TORONTO - Immigration is serious business. It deals with national/provincial identity, consumer marketplace, labour market development, industrial strategy and the evolution, development and maintenance of “social programs”.
Nearly always, it also serves as a “litmus test” to separate hypocrisy from self-interest in the application of public policy. Governments, in Canada as elsewhere, put on a veneer of “acceptance” of new people when in fact their aim is to “keep others out” or to “send them [undesirables] back”.
The moron (so defined by his handpicked staff) who runs the USA is sending over 5,000 soldiers to the Southern border to anticipate the “barbarian invasion” of 7,000 men women and babies headed toward the Texas border. They are still 1,650 km away and travelling on foot. Armies of Texas militants are arming themselves to stop this “human infection” from soiling the American identity. It’s bizarre.
Trump the Narcissist is considering legislation that would deprive children born in the USA to non-Americans of a right to citizenship (jus soli). And, obviously of all the accesses to the “social infrastructure” and “benefi ts” that accrue to those with membership - citizenship.
Even when their non-citizens parents do contribute. Even when those parents are “irregular” or “undocumented” workers whose contributions are integral to the survival of the enterprises that employ them. Gone are the days when Humanitarian and Compassionate Considerations pull back the primal, visceral approach to political decision-making.
Alas, Canada’s governments do not appear to be di. erent - whether Conservative or Liberal. Former Prime Minister Harper, a dour “old-stock” kind of a guy, seemed happiest when his g o v e r n m e n t was deporting people or revoking their citizenship. He deserved to be dumped, for that and for his economic mismanagement.
The current Prime Minister is headed down the same road. How one treats the most vulnerable is often the best single test of a leader’s national perspective. After all, if nothing else, a government is tasked with developing policies that embrace all Canadians, no mater how young or how old.
The Demitri family are a case in point. An entire community of support has rallied around them and their request to stay in Canada. They have been here for five years. Their “friends” have begun a “go fund me “campaign to help address the financial burdens they are incurring to stay here. But they are “on the run”.
Those friends have importuned the offices of every MP in the country for help in the review of their Humanitarian and Compassionate application. The Demitri have four children, two under the age of fi ve. An arbitrator, resident in Vancouver, 5,000 kms away, set aside a Supreme Court directive dated December 12, 2015 instructing governments to place the interest of children first and foremost in any deliberation on immigration matters.
The CBSA is now trolling churches and schools to find them and deport them. Ministers Goodale, Hussen (former refugee without papers) and Prime Minister Trudeau, great defender of children and women, refuse to budge.
