No One Is Illegal Deputation to the Standing Committee on Immigration

Today I am here to speak on the alarming, discriminatory, racist and violent amendments being made to the Immgration and Refugee Protection Act through bill-c50.

As Eva Macky, in states in Settling Differences, Nationalism often depends upon mythological narratives of a unified nation moving progressively through time- a continuum beginning with a glorious past leading to the present and then onward to an even better future. These mythical stories require that specific versions of history are highlighted, versions that re-affirm the particular characteristics ascribed to the nation. In Canada, nationalist mythmakers draw upon particular versions of national history to explain the nation’s ‘fairness’ and ‘justice’ today.

It is the responsibility for the decision makers of the present day to reflect insightfully upon the past of “Canadian history” and actively work to deconstruct the racist, ablest, sexist, gendered and classist discriminatory platform of policies that have been historically and continue to be propagated in the building of this ‘nation’.

The series of amendments being made to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act in Bill c-50 will allow the Immigration Minister absolute subjective and arbitrary power to reject and/or deny any migrant applicant. Currently the act states that anyone who does meet the myriad of discriminatory and classed requirements shall be granted status, however under the proposed changes, regardless if you meet the requirements, you can be rejected, no questions asked and no appeal. I am speaking to section 11 sub 1.

Further, the Bill will now allow for official quotas to be implemented on how many migrants Canada wants in which category of application and from which country. The stats coming down from the 1970’s since the implementation of the NIEAP- Non-Immigrant Employment Authorization Program already show that there have been less and less migrants granted immigration status versus increasing temporary workers status- to no status at all. Now with official quotas being put in place this legitimizes this process. So instead of a system where each and every individual application is supposed to be regarded in a unbiased and humane framework, we’ll be looking at which country this person is applying from – checking that they make the cutoff line and then cross checking that they are not one too many in the category they are applying for status through. This process allows for racism and classism to be organized under the neat titles of ‘logistics’ and ‘economic strategies’.

As it has been stated in the United Nation High Commission on Refugees Handbook on the 1951 Refugee convention: It is important to note that most people who are seeking to migrate from around the world today are doing so because they are being pushed to leave their homes from survival. Leaving their communities, families, histories, friends and lives behind in the pursuit, of not simply more opportunities, but An opportunity. For many and most it is a matter of survival.
And This situation, ladies and gentlemen, is inherently tied to the reality that it is our (this nations’) Canadian corporate companies that are forcing themselves upon the lands and homes and economies of these people- we do house the largest mining firms in the world. If people are leaving their homes to become global migrants, it is because of us. As in the case of war, millions of refugees have had to flee countries is Afganistan, iraq and Haiti…these are just three recent examples of the Canadian hand in displacement.

I only wish that there were quotas set out for displacement of people as such. You see, if the finance minister was able to put a limit on which country, and how many people he would be affecting, at least it would allow for some organization and some hope to save lives, and livelyhoods. But the fact is, that when it comes to money and military – the tie that binds- there are no quotas to be set. There are no restrictions to how many lives can be uprooted, neglected and denied.

And then we come to these categories that are being propagated as logistical, which the Tories claim are out of the context of race. Rather, the truth is that, in fact they lay the ground for an extremely racist agenda with absolute impunity. Lets take a look at where similar arguments have been made in history:
The Tories’ Chinese Exclusion Act of 1923, the Order in Council of 1911 prohibiting the landing of “ any immigrant belonging to the Negro race”, the Order of Council of 1923 excluding “any immigrant of any Asiatic race”, and the “None is too many” rule applied to Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi-occupied Europe during Second World War.

The process for immigration and citizenship is already set up to shut out poor people. Most poor people are racialized. In light that most applicants are processed through the economic or skilled worker categories, it is already almost impossible to migrate to Canada if you do not have access to a grade 12 english education and/or skills that Canada deems economically beneficial, basically if you are not of middle or upper classes and preferably from a Northern European country, you do not have full or equal access to this system. This is the current system. IF the amendments are passed through, they will be used even more violently to limit family class and humanitarian overseas applications, coupled with the constant limiting of the refugee applicants this is a direct target on poor and working people coming from southern countries.

And in all honesty, with Citizenship and Immigration Canada being in surplus, once again, we don’t understand the need for the Minister to go to such pitiful and low extents to have to collect money from the most marginalized, violated and impoverished people of the world. The amendments that implement these quotas will also allow for the minister to continue to collect the fees from the influx of applications- beyond the limit of the quotas, and further - throw them away; thus, the CIC will be making money through an even more pitiful and corrupted system- stealing from the very people Canada has strategically impoverished in the first place.

It is simple. If you believe yourself to be a person of humanity and justice and peace, then it is incumbent for you to reflect on your stance on these amendments. Is it inhumane to continue pillaging the homes of people, forcing them off their lands, out of jobs, and then closing our doors to them- unless they are willing to work those specific jobs that ‘Canadian citizens’ do not want to work, in conditions you would not work in, with no protection, no options, no services and no legitimacy.

I stand here today representing the 500,000 non-status people, and the 1000s of activists across Canada condemning these amendments. The following are our demands:

We demand:

- The immediate withdrawal of the proposed amendments the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act under Bill C-50.
- The implementation of a fair and effective appeals process for refugee claimants and the immediate suspension of the safe third country agreement, in concordance with the November 29 2007 Federal Court ruling on this agreement.
- The implementation of a fair and inclusive regularization program for non-status people and the immediate suspension of deportations.