same time, the administration wants to demonstrate that it's possible to be tough without being unfair and inhumane. The treatment of asylum claimants is just one example of where the United States had gone awry. Under guidelines enacted in 1997, once an arriving individual had shown immigration officials a "credible fear" of persecution or torture back home, he could be "paroled" into the country to await a judge's decision on his application to remain, which could take many months.

But after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Bush administration began to clamp down, arguing that those released might simply disappear, remaining as illegal immigrants and perhaps even posing a terrorist threat. According to a recent study by Human Rights First, about 40 per cent of those asylum seekers were still being paroled in 2004; by 2007 that number had dropped to just four per cent. Senator Patrick Leahy, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, called that figure "an affront to our ideals as a nation that aspires to be a beacon of light to persecuted refugees."

The Obama administration's new policy, which will end such routine incarceration, had been urged by everyone from the bipartisan United States Commission on International Religious Freedom to the United Nations High Commission on Refugees. And there is no reason to believe that the risks will rise significantly. There is considerable evidence, for instance, that alternative programs to monitor those released will ensure that they comply with whatever ruling a judge finally reaches.

Other initiatives show this more nuanced approach as well. The workplace raids, which were intended to send a warning to companies that hired unauthorized workers, mostly just hurt the workers themselves. Last year, only 13 companies were prosecuted for hiring undocumented workers. Now, the Obama administration is instead focusing on expanded audits of the paper trail that companies must keep on their workforce.

Arrests and deportations of workers are down, but hefty fines against the companies are up, providing strong incentives for them to maintain a legal workforce. This is hardly a benign approach - ask the families of the 1,800 immigrant workers who were fired from American Apparel in Los Angeles following an audit - but it marks a departure from the Bush policy of summarily jailing and deporting any unauthorized workers arrested in the raids.

The recent initiatives are only first steps, and the administration is still facing criticism from its own liberal allies that it is simply continuing the Bush administration's enforcement policies. Indeed, by any of the hard measures - detentions, criminal prosecutions, deportations, the number of Border Patrol agents - there has been no softening of the toughest immigration enforcement campaign in recent U.S. history. Still, the changes in the last year are significant, even if they are as yet little recognized. Indeed, the Obama administration itself has not made much effort to advertise the new measures. With the tough fight looming ahead next year on comprehensive immigration reform, it is easy to understand why.

Jason Kenney's Tyranny and Lack of Conscience Has no Equal

When confronted with the news of the brutal murder of a woman and her unborn child

in Mexico, after being refused regugee status in Canada, Kenney sarcastically replied "I plead guilty, I’m a racist."

This man has absolutely no conscience.

To make matters worse two Conservative students from McGill University laughed throughout the narration of the woman's deportation and eventual death.

What is Canada turning into here?

Jason Kenney confronted and disrupted in Montreal

October 23, 2009

Migrant justice activists and organizers, with their McGill allies, confronted and disrupted Jason Kenney -- Canada’s Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism -- before and during a closed function with Conservative McGill.

At least 50 protesters, in an action called by No One Is Illegal-Montreal, were able to surround Kenney in the Arts Building as he tried to enter the private event. For about one-minute, Kenney was asked about the report in today’s Toronto Star that a Mexican woman, who twice tried to apply for refugee status to Canada, was found murdered in Mexico.

Kenney brushed off the question and didn’t answer.

Kenney was also asked explicitly about his party’s blocking of a refugee appeals division, and again he didn’t answer.When Kenney was told by a member of No One Is Illegal that his policies scapegoat migrants and pander to racists, Kenney replied (with a hint of sarcasm): “I plead guilty, I’m a racist.”

At that point, Kenney’s handlers and security pushed through protesters to get Kenney inside the venue.

For the next hour and more, protesters chanted and made noise to disrupt the event from outside. The protest was partially a teach-in as demonstrators gave speeches about Kenney’s track-record, highlighting in particular:

- the murder in Mexico of Grise, a woman who twice tried to claim refugee status in Canada but was refused

- the Conservatives continued refusal to implement a refugee appeals division;

- the recent treatment of Sri Lankan migrants who are currently detained in British Columbia;

- Kenney’s introduction of visas for Mexicans and Czechs while falsely misrepresenting their refugee claims as bogus;

- Kenney’s role in US-style mass raids on migrant workers in Ontario this past April;

- Kenney’s unapologetic defense of Israeli war crimes in Gaza and Lebanon;

- Kenney’s attack on free speech by preventing the entry of George Galloway into Canada;

- Kenney’s involvement in cutting the funding of the Canadian Arab Federation (CAF);

- Kenney’s proposed changes to the status of migrant workers, which makes their situation more precarious;

- the trend under Kenney and the Conservatives to push migrants into temporary worker categories;

- Kenney's defense of Conservative policies justifying rendition to torture and security certificates;

- the lifting of the moratorium on deportations to Burundi, Rwanda and Liberia, while making it harder for other migrants to make refugee claims;

- Kenney’s record of comments that pander to racists, by inaccurately portraying migrants as abusive of the immigration and refugee system.

- and more (!).Members of Solidarity Across Borders, active in support work with local migrants facing removal, also spoke to the day-to-day reality of deportation and detention in Montreal, citing examples of local individuals and families fighting for status, in defiance of removal orders.

At one point, two members of Conservative McGill – Gregory Harris and Derek Beigleman -- began chanting “We love Kenney, we love Kenney.” Protesters stayed silent for at least a minute, and then asked the Conservatives about their view on the murder of Grise, as well as Conservative immigration and refugee policies that allowed the tragedy to happen. The two Conservatives laughed throughout the narration of Grise’s deportation and eventual death.

During the picket, protesters also spoke in solidarity with No One Is Illegal Vancouver’s picket today demanding the release of Sri Lankan migrants who are currently detained after arriving in Canada last Sunday, as well as this evening’s migrant justice assembly by No One Is Illegal-Toronto.

Peter Van Loan's Tyranny Strips Canada of Diginity

With the stage being set for war, the small Republic of Estonia declared neutrality, not wishing to take sides in any conflict.

However, a month before the Invasion of Poland that precipitated World War II; Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which was a treaty of nonaggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

This sealed the fate for the Estonian people, as they soon fell under the Soviet sphere of influence. Mass political arrests, deportations, and executions followed, as Stalin's scorched earth philosophy was inflicted on the country.

Peter Van Loan's mother and grandparents fled during this horrible time, and were among three thousand Estonian immigrants, given asylum in Canada.

You would think that this would make Van Loan more empathetic to people who share the plight of his ancestors, and yet the opposite appears to be true.

He seems to enjoy the suffering of others, and this man who has been called the 'king of the cheap shots', has exchanged barbs for barbed wire, as he carries out one of the most aggressive anti-immigration policies this country has ever seen.

Along with his cohort, Jason Kenney, he has instilled fear into thousands of refugees, seeking freedom from tyranny and oppression. Under Kenney's temporary permits plan, many are forced to work in sweatshop atmospheres, without protection. They know they can't complain or they'll be shipped out.

This is Canada?

Workplace Raids and Citizenship and Immigration Canada's Trickery

To top off this (Jason Kenney's) vicious policy shift, immigration enforcement teams (Canada Border Services) carried out the largest workplace raids in Canadian history in Southern Ontario on April 2-3, 2009. These U.S.-style attacks (even as they are being phased out by the Obama administration) were used to arrest refugee claimants, live-in caregivers, temporary workers and non-status people who have fallen outside of the strict and official compliance with immigration regulations.

A worker who dropped out of status when she left the employment of a sexually abusive boss was arrested in the raids. Though she is part of a pending criminal investigation against her employer, the fact that she was working outside the terms of her employer-dependent visa means she was scheduled for deportation on 19th April which was only stopped by community and labour mobilization.

In an illegal move, 41 of the nearly 100 arrested were tricked into signing waivers that removed their right to a PRRA hearing and a chance at protection from deportation, and promised a quick return to Canada and are being deported on Sunday, 19 April, at last count, 29 had been removed and many more were awaiting travel documents. It is extremely doubtful that these migrants will ever be allowed back into Canada.

These workplace raids target temporary foreign workers who have now become the new majority in the Canadian immigration system. The number of non-permanent workers entering Canada every year almost equals landed immigrants. Pablo Vivanco, Public Relations officer for the Chilean Canadian Cultural Association – Salvador Allende noted:

“Latin Americans, who are among the millions of immigrants who come here to work and build a life have been among the most targeted by Canada's immigration officials... Just as they want other workers to accept concessions around job security, this government wants to force people looking to come to Canada for precarious employment to work under the slave-wage temporary worker programs.”

Latin Americans and other workers who come to Canada have been hit by a global farm and food crisis that has driven millions of people off their lands and from their homes in the last few years. As that crisis is joined by finance capital's meltdown, displaced and made-displaceable migrants are seeing their already precarious position attacked, their families targeted and their humanity devalued. Contrary to Kenney's pronouncements of the government's concern for immigrant welfare, Marco Luciano of Migrante Ontario reported that:

“In our experience it is the caregivers that are punished and deported. In 2007 alone there were reportedly 13,000 Filipino migrants that came to Canada through the Live-in Caregiver Program. That same year our organization, Migrante, was faced with over 20 cases of the death of the migrant, and many agency exploitation and deportation issues. In these cases we were not able to get support from the Canadian and the Philippine governments. Minister Kenney's government treats migrants like rags that they would throw away when they're done with them.”

The unprecedented workplace raids of April 2nd and 3rd are part of a larger tactic of fear and intimidation. Enforcement is targeting immigrants more intensely now during this economic crisis. The ramping-up of pressure and tactics to find and deport non-status people is crossing lines that even fast-and-loose immigration officers have not crossed in the past. In January, a non-status man was detained after the enforcement officer posed as his lawyer (“Illegal immigrant nabbed after agent allegedly posed as his lawyer” Globe and Mail January 17th).

Canada Border Services Agents have even gone in to schools to detain children of undocumented migrants, which was responded to by the “Education, Not Deportation” campaign led by No One is Illegal-Toronto, and resulted in the Toronto District School Board adopting a new ‘don't ask, don't tell’ policy. The policy remains to be fully implemented. “Enforcement is going into women's shelters to detain people, and enforcement officers are posing as community workers to enter low income housing,” says Macdonald Scott, Certified Immigration Consultant, Carranza Barristers and Solicitors. “Just weeks ago, Border guards tried to force their way in to a shelter to arrest one of our members.”

Scott who works with the migrant justice group No One Is Illegal-Toronto adds, “Now more than ever, people need to take a stand.” Regarding this increase in enforcement in the last four to five months Amina Sherazee, a lawyer who represents many facing removal said: “Not only has there been an increase in deportations but also people are given very little time between the day they receive notice of deportation and the removal date in order to make it harder for them to use the courts to stop their removal.”

Sultana Jahangir, Executive Director of the grassroots South Asian Women's Right Organization also similarly observes:

“Our organization watches the community very carefully. Recently we have observed increasing enforcement which has caused us to lose some very influential and community-minded immigrants from our community. As well, we have found that the harassment and enforcement increased very suddenly. We have lost our friends, and our family members as well as our neighbours.”

Public Safety Minister Van Loan Gets Into the Act

Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan is the man responsible for Immigration Enforcement, and his agents are busy kicking out families and keeping working people from the Global South out of Canada, in particular keeping out people of colour, working people, women, LGBTTTQ and disabled people. Enforcing this exclusion exacerbates sweatshop like conditions for the approximately 200,000-500,000 people living and working without status in Canada.

Migrants, poor and working people and those classified as ‘low skilled’ have always been the last hired, first fired. Temporary work programs mean greater corporate profit at huge human expense and a worker population that can be removed at an employer's whim. These programs compromise the struggle of all workers for decent living and working conditions.

Kenney's sophisticated media machinations attempt to lull immigrants into a false sense of security, and the two-track citizenship system (permanent vs. temporary) has contributed to a weakening of worker solidarity on citizenship grounds, requiring a broad collaborative fight backed by all members of the Left. The fear mongering about non-status people ensures that the hundreds of thousands of people living without status will work for low wages, pay large sums of taxes to support the under-funded social services but will remain fearful of accessing them.

Non-status people and temporary workers have become the ultimate cash cow. Community organizers and union activists can begin to combine efforts to challenge the division of people based on arbitrary citizenship documents. Capitalism's crisis is being downloaded on to those it perceives as the weakest – poor and working people – and it is essential that all of us combine our voices to say this is not our crisis, and we will not pay for it.

When you look at Jason Kenney and Peter Van Loan, it's hard to imagine they could be so Stalin-esque. Pudgy little twits who sound more like Daffy Duck or Sylvester the Cat, then any powerful dictator. Maybe those are the ones to look out for. Blustering, 'poke a stick and run' mama's boys can fly under the radar, because we too easily dismiss them.

We'd better start paying attention.

More Postings on Peter Van Loan:

1. Peter Van Loan and Jason Kenney Play Pass the Buck

2. Peter Van Loan Puts Public at Risk to Deflect Tory Incompetence

3. If Obama Can Exorcise Bush's Evils We Need to Exorcise Those of Kenney and Van loan

4. So Why Did Peter Van Loan Sit on the RCMP Report Until After the Vote?

5. Peter Van Loan Says Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, AGAIN!

Jason Kenney Uses Immigration Office to Create Sweatshops

Whenever I feel the need to write about Jason Kenney's immigration policies and Peter Van Loan's brutal methods of carrying out those immigration policies, I feel incredibly sad.

Maybe that's why I use cartoons, to soften the blow.

The fact is, they are trying to turn this country into something I barely recognize. This is not who Canadians are.

We have always provided a safe haven and a window of opportunity for those facing oppression or worse, and as a result we have a wonderful multi-cultural population, that helps define our nation.

The old Reformers like Jason Kenney and Stephen Harper, detested multi-culturalism and decided that it posed a threat to our identity. Harper's National Citizens Coalition successfully ran the 'boat people' campaign that blocked Vietnamese refugees from entering Canada because they simply didn't look right.

The religious groups who propelled the new Conservative Party to power, are extremely 'white Christian only', and often dictate public policy.

Jason Kenney is like putty in their hands. He thrives on the feeling of power, holding that above all else. On the surface he is a giddy little man, not terribly bright. But it's the people behind him who pose the danger, and it's not just big corporations, though they are certainly cashing in on his latest scheme.

Jason Kenney's Doublespeak Exposed:
Tories Unleash Canada Border Services on Migrants
S.K. Hussan and Mac Scott
April 22, 2009

It is hard to write an article about Conservative Immigration Minister Jason Kenney's attacks on Canadian racialized communities. As soon as one draft is complete, Kenney is at it again, spinning new lies and venting hateful rhetoric. In a federal cabinet chock-a-block with unsavory characters, Kenney stands first in line.

Kenney has expanded his use of arbitrary power and has moved with stealth to significantly reduce the number of family-class immigrants applying from countries of the Global South. While on the one hand Kenney and the Conservatives portray themselves as the friend of immigrant communities, their administrative edicts to Citizenship and Immigration Canada and legislative changes have resulted in the door being shut on immigrants' hands.

The most recent step has been a ramped-up Conservative attack on immigrants in early April using workplace raids of unprecedented size and scope. These raids have increased undocumented migrants fears and potential for workplace intimidation. At the same time, Kenney and the Conservatives have continued their support for the expansion of temporary worker intake resulting in the continued reproduction of a migrant working-class without political, social and economic rights. Temporary work programs have been used to swell corporate profit at the expense of human misery and migrant workers face removal at an employer's whim.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney's Doublespeak Exposed

Speaking in Calgary on April 14th, Kenney announced an immigrant ‘integration’ program that will result in new immigrants to Canada watching videos and writing tests prior to being granted Citizenship. These videos and tests are meant to ‘teach’ people Canadian history and ‘Canadian values.’ No doubt the ‘history’ will be devoid of the role of indigenous and racialized peoples in making Canada, and will gloss over Canada's state-sponsored terrorism against indigenous people. The videos project a false picture of the present-day Canada that is post-sexist, post-racist, post-homophobic and post-ableist. By setting up this integration program, Kenney effectively wants to reinforce dominant Eurocentric myths of Canadian history, and to add to the liberal lie that all immigrants can and will succeed in a land without discriminatory barriers.

Back on 20 February 2009, Kenney released a press statement saying, “Our government will not follow the advice of those who believe that Canada should take steps to reduce immigration levels. In fact, we are maintaining our planned immigration levels for 2009.”

Statements like these were also repeated to community press and at community events that Minister Kenney works very hard to be at. (He is the Conservative Party's front-person for their ethnic outreach strategy.) Breaking down these immigration targets one sees that the majority of the nearly 265,000 incoming Permanent Residents will be rich immigrants in the economic class and not from the poorer Asian, African or Latin American countries. In almost every region, there has been massive slashing in the family class and refugee class claimants. Simone Stothers, who works as a Certified Immigration Consultant, said about Tory immigration policy:

“Our general experience is that visas are being denied at consulates located in South Asia and Latin America basically because many people there are poor and because of the regions they are from. I had a client who was sexually assaulted and needed her mother here to take care of her, but her visa was denied at the consulate in Guatemala City. I generally advise clients who are poor or working people that their chances are very, very low and not to waste money hiring counsel.”

A border which was already virtually closed to refugees, immigrant applicants and visa applicants looking to visit family in Canada, has become even harder to cross.

Take for instance applications for family class immigration from the Middle East and Asia. In 2008, the Canadian Consulate in Abu Dhabi processed 65 parents and grandparents. In 2009, this number will drop to 25. New Delhi reduced its refugee targets from 150 to 125. The targets for the Consulate in Islamabad have been dropped from 8,540 to 6,210 for 2009.

Skilled workers accepted dropped from 3,370 to 1,980 while acceptance rates for parents/grandparents dropped from 1,340 to 75. In Nairobi, the number of parents/grandparents brought into Canada dropped from 210 to 42. (All statistics are from an Access to Information Request made by the Canadian Migration Institute.)

The Expansion of the Use of Arbitrary Administrative Power

Using the new powers given to him under Bill C-50, that let the Minister make changes to the overseas programs without prior notice, Kenney has thus quietly signaled that an imminent reduction of immigration targets is likely (Toronto Star, February 11th, “Rising jobless rate may curb immigration”).

This is in direct contradiction to statements he is making in the non-official language press and his press release of February 20th and shows a blatant disrespect for migrant communities. What is most disgusting is that at the same time as Kenney is using the non-English language press as his mouthpiece, he is attacking immigrants for not having language competency (National Post, March 21, “Immigrants should speak English or French: Kenney”) and simultaneously cutting language skills funding for the Canadian Arab Federation (Toronto Star, March 19, “Kenney has no regrets over cutting off Arab group”).

Kenney's hypocrisy knows no bounds

Though Kenney would have us believe that Canada is welcoming large numbers of refugees, the opposite is true. According to the Canadian Council for Refugees Website, the United Nations set a goal of 560,000 resettled refugees for 2008/9 – of these Canada will only accept about 11,000. This is nearly half of Canada's annual acceptance rate of 21,400 in the 1980s. All the while he ostracizes refugees as ‘queue jumpers.’

On 27 March, Kenney spoke of “wide-scale and almost systematic abuse” of the refugee determination process as his initial salvo against the Pre-Removal Risk Assessment Process (PRRA). The PRRA is presently the only application that failed refugee claimants (the rate of rejection of refugee applications has now reached 60%) can use to ensure that they are not returned to conditions of great personal danger. The PRRA assesses whether the country where the refugee claimant will be deported to is considered safe. Kenney's plan is to either get rid of the PRRA or have the same officer who considered the refugee claim to also be in charge of the risk assessment.

This would place the decision on refoulement to a potentially life-threatening situation into the hands of a person who has already decided that the refugee applicant is not at risk. Broken as the refugee system is, the removal of the PRRA process (only 1-2% successfully argue that they will face a risk if removed from Canada) will mean that more people will be denied any path to status – however small a chance – and will be forced to work without status in conditions ripe for exploitation to avoid the dangers they face in their home country.

An immigration policy that prevents the most vulnerable from gaining status, but expands temporary worker intake, is ripe for abuse. 'We can't give you citizenship right now, but if you're willing to work for peanuts we can give you a temporary work placement'.

Of course the worker has no avenue to complain, no matter how harsh their working conditions, because they know that at any moment the iron fist of Jason Kenney or Peter Van Loan can swoop down and send them back to a country where they will almost certainly face death.

What in the hell happened to us? how did we allow this evil to permeate our government. Vote-splitting and apathy, and look whose paying the price. Human beings treated inhumanely and a national reputation in the toilet.

I WANT MY COUNTRY BACK, DAMN IT!!!