Legislating Discrimination in Canadian Immigration

http://neverhome.ca

Never Home

Never Home

i

We respectfully acknowledge that our work takes place on unceded xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō and

Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Indigenous lands.

And with deep thanks to our community members who shared their stories.

Report produced by No One Is Illegal-Vancouver Unceded Coast Salish Territories.

Videos produced by No One Is Illegal-Vancouver Unceded Coast Salish Territories in partnership with ShitHarperDid.com.

August 2015. Created under creative commons license; non-commercial use and reproduction permitted with credit to No One Is Illegal-Vancouver Unceded Coast Salish Territories.

Authors: Harsha Walia and Omar Chu

Research: Omar Chu, Syed Hussan, Konstantin Kilibarda, Cecily Nicholson, Kas Pavanantharajah, Brian Peaslee, Wrenna Robertson, Zian Sally, Harsha Walia

Edits: Irina Ceric, Omar Chu, Dru Oja Jay, Syed Hussan, AJ Klein, Andrew Loewen, Anna McClean, Dawn Paley, Josh Patterson, Brian Peaslee, Sara Sagaii, Sozan Savehilaghi, Wendy Naava Smolash, Madison Trusolino, Harsha Walia & additional lawyers

Layout: Stephanie Law

Website: Sozan Savehilaghi with thanks to Kamran Khan

Graphics: Tings Chak, Harjap Grewal, Krisztina Kun, Sozan Savehilaghi, Magin Payet Scudellari

Translations: A.A, Ali Abukar, Yasi Bayani, Sadhu Binning, Patrick Cadorette, King-mong Chan, Omar Chu, May Farrales, Billy Joe Laboucan, Melina Laboucan-Massimo, Peggy Lam, Kathryn Gwun-Yeen Lennon, Wilson Liang, Alejandra Lopez-Bravo, Sharmarke Mohamed, Tahmineh Sadeghi, Jorge Salazar, Szu Shen, Audrey Siegl, Harsha Walia, Weiye Wang

Video Production: Omar Chu, Daniel Code, Sean Devlin, Teresa Diewert, Jeff Lee Petry, Daniel Tseghay, Harsha Walia, Nicky Young

Video Editing: Nicky Young

Video Narration: AJ Klein, Ayendri Perera, Mina Ramos, Wendy Naava Smolash, Nicky Young

Music: Stefan Christoff, LAL, Erica Mah

Video Captions: Omar Chu, romham pádraig gallacher of Radical Access Mapping Project, Nicky Young

Credits

Never Home

ii

Table of Contents

About No One is Illegal ................................................................................................3Summary of Never Home: Legislating Discrimination in Canadian Immigration .............4

Context ................................................................................................................4Key Findings .........................................................................................................5

Second Class Citizenship .............................................................................................8Racialization of Citizenship ..................................................................................8Stealing Citizenship Act legislates second-class citizenship .................................9

Exploit and Expend Temporary Foreign Workers ........................................................11Changes to the Temporary Foreign Workers Program .........................................12Changes to the Live-In Caregiver Program ..........................................................14

Family for the Rich ..................................................................................................... 15The Tories hate your grandparents .....................................................................15Sponsoring spouses and children .......................................................................16

No Refuge .................................................................................................................. 17Refugee Exclusion Act ........................................................................................17Reduced Access to Social Net .............................................................................18

Jailed Indefinitely Without Charge ..............................................................................20Detention as a First Resort .................................................................................21

Back To Where You Came From ..................................................................................23Deportation Raids...............................................................................................23Criminalization, Double Punishment and Deportation .........................................24

Stay Terrified ............................................................................................................. 26Anti-Terror Legislation .......................................................................................26Not All Canadians are Equal ................................................................................27

Cut Services, Fund Enforcement .................................................................................29Migrants Pay the Price for Cuts ...........................................................................30

The accompanying videos and infographics for Never Home can be found at http://neverhome.ca

Never Home

3

Never Home: Legislating Discrimination in Canadian Immigration is a project of No One Is Illegal-Vancouver Unceded Coast Salish Territories.

No One is Illegal-Vancouver Coast Salish Territories is a grassroots anti-colonial migrant justice group with leadership from members of migrant and/or racialized backgrounds. We are an all-volunteer group; none of our organizers are paid.

As a movement for self-determination that challenges the ideology of immigration controls, we combat racial profiling, detention and deportation, the national security apparatus, law enforcement brutality, and exploitative working conditions of migrants.

We believe that there are no illegal or undeserving human beings, only inhumane and immoral laws. We strive and struggle for the right to remain, the freedom to move, and the right to return.

The ongoing apartheid reality instituted through reserves and sweatshops is one that must be fundamentally uprooted and transformed. We believe in decolonization and redistribution, and in dismantling interconnected systems such as capitalism, homophobia, imperialism, occupation, patriarchy, poverty, and racism.

We envision a humanity where everyone has the right to sustenance and the ability to provide it, where we are free of oppression and exploitation, and where we are able to live abundantly and meaningfully in relationship to one another and in reverence for the earth that sustains us.

Contact

Email: noii-van@resist.caWeb: www.nooneisillegal.orgFacebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/NoOneIsIllegalNetworkTwitter: http://www.twitter.com/nooneisillegal

To subscribe to our low-traffic email list (1-2 emails a week) for news and event announcements, please email noii-van@resist.ca.

About No One is Illegal

Never Home

4

Context

In 2009, the Conservative government oversaw the largest immigration raid in recent Canadian history, during which Canadian Border Services Agency officers stormed farms, factories and homes to detain over 100 non-status workers in Ontario. Two years later, the federal government announced the ‘four in and four out’ rule that now bars the renewal of work permits for foreign workers who have been working in Canada for four years. As a result of this policy, an estimated 70,000 low-waged migrant workers are facing the possibility of expulsion from 2015 onwards. This is one of the largest mass deportations in Canadian history.

These mass raids and deportations are emblematic of a pattern of tighter immigration controls by the federal government over the past nine years. Although the Never Home: Never Home: Legislating Discrimination in Canadian Immigration report focuses on recent Conservative rule, immigrant exclusion has been central to Canada since its inception. From the Komagata Maru to the

Chinese Head Tax, from the internment of Japanese-Canadians to the de facto prohibition on Black immigration, “White Canada forever” -- and its intersections with other forms of systemic oppression -- has been a prevailing political and social force in Canada.

This history of exclusion is, of course, informed by the foundational violence of genocide against Indigenous nations. Settler-colonialism has sought to conquer and forcibly displace Indigenous peoples from their territories, and is an ongoing reality. Indigenous peoples in Canada still experience disproportionate poverty and homelessness, child apprehension, the trauma and grief of having their loved ones go missing or be murdered, repressive policing, and dispossession from their lands.

Canada is also complicit in global displacement. Canada’s imperial and capital interests in other parts of the world have displaced many migrants to Canada. For example, over 75 percent of the world’s exploration and mining companies are headquartered in Canada, and Canadian

Summary of Never Home: Legislating Discrimination in Canadian Immigration

Never Home is a groundbreaking multimedia project documenting nine years of discriminatory immigration changes by the Canadian government.Never Home: Legislating Discrimination in Canadian Immigration finds that citizenship is becoming harder to get and easier to lose. Permanent residency for refugees, skilled workers and family members is restricted, but the migrant worker program is exploding. Enforcement, in the form of detentions, deportations and secret trials, is also on the rise. Pervasive sentiments such as “bogus refugees”, “terrorists”, and “foreigners stealing jobs” have justified the increasing exclusion and marginalization of migrants. If migrants are allowed in, it is with temporary, conditional or precarious status.

Never Home

5

mining corporations in the global South are implicated in four times as many violations as companies from other countries.

While Canada is often cast as a liberal counterpoint to aggressive U.S. immigration enforcement tactics, the U.S. has actually pointed to Canada as the model to implement for U.S. migration policy. The current Canadian immigration model that favours precarity and temporariness over permanency is not a ‘broken’ immigration system. Canada has actually perfected a system of managed migration to ensure the steady supply of cheap labour within neoliberalism, while entrenching racialized citizenship. Researchers Keegan Williams and Jenna Hennebry have identified 111 new immigration policies since 2002, compared to 19 during 1867-2001. The vast majority of these new changes are Ministerial Instructions, which require no parliamentary approval.

Canada currently accepts more migrants under temporary permits than those allowed to immigrate permanently. Permanent residency for refugees, skilled workers and family members is restricted, citizenship is becoming harder to get and easier to lose, but the migrant worker program is exploding. Migrant workers are brought in as cheap labourers, while family-class immigrants (read: ‘economic burdens’) and refugees (read: ‘terrorists’) are kept out. In reality, all migrants provide an immense subsidy to the Canadian economy; for example, grandparents who undertake childcare and domestic labour. Moreover, it is dehumanizing to propagate the idea that migrants are only desirable if they can contribute to the paid workforce. All human beings are worthy.

In light of these escalating attacks, we call for permanent immigration status and equal rights for migrant workers, refugees, immigrants, and all migrants. We know that real justice comes through community struggles for self-determination and liberation, and we envision a humanity where everyone is able to live and abundantly and meaningfully in responsible relationships to one another and in reverence for the earth that sustains us.

Key Findings

Citizenship

Canadian citizenship is now harder to get and easier to lose. The percentage of immigrants who became citizens dropped from 79 percent to 26 percent among people who arrived between 2000 and 2008. Muslim-Canadians have been particularly targeted as un-Canadian with, for example, the ban on niqabs at citizenship ceremonies. The new “Stealing Citizenship Act” (Bill C-24) legislates second-class citizenship.

Temporary Foreign Workers

Canada currently accepts more migrants under temporary permits than those allowed to immigrate permanently. The federal government eliminated nearly 280,000 applications under the Federal Skilled Worker Program and removed the guaranteed right to permanent residency for caregivers, while the number of temporary migrant workers tripled over the past decade. This is a revolving door system; while more workers are brought in under exploitative conditions, at the same time many are being swiftly removed. As a result of the federal government’s recent ‘four in and four out’ rule, an estimated

Never Home

6

70,000 low-wage migrant workers now face the possibility of expulsion. This is one of the largest mass deportations in Canadian history.

Family Reunification

The number of family-class immigrants dropped by 20 percent in the first five years of Conservative government. Most parents and grandparents can now only arrive on a temporary visitor Super Visa, which requires the purchase of private Canadian healthcare insurance. Many spouses have to come on a conditional sponsorship, and older children cannot be sponsored. Processing times for in-Canada spousal sponsorships have tripled and have been the subject of scathing criticism by the Office of the Auditor General. The income threshold for all family sponsorships has increased, making family reunification a privilege for the wealthy.

Refugees

Sweeping exclusions and inflammatory rhetoric about “bogus refugees” by the Conservative government resulted in a 50 percent decrease in the number of refugee claims and a 30 percent drop in the number of accepted refugees. Many refugees are contending with reduced legal avenues, mandatory incarceration for them and their children, a two-tier system that discriminates based on nationality, and lack of access to adequate healthcare and social assistance. If they do manage to be accepted as refugees, their refugee status is conditional. The Conservative government set $15 million towards reaching an annual target of 875 applications to strip

refugee status, and the number of former refugees who lost their protected status and permanent residency has quintupled.

Detention

The Canadian government jailed 87,317 migrants without charges between 2006 and 2014, and spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars over five years to detain migrants. Migrants, including up to 807 children per year, are the only population in Canada who can be jailed without being charged with a specific criminal offense. This can include indefinite detention, which has repeatedly received strong condemnation by the United Nations. In 2013 alone, migrant detainees spent a collective total of 503 years behind bars. Some migrants now also face mandatory detention, and detained mothers face the painful choice of keeping their children incarcerated with them or handing them over to a child welfare agency.

Deportation

The Canadian government deported 117,531 people between 2006 and 2014, including to countries with official moratoriums on deportation. The federal government and Canada Border Services Agency bribe people to self-deport and use international smugglers to get fake documents to deport migrants to countries to which they have no connection. Refugees are stripped of their permanent residency and face deportation, undocumented migrants face increased deportation raids, and permanent residents convicted of minor offences -- including traffic offenses -- are deported without a right to appeal.

Never Home

7

Security Measures

Refugees and permanent residents are facing secret trials, deportation or limbo due to tightened security processes. New anti-terror legislation and the secret police bill, C-51, grant extraordinary powers for surveillance, secret investigative hearings, and preventative detention without charge. Canada has included charities as well as almost every major Palestinian resistance movement on its anti-terror list. Under the vague guise of ‘terrorism,’ citizenship can be revoked from some Canadians.

Funding Priorities

Over $53 million has been cut from immigrant services, with additional cuts to refugee health and ESL training. Government offices offering walk-in services have closed, and trained staff in remaining offices have been laid off. This results in a high error rate in immigration processing; in a quality management review of just 88 refugee applications, 113 government errors were identified. Meanwhile, immigration enforcement spending rose by $107 million between 2010 and 2013, with an overall 2014 budget of $1.8 billion for enforcement activities.

Never Home

8

SummaryCanadian citizenship is now harder to get and easier to lose. The percentage of immigrants who became citizens dropped from 79 percent to 26 percent among people who arrived between 2000 and 2008. Muslim-Canadians have been particularly targeted as un-Canadian, while the “Stealing Citizenship Act” (Bill C-24) legislates second-class citizenship.

Ottawa-born and Canadian passport-holder Deepan Budlakoti is currently stateless. Since 2010, when he was 21 years old, the federal government has alleged that he should never have been issued a birth certificate or passport. In a shocking precedent, he has been stripped of his passport and he has no permanent work permit, no access to provincial health care, and no right to vote.

I was born in Canada at Grace Hospital in Ottawa, which is now closed. I have an Ontario birth certificate. I held a Canadian passport and, before that, I was on my mother’s Canadian passport for five years. In my passport it says that my nationality is Canadian, the same is true of my younger brother. The government now says it gave me a Canadian passport in error… What the government is doing is wrong.

– Deepan Budlakoti

Since 2010, the federal government has introduced a number of changes to

citizenship including special language tests, a more stringent citizenship test, and the institution of a higher score needed to pass it. They also doubled the citizenship-processing fee and added a $100 “Right of Citizenship” fee to actually become a citizen.

As a result of all these changes to accessing citizenship, the percentage of immigrants who become citizens dropped from 79 percent to 26 percent among people who arrived between 2000 and 2008.

The Conservative government also amended the citizenship guide to reflect a narrow, pro-military and pro-business view of Canadian history. It includes prominent recruitment ads for the Canadian Armed Forces. In its first revision, references to same-sex marriage and queer rights were completely removed, only after mounting pressure did the government re-include those sections. The new citizenship guide also makes racist references to “barbaric” cultural practices, fueling anti-Muslim stereotypes of forced marriages and honour killings.

Racialization of Citizenship

The racialization of citizenship has intensified under the Conservative government:

» Harper explicitly targeted mosques as sites where terrorism is presumed to be advocated or promoted, lending government approval to Islamophobic attitudes.

Percentage of immigrants who became citizens dropped 53 percent and Canadian government makes citizenship harder to get as well as easier to lose

Second Class Citizenship

“

Never Home

9

» The Tories tabled the Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act, which received royal assent and is soon to become law. The sensationalist title frames gender violence as a foreign and imported practice, rather than something faced universally by women, including thousands of missing and murdered Indigenous women within Canada.

» On International Women’s Day, Minister Kenney tweeted fake photographs of Muslim women in chains and child brides falsely attributed to ISIS, fueling the government’s war-mongering in Iraq and Syria.

» On the niqab, Stephen Harper said “Why would Canadians, contrary to our own values, embrace a practice at that time that is not transparent, that is not open and, frankly, is rooted in a culture that is anti-women?” A Conservative fundraising email condemned the niqab and hijab. Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Chris Alexander would later tell the House of Commons that the garments go against “our values” and “our traditions.”

» Muslim women like Zunera Ishaq took the Conservative government to court for disallowing women who wear niqab to take the citizenship oath. A Federal Court judge ruled in favour of Zunera Ishaq and deemed the niqab ban to be unlawful, but the Conservative government is now appealing this ruling.

My desire to live on my own terms is also why I have chosen to challenge the government’s decision to deny me citizenship unless I take off my

niqab at my oath ceremony… I am not looking for Mr. Harper to approve my life choices or dress. I am certainly not looking for him to speak on my behalf and “save” me from oppression, without even ever having bothered to reach out to me and speak with me.

– Zunera Ishaq

To keep up the façade of multicultural welcoming, in 2011, then Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Jason Kenney’s office organized a bogus citizenship ceremony broadcast on Sun Media. “Let’s do it. We can fake the oath,” said one Sun staffer, and arranged for six federal bureaucrats to stand in as fake immigrants getting sworn in (including, ironically, one in hijab).

Stealing Citizenship Act legislates second-class citizenship

Most recently, the “Stealing Citizenship Act” (Bill C-24, officially known as Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act) received royal assent, making citizenship harder to get and easier to lose. Since June 2015, a major part of the Bill has gone into effect, officially creating a two-tier system of citizenship in Canada. On June 25, 2014, the Constitutional Rights Centre along with lawyers Rocco Galati and Manuel Azevedo filed the first of several legal challenges in the Federal Court of Canada against the new law.

Changes with the “Stealing Citizenship Act” include:

» Extended residency requirements: permanent residents must have been physically present in Canada for four

“

Never Home

10

out of the six years prior to application and be physically present in Canada for at least 183 days per year in four of the six years. Previously, applicants were required to have lived in Canada for 3 of the past 4 years. Time spent living in Canada prior to permanent residency (as student, worker, or refugee) is no longer considered.

» Intent to reside clause: Applicants must intend to continue living in Canada, and government officials are vested with unprecedented authority to deny citizenship if they suspect an applicant may not reside in Canada in the future.

» Requirements: Citizenship tests are required for applicants aged 14 to 64, increased from the previous range of 18 to 54 years.

» Higher fees: Processing fees have nearly tripled from $200 to over $500 per person.

» New grounds for revocation of citizenship: The law gives powers to revoke the citizenship of Canadians with dual citizenship who are found guilty of terrorism (including foreign convictions), or treason. This amounts to a double punishment of dual citizens, who may have citizenship revoked in addition to serving time for criminal convictions. Citizenship can also be revoked from individuals who have served as a member of an armed force of another country, or as a member of an organized armed group that was engaged in an armed conflict with Canada.

Never Home

11

SummaryCanada currently accepts more migrants under temporary permits than those allowed to immigrate permanently. The number of temporary migrant workers tripled over the past decade. This is a revolving door system; while more workers are brought in under exploitative conditions, many are being swiftly removed. As a result of the federal government’s recent ‘four in and four out’ rule, an estimated 70,000 low-wage migrant workers now face the possibility of expulsion. This is one of the largest mass deportations in Canadian history.

In a recent landmark case, the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario awarded over $200,000 to two Mexican migrant workers for sexual harassment and a sexually poisoned work environment at Presteve Foods Ltd. This is the largest damages award in the tribunal’s history. The two sisters faced repeated unwanted sexual solicitations, forcible and non-consensual hugging, kissing and rape by the owner of the fish processing plant.

Tribunal adjudicator Mark Hart emphasized that the women felt obligated to accept the owner’s sexual advances because they did not want to be sent back. He wrote how, “A migrant worker like O.P.T. tends to be reliant upon the employment relationship with the designated employer to a degree that is not experienced by Canadian workers. Migrant workers like O.P.T. live under the ever-present threat of having their designated employer decide to end

the employment relationship, for which they require no reason and for which there is no appeal or review.”

For the first time, in 2008, more migrants arrived through migrant worker programs that grant temporary status than via avenues that grant permanent residence. The number of temporary migrant workers Canada tripled from 101,100 to 300,210 over the past decade, though it still comprises less than two percent of the overall labour force. The number of non-permanent residents who entered Canada in 2013 (460,663) (not counting visitors) greatly exceeded the number of those who arrived as or became permanent immigrants that year (258,953).

Temporary foreign workers (TFWs) and workers in the International Mobility Program comprise the fastest growing constituency of non-permanent admissions to Canada, with the lower-skilled streams seeing one of the biggest increases.

Kendra Strauss, a research associate at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, reports that “the number of TFW positive labour market opinions doubled between 2005 and 2012 in sectors like manufacturing and mining, oil and gas, and increased more than sevenfold in construction. Even more striking, though, is the increase from 4,360 to 44,740 during the same period in accommodation and food services positions.” Thus, low-waged migrants increasingly arrived in Canada in situations even more precarious than under previous governments.

Over 300,000 temporary foreign workers easily exploited and 70,000 face largest mass deportation in Canadian history

Exploit and Expend Temporary Foreign Workers

Never Home

12

Changes to the Temporary Foreign Workers Program

Over the past five years, the federal government has introduced a number of changes to the Temporary Foreign Workers Program.

None of these reforms address persistent problems resulting from the precarious legal status of temporary foreign workers. Workers remain tied to a single sponsoring employer, making it challenging to leave abusive or exploitative situations; accommodation is often of poor quality and/or expensive; workers have no access to collective representation or guaranteed access to social services or labour protections; and workers are not granted permanent residency upon arrival. Many migrant workers in the agricultural, food processing and caregiving sector make below minimum wage and work without overtime pay.

The issue isn’t migrants taking jobs from citizen workers, it’s migrant workers being exploited and abused. That’s what migrant workers and their allies have raised for over a decade. It’s obvious that the Federal government refused to listen to the voices of migrant workers.

– Winston Morrisona migrant worker and member of

Justicia for Migrant Workers

In 2011, the federal government announced the ‘four in and four out’ rule that bars the renewal of work permits for foreign workers who have been working in Canada for four cumulative years. As a result of this policy, as of April 1, 2015, any low-wage temporary foreign worker who arrived in 2011 or earlier would not be able to renew their work permits, and an estimated 70,000 migrant workers now face the possibility of expulsion. This is one of the largest mass deportations in Canadian

What happened to Workers Immigrating Permanently?In 2012, the federal government revamped the Federal Skilled Worker Program, including eliminating pending applications made prior to February 27, 2008. Nearly 280,000 applications were completely wiped out, and applicants waiting almost a decade were told to reapply under new guidelines. Kathy Sun, an IT manager from China, described the impact on her and her family, “We spent a lot of time and effort on that and suddenly they tell us, you’ll be wiped out. I can’t express how I feel. It’s like, the end of the world.”

In 2015, the government created the Express Entry System that largely gives employers the power to choose which workers are able to apply for permanent residence as immigrant workers. From a pool of applicants who meet the initial requirements, employers’ can cherry-pick who they want to come to Canada permanently as workers. Dubbed an online-dating system for immigration, it replicates job market discrimination by downloading many immigration decisions to private employers.

Capital, on the other hand, can move freely across the Canadian border. After scrapping the Immigrant Investor Program, which had been labeled by critics as a “cash for citizenship” program, the government introduced the Immigrant Investor Venture Capital program. Applicants to the program are required to have a minimum net worth of $10 million and make a non-guaranteed investment of $2 million over approximately 15 years into a fund managed principally by the investment arm of the Business Development Bank of Canada. Applicants who can show they have a “legally obtained” net worth of at least $50 million can request an exemption from one of the program’s four requirements.

“

Never Home

13

history. Furthermore, work permits for lower-waged workers will now only be issued for one year. This entrenches the temporariness and revolving-door system of immigration.

National-level media attention involving RBC and Tim Hortons led to a growing chorus of ‘Canadians First’ (including Conservative MP John Williamson, who complained that the Temporary Foreign Worker Program was leading to “brown people” taking away the jobs of “whities”). Informed by such xenophobia, a number of changes to the Temporary Foreign Workers Program were announced in June 2014 that further marginalize, scapegoat, and criminalize migrant workers:

» One of the significant changes is a 30 percent cap, to be decreased to a ten percent cap after July 2016, on migrants who fall under specific streams in the new low-wage worker category. This limits the employment of lower-waged workers in workplaces where there are more than 10 workers.

» In regions where the unemployment rate is more than six percent, no new permits will be issued for lower-waged workers. This means that workers already in the country can’t get permits to change jobs within the same industry, further locking them into exploitative work relationships.

» A more comprehensive labour market test, the Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA), is replacing the Labour Market Opinion and will cost employers more ($1000 to $2500). This cost will likely be downloaded

to workers, as there is no national recruiter regulation framework.

» An increased emphasis on criminal investigations gives Canadian Border Services Agency an expanded mandate and twenty additional officers to police the program. The result is more raids on job sites, increasing the risk of deportation for undocumented workers or workers at a work-site other than that of their authorized employer.

Over the last few years, Canadian immigration has churned out what can be considered a revolving door of cheap, flexible and exploitable labour. Yet, migrant workers are willing to put their lives on the line just to work in this country. These workers have had to leave behind their families in order to simply bring food to their table. They are often the subject of racial slurs and are considered to be stealing jobs from Canadians… Instead of deporting and excluding migrant workers from labour struggles in Canada, the solution to the struggles for wages and job security that are shared (to different degrees) by both resident and non-resident workers might be found in joining these struggles together.

– Hessed Torresmigrant caregiver

“

Never Home

14

Changes to the Live-In Caregiver Program

Major changes were also announced to the Live-In Caregiver Program in 2014:

» The program requires that workers complete two years of work in Canada, a one-year Canada-based care-work training prior to being eligible for residency, as well as stricter education and language requirements.

» When caregivers apply for permanent residency, they must wait up to 18 months to obtain an open work permit. The longer it takes, the longer they are banned from working in other occupations. The lengthy delay puts live-in caregivers in more precarious positions as they are not legally authorized to work elsewhere.

» Even when caregivers fulfill restrictive criteria, they no longer have a guaranteed right to permanent residency. The federal government’s two ‘pathways’ for permanent residence for caregivers are capped at 5,550 permanent residency applications each year. This means that even if caregivers meet the stringent requirements for residency, they will be deported if the quota has been filled. According to an immigration department internal memo, the processing time for caregivers’ permanent residency reached a record 50 months in January 2015, up from 26 months a year ago.

Never Home

15

SummaryThe number of family-class immigrants dropped by 20 percent in the first five years of Conservative government. Most parents and grandparents can now only arrive on a temporary visitor Super Visa, which requires the purchase of private Canadian healthcare insurance. Many spouses have to come on a conditional sponsorship, and older children cannot be sponsored. The income threshold for all family sponsorships has increased, making family reunification a privilege for the wealthy.

The federal government has created a harder process and longer timelines to sponsor family members. Karen Talosig, for example, is a registered nurse from the Philippines who came to Canada in 2007 as a live-in caregiver. After qualifying for permanent residency, she submitted an application that included her daughter Jazmine. While waiting five years for a response, she worked 80 hours a week as a caregiver in four different jobs. In May 2015, Citizenship and Immigration Canada sent Karen a letter saying her daugher has been found “medically inadmissible” to join her in Canada because she is deaf.

The number of family-class immigrants dropped by 14,000, or 20 percent, between 2006 and 2011. According to Avvy Yao-Yao Go, Director of the Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic, “Thirty years ago, family-class immigrants made up the majority of all immigrants. Today,

they account for less than 20 percent of the total intake.”

The Tories hate your grandparents

The Conservative government imposed a complete two-year moratorium on reunification with parents or grandparents from November 2011 to January 2014. Then in 2014, they instituted a quota of 5,000 applications (not acceptances) on the sponsorship of parents and grandparents. This quota was reached within one month and the application process was closed from February 2014 to January 2015, when it re-opened again for 5,000 applications. The government imposed a 30 percent increase in income requirements over a longer period to qualify, and families are financially responsible for 20 years (up from ten years) if their parents or grandparents go on social assistance.

As an alternative to family sponsorship, the government is lauding its new “Super Visa” initiative, a temporary visa that allows a successful applicant to stay up to two years in Canada as a visitor. It also requires the pre-purchase of private Canadian health insurance, which can cost more than $5,000 and opens the door towards the privatization of healthcare. Approval rates for this Super Visa are substantially higher for applicants from the US and Europe than for those in many countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.

Family class immigrants drop twenty percent under Conservative government and, as sponsorship rules change, family is privilege for the wealthy

Family for the Rich

Never Home

16

All this makes family reunification a privilege for the wealthy and those from Western countries, preventing thousands of low-income, racialized children from meeting their grandparents. It also furthers poverty for low-income immigrant families who are unable to afford childcare and typically rely on grandparents to assist with domestic labour.

Sponsoring spouses and children

Recently an internal training guide, developed in 2007 for visa officers who determine spousal sponsorships, was leaked. According to the guide, red flags in a spousal sponsorship application were Chinese nationals marrying non-Chinese, small wedding receptions, an uneducated Canadian with a low-paying job or on welfare trying to sponsor a foreign spouse, a list of countries where fraud is apparently common, couples who are not depicted kissing on the lips in their wedding photos, and applicants deemed not compatible in age, physical appearance and values.

For example, Citizenship and Immigration Canada asked Maria Canella and Kurtis Lee Boulianne for more proof that their marriage is legitimate, even after they filed 532 pages of emails, photos, cards, love letters and FaceTime logs as part of their spousal sponsorship application. According to the Toronto Star, the 532-page “proof of relationship” they filed included: six pages of wedding receipts, 18 pages of congratulatory wedding cards, 30 pages of wedding photos, 21 pages of plane tickets, 39 pages of emails, 29 pages of cards and love letters, 57 pages of Facebook history, 36 pages of Skype and FaceTime records and 137 pages of iMessage chat logs. And the request for more evidence didn’t just come once, but twice.

There are additional barriers to reunifying with partners or children:

» As of August 2014, children over the age of 18 can no longer come as a dependent family member. This means that children above the age of 18 must submit an application for permanent residency independent of their parents. Younger women are disproportionately impacted, as they are less likely to qualify for the income and educational threshold.

» Sponsored spouses, where the couple has been together for less than two years and have no children together, must now arrive on a two-year conditional probation residency. If during those two years the relationship ends, the sponsored spouse can lose their permanent residency status and be deported. This means immigrant women in abusive relationships become more vulnerable, as their legal status is contingent on staying with abusive partners.

» In-Canada applicants now have to wait 11 months — up from six months — to get past the first stage, which, if approved, will let the non-citizen spouse work in Canada and access health care. In the meantime, spouses are left with no full access to healthcare and with stresses from the inability to work.

» Overall processing time for in-Canada spousal sponsorships has tripled, which has been the subject of scathing criticism by the Office of the Auditor General. Average processing time for a sponsorship appeal has shot up by 25 percent from five years ago.

Never Home

17

SummaryThe number of family-class immigrants dropped by 20 percent in the first five years of Conservative government. Most parents and grandparents can now only arrive on a temporary visitor Super Visa, which requires the purchase of private Canadian healthcare insurance. Many spouses have to come on a conditional sponsorship, and older children cannot be sponsored. The income threshold for all family sponsorships has increased, making family reunification a privilege for the wealthy.

Due to indiscriminate restrictions implemented by the Conservative government, the number of refugee claims decreased by 50 percent and the number of accepted refugees dropped by 30 percent between 2006 and 2012. Tshegofatso Kgang, for example, is a 42-year-old mother of three and survivor of domestic violence from Botswana who was found not to be in need of refugee protection. Immigration and Refugee Board member Michael Sterlin believed she was not credible, claiming “If the claimant were truly beaten some 100 times in 10 months, then she would have reported her husband to the police, tried to take shelter, or do something to put herself out of harm’s way.”

In 2010, there were 8,466 Pre-Removal Risk Assessment applications made by asylum-seekers facing removal orders. Only 89 applications were approved to remain in Canada.

Between 2010 and 2014, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees found that, Canada dropped from fifth to fifteenth in the list of refugee-receiving industrialized countries. Industrialized countries only receive 14 percent of the world’s total refugee population.

The government also imposed visa requirements targeting refugee claimants from Mexico and the Czech Republic by suggesting they are “bogus” and “system-abusers.” A Roma refugee, Zaneta Dunova, argued in Federal Court that the Immigration Minister’s public comments about Roma as “bogus” refugee claimants have unfairly and negatively prejudiced immigration officers against Roma refugees. The Tories also appointed an infamous anti-gay evangelical, Doug Cryer, to the Immigration and Refugee Board.

Refugee Exclusion Act

As a result of the wide-ranging “Refugee Exclusion Act” (Bill C-31, officially known as Protecting Canada’s Immigration System Act), refugees now contend with a whole new --- and far more exclusionary --- refugee system:

» Shorter timelines: All refugee claimants now face very short timelines to present their claims. Refused refugee claimants cannot apply for pre-removal risk assessment (PRRA) or humanitarian and compassionate consideration for one year, which means they can be deported before exhausting all their legal options.

Exclusionary polices result in fifty percent decrease in refugee claims and thirty percent drop in refugee claim acceptances in Canada

No Refuge

Never Home

18

» Discriminatory two-tier system based on nationality: The Immigration Minister can arbitrarily designate countries as ‘safe,’ making it essentially impossible to seek asylum regardless of one’s individual circumstances. Canada fast-tracks deportations to these Designated Countries of Origin by forcing shorter timelines for processing, denying the right to appeal, and restricting legal avenues. In July 2015, the Federal Court of Canada ruled that this was discriminatory because it denied some refugees their full legal options and “serves to further marginalize, prejudice, and stereotype refugee claimants from DCO countries which are generally considered safe and ‘non-refugee producing.”

» Mandatory incarceration for some refugees: The internationally condemned practice of mandatory detention is now the law in Canada. Refugees designated as “irregular arrivals,” including those as young as 16, face mandatory incarceration for at least two weeks up to a year. They are forced to make refugee claims from jail and are barred the right to appeal a negative decision. Detained mothers face the painful choice of keeping their children incarcerated with them or handing them over to a child welfare agency. Claimants who are designated as ‘irregular’ but eventually accepted as refugees are nonetheless banned from applying for permanent residency status and from sponsoring family for five years.

» Loss of status and deportation for refugees with permanent residency: Accepted refugees who have permanent residency can lose their status and be deported if the Minister determines

that they no longer need protection. This abolishes refugee protection and permanent status for refugees and, instead, introduces an unprecedented conditional residence for refugees. In 2014, the government set a quota to remove status from 875 refugees, with no process for appeal.

Reduced Access to Social Net

Drastic cuts to the Interim Federal Health Program means refugee claimants have significantly reduced access to basic health care. Except for government-assisted refugees, refugee claimants lost access to essential medications, vision care and dental care. All refugee claimants from countries designated as ‘safe’ no longer have health coverage including for urgent or essential care.

Rogelio, for example, arrived from Mexico a decade ago fleeing police persecution. A few years ago, an infection in his leg left him with a $3,700 emergency room bill. He had to pay for a series of tests including MRIs, biopsies, and CT Scans to diagnose cancer in his right knee joint. He works installing aluminum siding, windows and doors, despite a tumour protruding from the back of his knee that has grown to the size of a cantaloupe.

According to Canadian Doctors for Refugee Care, these cuts “place the pregnancies of refugee women at serious risk, cause denial of treatment for sick children, and deprive refugees with cancer of coverage for chemotherapy.”

Never Home

19

My father had cancer and he also had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, he was very sick. With the BC Cancer Agency we were able to get him a couple of treatments of radiation and finally they announced the federal cuts. Jason Kenney announced that they were going to be cutting all the refugee health care across Canada. My dad still needed the services so I was just really shocked that they didn’t care that my dad had lived here for almost three decades, where he worked most of his life where his three children were born, they just cut his health care off like that... And then he passed away last January.

Yeah, I feel like a big part of it was the Canadian government that really killed my dad.

- Diana Chu (not real name) as told to NOII in 2015

Even though the Federal Court of Canada called the cuts unlawful and unconstitutional, the government is appealing the decision. The Conservative government has spent more than $1.4 million in taxpayers’ money in legal fees to fight this in court.

Buried within the Conservative’s latest omnibus Economic Action Plan that passed into law in 2014 are provisions to deny social assistance to a majority of refugees. This law amends the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act such that provinces can now impose individual residency requirements for eligibility for social assistance benefits.

Amnesty International has argued that this “worsens the lives of refugee claimants, who are already in situations of extreme precariousness, by restricting their access to social assistance violates Canada’s protection obligations under the Refugee Convention.” Despite opposition by over 160 organizations, the Tories made these provisions into law.

“

Never Home

20

SummaryThe Canadian government jailed 87,317 migrants without charges between 2006 and 2014. Migrants, including up to 807 children per year, are the only population in Canada who can be jailed on administrative grounds without ever being charged with a specific criminal offense. In 2013 alone, migrant detainees spent a collective total of 503 years behind bars. Some migrants now also face mandatory detention.

I am a survivor of sexual violence and domestic abuse in my home. I came to Canada because I am afraid that my abuser will find me in my country of origin wherever I live. I am fearful for my life. I have been detained in a Canadian detention center for three months. I do not know how long I will be here and if or when I will be released… I have been so stressed out and anxious. Last month, this resulted in me having a miscarriage in the detention center. I did not receive proper medical attention for six days and at the time they tried to tell me that I wasn’t even pregnant! I hope everyone wakes up to the horrors of immigration detention in this country. It is a slow death.

- Anonymous detaineeas told to NOII in 2014

The Canadian government jailed over 87,317 migrants without charge between 2006-2014, and spent more than a quarter

of a billion dollars over five years to detain migrants. Migrants are the only population within Canada who can be jailed simply on administrative grounds without being charged with a specific criminal offense.

In 2014, the United Nations’ High Commissioner for Human Rights’ Working Group on Arbitrary Detention strongly chastised the Canadian immigration detention system. The University of Toronto’s International Human Rights Program released a legal study in 2015 finding that Canada’s rising detention of non-criminal foreigners in maximum-security prisons amounts to arbitrary, cruel and inhumane treatment that violates international obligations.

The State party [Canada] should refrain from detaining irregular migrants for an indefinite period of time and should ensure that detention is used as a measure of last resort, that a reasonable time limit for detention is set...

- United Nations Human Rights Committee 2015

Immigration detention is one of the fastest growing forms of incarceration in Canada. Over the past 10 years, the government has detained an average of 11,000 migrants per year, including up to 807 children detained each year. In some cases, young Canadian children such as Alpha Anawa have been born in Canada Border Services Agency custody, spending their entire lives behind bars.

Over the past nine years the Canadian government jailed 87,317 migrants, including hundreds of children, without charges

Jailed Indefinitely Without Charge

““

Never Home

21

Immigration detention is getting way out of hand. They are locking us up and forgetting about us. I have seen 4 people held in detention with me pass away while in CBSA [Canada Border Services Agency] custody, there is no end to detention and I am worried the next one will be me.

- Francis Davidsonhunger-striking migrant detainee

at Central East Correctional in Ontario

There have been at least 12 documented deaths in immigration detention custody since 2000. These include Sheik Kudrath, Joseph Fernandes, Jan Szamko, Kevon O’Brien-Phillip, Shawn Dwight Cole, Prince Maxamillion Akamai, Joseph Dunn, Lucia Vega Jimenez, Abdurahman Ibrahim Hassan, and a number of unidentified detainees.

Detention as a First Resort

Canada Border Services Agency officers have broad powers to detain migrants if they believe – based on mere suspicion – that the person is a flight risk, a danger to public safety, inadmissible on security grounds, or is not adequately identified. Contrary to popular perception, 94.2 percent of refugees are detained on grounds other than being an alleged security threat.

The length of my detention has not been predicated on any evidence that I am a ‘threat to national security’ or that my release poses any ‘risk to the public safety.’ Yet I have endured the psychological trauma of confinement and the emotional suffering and anxiety of being separated from my son (who has since been granted asylum in Canada).

– NaderIranian refugee

Canada is one of the only ‘Western’ countries to have indefinite detention, often with limited access to family, legal counsel and third-party monitoring agencies. The US and EU countries have a “presumptive period,” meaning that if removal cannot happen within a certain number of days then detainees must be released. In the US, this period is 90 days.

In Canada, some immigration detainees have been jailed for over ten years without charges or trial, including South African anti-apartheid icon Mbuyisa Makhubu.

Canada is also becoming one of the few Western countries to practice mandatory detention. In 2009 and 2010, the Conservatives justified the months-long immediate detention of over 500 Tamil asylum seekers, including women and children, aboard MV Ocean Lady and MV Sun Sea by fear mongering and falsely claiming they were “terrorists,” “illegals,” and “irregular arrivals.”

Due to the sweeping 2012 “Refugee Exclusion Act” (Bill C-31, officially known as Protecting Canada’s Immigration System Act), many more refugees, including children, face mandatory incarceration upon arrival if designated as irregular arrivals. In 2012, five different groups of Romanian refugee claimants were designated as irregular arrivals by the Conservative government. The consequences of this designation for each person over fifteen years of age are being forced into prison for two weeks to one year, and being forced to make a refugee claim from jail.

In 2013, migrant detainees spent a whopping total of 183,928 days (that’s over 503 years) in immigration detention. According to a recent report by the End

“

“

Never Home

22

Immigration Detention Network, fewer migrants are being released from detention each year, with a national release rate average of just 15 percent. In Ontario, less than 10 percent of migrants are released, compared with 27 percent in Alberta and British Columbia.

The decision to detain or release is made by Immigration and Refugee Board Members, who are civil servants not required to be trained in the law. Board member release rates vary arbitrarily between 5 percent and 38 percent, and there is no comprehensive judicial oversight of these decisions. A recent CTV News report revealed that government lawyers were forcing detained Tamil refugees to pay back thousands of dollars in debt to smugglers in order to be released from jail.

Migrant detainees are either imprisoned in one of three CBSA-run immigration-holding centers in Toronto, Laval, and Vancouver, or in one of over forty provincial prisons, including maximum-security prisons, where they can be forced in cells for up to 18 hours per day. Over one third of all migrant detainees are held in provincial prisons. Canada is one of the only Western countries to mix populations of migrants facing administrative offenses with people facing the criminal injustice system, increasing the potential for in-custody tension and violence due to different lived experiences.

Never Home

23

SummaryThe Canadian government deported 117,531 people between 2006 and 2014, including to countries with official moratoriums on deportation. The federal government and Canada Border Services Agency bribe people to self-deport and use international smugglers. Refugees are stripped of their permanent residency and face deportation, while permanent residents convicted of minor offences -- including traffic offenses -- are deported without a right to appeal.

I tried to explain to CBSA [Canada Border Services Agency] that I come from the Gaza Strip, that I can’t go back. I have issues there, I fear for my life. None of that made any sense to them, so i found myself handcuffed and thrown in a detention centre in Vancouver airport and then an airplane.

- Hamoudi Ghareeb

The Canadian government deported 117,531 people between 2006 and 2014. In the last several years, despite official moratoriums on deportation to these countries, more than 500 people were sent to Iraq, Haiti, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, Syria, and other politically volatile states.

In 2012, the federal government began a program to bribe refugee claimants to abandon their refugee claims and self-deport. From 2012-2014, the government spent $7.5 million paying 36,000 refugee

claimants, primarily Roma from Hungary, to leave Canada.

It was recently revealed that Canada Border Services Agency was using international smugglers to get fake documents to deport migrants to countries to which they have no connection. The 2012 “Refugee Exclusion Act” (Bill C-31, officially known as Protecting Canada’s Immigration System Act) allows the Immigration and Refugee Board to strip accepted refugees of their permanent residency status and face deportation. The federal government is now actively pursuing reopening asylum files under “cessation applications” and forcing refugees whose circumstances have changed to leave Canada. Since these changes, the number of former refugees who have lost their protected status and permanent residency almost quintupled. The Conservative government set an annual target of 875 applications to strip refugee status.

Deportation Raids

In 2010 the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) entered Beatrice House, a downtown Toronto shelter, looking for a woman identified as Jane and her three-year-old daughter. Jane had arrived in Canada in 1999 from Ghana as a survivor of sexual violence. Her refugee claim had been rejected and she was due for removal around 2006. At the time of the raid, she and her daughter had just moved to another shelter.

Canadian government deported an average of 35 people per day over the past nine years, including to countries with moratoriums on deportation

Back To Where You Came From

“

Never Home

24

It’s scary. I can’t go to sleep I’m scared not just for myself, but for others in shelters everywhere who are facing the same fear.

– Jane

According to a 2009 House of Commons immigration committee report, estimates of those living in Canada without immigration status ranged from 80,000-500,000 people. With the exclusionary overhaul of the refugee system and restrictions for temporary foreign workers, this number has likely risen. The CBSA has detained and deported migrants from hospitals, women’s shelters, and vehicle safety checks. As registered nurse and advocate Natalie Blair recounts, “There’s been situations where people have been [apprehended] right from their hospital beds. Like, they’ve woken up and there’s been CBSA beside them.”

Criminalization, Double Punishment and Deportation

Deportations are not only increasing for refugee claimants or those with precarious status, but also for those with permanent residency status.

The federal government’s ‘tough on crime’ agenda targets immigrant communities.

For example in 2008, 18-year-old Fredy Villanueva was shot and killed by Montreal police officer Jean-Loup Lapointe. Shortly after, his brother Dany Villanueva, who was a key eyewitness at the public inquiry into the killing of Fredy, faced deportation to Honduras. Despite the fact that Dany’s criminal record was expunged in 2008 and he has lived in Canada since the age of 12, he faces being torn apart from his home

and family for old criminal convictions. This is a policy of double punishment where non-citizens, especially those who are racialized, face deportation after already being profiled and punished by the criminal justice system.

The “Immigrant Criminalization Law” (Bill C-43, officially known as the Faster Removal of Foreign Criminals Act), which passed in 2013, allows for deportations of thousands of permanent residents who have been convicted for minor offences including traffic offenses. The right to appeal the deportation order is stripped from many of these individuals.

In May 2015, the federal government introduced the Removal of Serious Foreign Criminals Act that continues the trend of criminalization of immigrants and refugees, including those with permanent residency. The bill allows people with certain criminal convictions within Canada to be forced back to their home country without their consent. The bill also denies them the pardon process.

Going even further, in 2011, the government released a ‘most-wanted’ list to media with names, photos and other identifying information of thirty men wanted for deportation from Canada. Ottawa declared that these men “had violated human or international rights under the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act.” None had actually even faced trial in Canada, but the Immigration and Refugee Board had ruled them inadmissible simply because of vague suspicions. Legal and civil liberties organizations oppose this list since publicly shaming people, as referring to them as “suspected war criminals” violates the presumption of innocence.

“

Never Home

25

The federal government’s push to criminalize sex-workers is evident not only in its new prostitution laws but also within immigration policy. The federal government’s 2012 Omnibus Crime Bill C-10 included amendments that granted immigration officials the ability to deny a work permit to applicants who are “vulnerable to abuse or exploitation.” The backgrounder provided by the government explicitly mentions exotic dancers, low-skilled workers, and victims of trafficking. As the Canadian Council for Refugees explains, “it is demeaning for women to have a visa officer decide that they should be kept out of Canada for their own protection.”

Never Home

26

SummaryRefugees and permanent residents are facing secret trials, deportation or limbo due to tightened security processes. New anti-terror legislation and the secret police bill grant extraordinary powers for surveillance, secret investigative hearings, and preventative detention without charge. Under the vague guise of ‘terrorism,’ citizenship can be revoked from some Canadians.

I am not a terrorist. El Salvador is not a country of terrorists. Why is Canada treating us that way? Why is Canada doing this to our family?

– Jose Figueroa

Hundreds of refugees are facing legal limbo or deportation due to tightened security admissibility processes. One such person is Jose Figueroa, who has been in Canada since 1997 and was approved in principle for permanent residency. Years later, he was declared inadmissible for his prior membership in Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), which Canada claims engages in acts of “terrorism.” The FMLN fought against U.S.-sponsored dictatorships in the 1980s and is the current elected government of El Salvador.

Another example of the impact of security inadmissibility is the case of Sugunanayake Joseph, a widow from Sri Lanka, who was found inadmissible as a member of a

terrorist organization, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Joseph was not in fact a member of the Tigers, but she supported the activities of her husband, a Member of Parliament who was assassinated. Joseph’s husband was not actually a member of the Tigers either, but he participated in an alliance that pressed for negotiations between the government and the Tigers.

Jose and Sugunanayake are amongst hundreds of Tamils, Iranians, Kurds, Iraqis, Libyans, Palestinians, Colombians, and Sikhs who were granted political asylum under Canada’s onerous refugee system. But now, they are going through years of security inadmissibility hearings and legal limbo, and face incarceration and possible torture if deported because of their involvement in popular resistance movements.

Anti-Terror Legislation

In 2013, the federal government fast-tracked Bill S-7, granting extraordinary powers for secret investigative hearings and preventative detention without charge.

Investigative hearings under the Act are permitted when an individual is considered by authorities to have knowledge of terrorist activity. The individual can be forced into a secret hearing without any charges being laid. The individual must appear and answer all questions; failure to do so can result in detention for up to one year. Preventative detentions allow holding

New anti-terror and security legislation grants extraordinary powers for surveillance, secret hearings, and preventative detention in Canada

Stay Terrified

“

Never Home

27

a person suspected to be involved with terrorism for up to three days, and can be ordered to follow probation-like conditions for up to one year upon release –all without ever being charged.

Civil liberties groups summarized the situation like this: “Individuals could be forced to testify in a court of law, arrested, detained or made subject to bail conditions – all without charges being laid. Individuals have no right to know, and no opportunity to challenge, the basis on which they are being subjected to preventive arrest or required to attend investigate hearings.

People subjected to these anti-terror provisions do not have to be suspected of committing a crime; they can be charged by association, or be suspected of potential future involvement with an alleged offence. In 2015, the “Secret Police Bill” (Bill C-51, officially known as the Anti-terrorism Act, 2015) became law.

This anti-terrorism law is the first comprehensive anti-terrorism legislation since 2001, and amends over a dozen Canadian laws, permitting increased surveillance and information sharing. Police now have the power to preventatively arrest more people without a warrant. Even though terrorism is not clearly defined, encouraging or promoting ‘terrorism offences’ can lead to five years of jail time, even if the act is never actually committed. CSIS has, for the first time, been given wide powers to disrupt suspected terror plots with minimal oversight and accountability. Border guards, who were given arms by the Tories in 2006 to further militarize the border, have now also been given broader

powers to seize items without a warrant. For those being held under security certificates, the law now makes the process even more secretive, and detainees or their advocates won’t have access to their whole file. This change is not just limited to security certificate cases: it means that all immigration admissibility hearings, detention reviews or appeals before the Immigration Appeal Division will now be subject to immediate and unquestioned government appeal of disclosure decisions. This means the government can introduce secret evidence without actually disclosing it to the person affected.

The Secret Police Bill has been widely condemned as overly broad, vague and unconstitutional. Canada’s leading human rights organizations say, “We believe that the government has never made the case for Bill C-51 beyond the simple assertion that it ‘needs’ additional powers to protect public safety. But it has provided no explanation as to why Canada’s spy agency needs unprecedented and troubling disruption powers. It has not made a credible case for the vast, opaque and unaccountable all-of-government information sharing regime Bill C-51 creates. And, it has provided no evidence for how no-fly lists with appeal provisions that lack due process actually improve aviation security and public safety.”

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association and Canadian Journalists for Free Expression launched a constitutional challenge against the new law in Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice in July 2015.

Never Home

28

Not All Canadians are Equal

For racialized immigrants, refugees and citizens, the impact of anti-terror measures is mostly severely felt: they will be placed on no-fly lists and further harassed by police and intelligence officials. The International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group already reports hundreds of instances of immigrant, Muslim, and Arab communities being visited for interviews by security forces without warrants, and of people being taken away for interrogation.

Protests by racialized people will most likely be deemed as undermining “the sovereignty, security or territorial integrity of Canada or the lives or the security of the people of Canada.” Canada’s existing terrorist list is an arbitrary one. Fighters of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) - Harper’s one-time heroes against ISIS - are on this list. As Israel’s best friend, Canada has included almost every major Palestinian resistance movement such as Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine to this list.

The International Relief Fund for the Afflicted and Needy that works with Palestinians was added to Canada’s terror list by the federal government in 2014. This is the first wholly Canada-based charity to be placed on the list.

The federal government’s “Stealing Citizenship Act” (Bill C-24, officially known as Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act) received royal assent in 2014. This law gives immigration officers the power to strip Canadian citizenship from dual nationals, whether naturalized or Canadian-born, if they are found guilty of terrorism or treason

inside or outside of Canada. Hiva Alizadeh and Misbahuddin Ahmed are some of the first Canadians targeted under this law.

A citizen who was unfairly convicted abroad could end up stripped of their Canadian citizenship. For example, Canadian journalist Mohamed Fahmy is facing politically motivated and unjust terrorism-related charges in Egypt, which could result in him losing his Canadian citizenship. The message is clear: not all Canadians are equal.

Never Home

29

SummaryOver $53 million has been cut from immigrant services, with additional cuts to refugee health, access to social assistance, and ESL training. Government offices offering walk-in services have closed, and trained staff in remaining offices have been laid off. This results in a high error rate in immigration processing; in a review of just 88 refugee applications, 113 government errors were identified. Meanwhile, immigration enforcement spending rose by $107 million between 2010 and 2013.

In 2010, the federal government announced $53 million in cuts to immigrant services. Ontario lost more than $71.5 million in funding for immigrant services between 2011-2012. The Conservative government also cut off funding for services and language programs run by pro-Palestinian groups such as the Canadian Arab Federation and Palestine House. Minister Kenney told an Israeli audience that the faith-based group Kairos lost $7,098,758 in funding because of the group’s leadership role in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel.

Drastic cuts to the Interim Federal Health Program in 2012 means refugee claimants have significantly reduced access to basic health care. According to Canadian Doctors for Refugee Care, these cuts “place the pregnancies of refugee women at serious risk, cause denial of treatment

for sick children, and deprive refugees with cancer of coverage for chemotherapy.” Furthermore, health professionals question the validity of the IFH cuts as a cost-saving measure. They point out that costs will be shifted to more costly forms of care like community health centres and emergency departments.

Even though the Federal Court of Canada called the refugee health care cuts unlawful and unconstitutional, the government is appealing the decision. The Conservative government has spent more than $1.4 million in taxpayers’ money in legal fees to fight this in court.

In 2012, the federal government closed 19 Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) offices across the country. The remaining offices no longer provide front desk or walk-in services. Refugee claimant Kujachagulia Wayhi describes the impact: “[The front desk] had a receptionist who would answer all your questions: how to get your work permit, how to take your medical examinations, how to apply for your PIF [the personal info form where you explain why you’re claiming refugee status in Canada], and how to apply for your SIN. [Calling the call centre results in] a voice that asks you to wait, or repeats, or asks you to call another time.”

In 2014, the federal government took control of funding for immigration services in British Columbia and Manitoba. Under federal funding regulations, services can only be provided to permanent residents

Canadian government cuts refugee health care and $53 million from immigrant services, but spends $1.8 billion on deportation enforcement

Cut Services, Fund Enforcement

Never Home

30

and certain refugees. This leaves out migrant workers, refugee claimants, and people with precarious immigration status. Since the changes came into effect, organizations have to apply for funding directly from CIC. Without explanation, the federal government denied applications from refugee mental health services in BC, forcing some to shut their doors. BC colleges and universities lost $17 million in federal money that was used to provide ESL training to immigrants and domestic students. A total of 9,000 ESL school seats are expected to be cut in BC in 2015.

Buried within the Conservative’s latest omnibus Economic Action Plan that passed into law in 2014 are also provisions to deny social assistance to a majority of refugees. This law amends the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act such that provinces can now impose individual residency requirements for eligibility for social assistance benefits. Despite opposition by over 160 organizations, the Tories made these provisions into law.

Meanwhile, in 2013-14, the Canada Border Services Agency overspent its allocated $1.8 billion budget on enforcement activities such as removals and bribing refugees to self-deport. The border agency also contributes $200,000 in communications support to the widely criticized Border Security reality TV show. In 2013, the federal government dedicated more than $15 million over four years to strip refugees of their status. In 2015, the federal government committed an additional $292.6 million to the budget for the RCMP, Canadian Security Intelligence Service and Canada Border Services Agency, and immigration enforcement spending

rose by $107 million between 2010 and 2013.

Migrants Pay the Price for Cuts

In 2011, Bashar Kassir applied to sponsor his aging parents to Canada from Syria, which was in the early stages of civil war. In August 2014, his application was rejected because he had not replied to a letter that he never received. Experts at Microsoft were not able to locate the emails that immigration claims they sent. Kassir did receive a CIC letter by email that was intended for someone in Winnipeg trying to sponsor their family to Canada.

The Canada Employment and Immigration Union says that cuts and layoffs since the Conservatives came to power mean that minimally trained casual employees make up half the workforce responsible for the reviews of permanent residence applications. As a result, internal government reviews revealed in 2015 identified a “high error rate” in immigration processing. According to the review of 996 permanent residence applications handled between November 1 and December 6, 2014, 617 request letters had shortcomings. A 2013 review of the evaluation of refugee permit applications identified 113 errors in just 88 files.

Migrants like Camillio Senior are paying the price. Senior, a Jamaican national married his Canadian wife Christine Villaman in 2013, and they had a baby girl named Zurie. On August 7th 2014, they received a letter acknowledging receipt of his spousal sponsorship application. Later, an agent told him his application had been returned to him on July 14, 2014, because it was “incomplete.” He said he had neither

Never Home

31

changed his address nor received the returned application. Senior states, “We called immigration three times and they gave us three different versions about our application. We are human. We can’t put our lives on hold because of some mistakes they made. We need some transparency over what happens. Someone needs to be held accountable.”