No One Is Illegal-Toronto responds to 2011 Immigration report
In another sly public relations tactic, Minister of Immigration and Multiculturalism Jason Kenney has announced that Canada will give permanent residence to 25,000 parents and grandparents in 2012, a 60% increase from 2010. In addition, on December 1st, the heroically named Parent and Grandparent Super Visa will come into effect, allowing long-separated loved ones to visit their children and grandchildren in Canada for up to 2 years.
This seems just grand, until you read the truth behind the lies.
1. The actual backlog—that is, applications the Harper-Kenney government has refused to process—is 165,000 people. Allowing in only 25,000 parents and grandparents means that 140,000 families will still remain separated.
Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has reintroduced Bill C-4 (formerly Bill C-49), the so-called Preventing Human Smuggling Bill. Under this Bill, any group of migrants can be designated 'a smuggling incident'. Once they have been designated as such, migrants can be jailed for up to 12 months; are denied the ability apply for permanent resident status for five years after they have been granted refugee status; cannot apply on humanitarian and compassionate grounds, for a temporary resident permits or refugee travel documents for five years or longer; are banned from appealing an unfavorable decision and cannot sponsor their families five years. Bill C-4 also gives immigration officers powers to arrest and detain any foreign national or permanent resident on suspicions of criminal activity without proof.
On June 20, 2011, World Refugee Day, migrant justice activists from No One Is Illegal - Toronto hung a 40 feet by 10 feet banner off a major highway in downtown Toronto reading "Canada Jails Refugees".
(1) Contact your MP and demand that this bill be scrapped. Find your MP: http://bit.ly/mfMkVq
(2) Take a minute to write letters to the editor, comment on online news stories & post on social media! Reinforce your support for migrants, demand that Bill C4 be scrapped. All letters must be short (100 words), include name, mailing address and daytime phone number of the writer; state “Letter to the Editor” in subject; and content should be in the body of the email. Globe and Mail: letters@globeandmail.com; Toronto Star: lettertoed@thestar.ca; National Post: letters@nationalpost.com; 24 Hours: news@sunmedia.ca; Now Toronto: letters@nowtoronto.com; Metro News: http://www.metronews.ca/toronto/contactus
(3) Let Jason Kenney know what you think about his racist anti-migrant bill. Call him 403-225-3480 or 613-992-2235; Email kennej@parl.gc.ca; Twitter @kenneyjason
June 09, 2011 (Toronto) -- In 2008, Nell Toussaint, a non-status woman living in poverty in Canada after working one precarious job after another and surviving life-threatening medical conditions, asked the Immigration Minister, Jason Kenney to allow her to apply for permanent residence on humanitarian and compassionate grounds (an H&C application) without having to pay the exorbitant $550.00 fee usually required for these applications. This excessive fee effectively bars poor and working class people from filing an H&C application because they are unable to afford it. Nell Toussant based her request on a provision of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act which explicitly allows the Minister to exempt a person from any requirement under the Act. A reasonable person would think this would include the requirement to pay a fee, but Jason Kenney is not a reasonable person and told Nell she would have to pay to have her application considered.
The Immigration Legal Committee (ILC) of the Law Union of Ontario (LUO) calls on the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Canada to scrap proposals to impose a two year “conditional residency” on sponsored spouses, common law partners and conjugal partners and a five year prohibition of sponsored persons who have left a relationship with their sponsor to sponsor their new spouse, common-law or conjugal partner. The proposals were published in the Canada Gazette as amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations (IRPRegs) on March 26, 2011 and April 2, 2011 respectively.
April 19 2011, Toronto - On Saturday, March 26th, after being found in contempt of Parliament, the Harper government attempted to quietly sneak in changes to family sponsorship and immigration legislation. Harper is proposing replacing permanent residence with temporary status for two years or more for spouses and partners sponsored as part of the family class, "spouse or common-law partner in Canada" class category who are in a relationship of two years or less with their sponsors at the time of application.
March 2011, Toronto - Some believe that the Canadian immigration system is fair and generous. It isn't. And Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney are swiftly making it even worse.
They are underhandedly taking apart the so-called 'objective' points-based system. They are moving quickly to get rid of its 'humanitarian' part: the refugee process. In its place, they are setting up temporary work programs that are designed to push most migrants into vulnerable, precarious and temporary jobs without access to services or the ability to unionize.
In 2008, for the first time, more people (more then 300,000) entered the work force on exploitative temporary work programs than with access to permanent residency. Right now, there are over 500,000 undocumented people without access to good jobs, healthcare, education, childcare, housing, shelter justice or dignity living in Canada, most of them in the GTA.
