(This column originally appeared in the Toronto Sun)
A new comprehensive immigration study has left many liberal pundits and journalists in the mainstream media disillusioned about one of their favourite Canadian myths.
It turns out, Canadians support sensible immigration policies.
Or, as its spun in a University of Toronto and McGill Institute study, Canadians are not as “tolerant” and “open” as we like to think.
The study, based on public opinion polling of 1,522 people in late January, found Canadian attitudes towards immigration are mostly positive or neutral.
However, it also found there is pushback against open border policies.
For instance, most Canadians prefer that newcomers are educated, speak basic English or French and have a job offer before being accepted for immigration.
We prefer skilled immigrants to unskilled.
About 70% of Canadians surveyed agreed or strongly agreed that “people who come to Canada should change their behaviour to be more like Canadians.”
In other words, Canadians want immigration policies focused on selecting the best candidates and ensuring newcomers integrate into our economy and communities. That’s common sense.
When it comes to refugees, Canadians prefer private over government sponsorship (perfectly reasonable, given that private refugees fare much better) and most Canadians believe we should only admit bona fide refugees fleeing real persecution.
None of this should be controversial. Canadians want sound immigration policies, and are rightly skeptical of mass migration without proper screening and vetting.
And yet, many in the media and even the report’s author interpreted this as indicating Canadians are not open-minded enough.
The study concludes we do “not appear to be an exceptionally tolerant public.”
An article in Maclean’s goes further in disparaging Canadians for not being “enlightened” enough on immigration issues, simply because we want to select the best people to come to Canada.
But the study also shows Canadians have an “impressive” knowledge of our own immigration system.
Most Canadians could correctly identify the basic criteria that we use to select newcomers.
It isn’t out of naivety, bigotry or close-mindedness that Canadians are skeptical about mass migration.
It’s based on our experiences — both at home and around the world.
Even a casual observer of Europe’s hands-off approach to selection and integration of newcomers can see the problems with unchecked migration from a war zone.
It’s common sense to be wary when ISIS terrorists boast about infiltrating the crowds of migrants with jihadists, and…(READ MORE)
Last week, the True North Initiative gave the Toronto Sun an exclusive immigration report which was released in response to an Order Paper question tabled by Conservative MP Tom Kmiec. The report revealed that more than 300 foreign terrorists, spies and criminals who posed a risk to Canada’s national security attempted to sneak into Canada last year. In addition, 1.4 million visa applications were rejected by the Canadian government. Not only did the Toronto Sun pick up on the story, but Candice Malcolm’s article made the front page of the Toronto Sun as well.
This report reveals what we’ve long been aware of: many people have attempted to manipulate and take advantage of Canada’s generous immigration system. We now have a better idea of the scale of this threat.
Unfortunately, it is unknown how many individuals were able to thwart Canada’s screening and vetting system, and enter the country undetected.
Canadians deserve to know the truth, and the True North Initiative is not afraid to do what Liberals and the mainstream media refuse to do – to have robust conversations on sound immigration and security policies.
(This article originally appeared in the Toronto Sun)
More than 300 foreign terrorists, spies and criminals who pose a risk to Canada’s national security tried to sneak into Canada last year, according to a report quietly released by the federal government on Monday.
It outlines all visa applications rejected between November 2015 and December 2016, and the grounds for refusal.
There were 310 cases where an individual was found inadmissible under Section 34 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) — the section dealing with national security concerns.
Among these 310 were seven individuals rejected for “engaging in terrorism,” nine for “engaging in an act of espionage or subversion,” and 13 for “subversion by force” against any government.
Another 79 were found to be a member of an organization that engages in terrorism or espionage, 26 to be a “danger to the security of Canada,” and 48 were stopped for having committed a war crime or crimes against humanity.
In total, there were 1.4 million visa applications rejected by the Canadian government. The most common reason was that a person was not truthful in the information they supplied.
The immigration report was released in response to an Order Paper question tabled by Conservative MP Tom Kmiec, and was exclusively given to the Toronto Sun by the True North Initiative, a Canadian think tank focused on immigration and security reform.
The report does not reveal the country of origin or nationality of those rejected, so it is unknown where the 310 individuals rejected on terrorism and national security grounds came from.
Obviously, the report only outlines instances where the government was successful in stopping an individual with security red flags from entering Canada.
It is therefore unknown how many individuals were able to thwart Canada’s screening and vetting system, and enter the country undetected.
Canadian security officials have repeatedly warned the federal government about its security screening.
In 2011, the federal government was forced to release a “Most Wanted List” after it was discovered that at least 30 war criminals and terrorists were on the loose in Canada.
This new report, showing that Canada continues to be a destination for terrorists and war criminals, was released just days after U.S. President Donald Trump issued a sweeping executive order on immigration security.
Among other directives, Trump ordered the U.S. government to stop processing all refugee applications and to block for three months all immigration and visitor visas from seven countries struggling with large Islamist terrorist insurgencies.
Trump also ordered an overhaul of the security and vetting process, in order to stop the flow of terrorists entering the United States.
The Canadian report suggests Canada is also dealing with a large, possibly coordinated effort by terrorist organizations to enter our country.
Security experts have long warned that Islamist groups see Canada as a soft target, and view our immigration process as a source of weakness.
A 2014 report from the Washington D.C.-based Center for a Secure Free Society noted that, “known state sponsors of terrorism, namely Iran and Syria, along with terror-proxies like Lebanese Hezbollah, are … exploit(ing) the weaknesses within the refugee and migration process in Canada.”
That report highlighted 19 Iranian nationals who made…(READ MORE)
(This column originally appeared in the Toronto Sun)
A deranged gunman stormed a mosque in Quebec City on Sunday, during an evening prayer service, and began firing indiscriminately at the backs of worshippers.
Six people were murdered, 17 injured, in the cowardly attack.
It was a heinous act. A hateful outburst by a despicable individual.
The man police have charged, Alexandre Bissonette, 27, is described as a shy and quiet loner, a Donald Trump supporter, and a white nationalist.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has called this an act of terrorism.
The alleged shooter was quickly and unanimously condemned.
There was cross-partisan condemnation by politicians of all stripes, across the the country.
And in the darkest of moments, Canadians offered light.
From coast to coast to coast, Canadians of all backgrounds took to the streets to condemn this act of hatred, mourn the loss of innocents and commemorate the horrific tragedy.
Candlelight vigils were held in cities and towns across the country, in solidarity with the Muslim community in Sainte-Foy, Quebec.
From Halifax to Victoria, from the tens of thousands who gathered in Montreal to the dozens who braved subarctic conditions in Yellowknife and Iqaluit, Canadians stood in unity, against violence and bigotry.
Canadians opened their wallets, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars to help cover funeral costs and support the families of the victims.
This was just the latest example of Canadians being, well, Canadian.
Despite the overwhelming love and support shown towards Canadians of the Muslim faith, many media elites prefer to tell a different story.
While millions of Canadians were denouncing violence against Muslims, some in the media were using the tragedy as an excuse to condemn them.
One article proclaimed that white Christians were the real terrorists. Another said Conservative MP Kellie Leitch, running for the leadership of her party, was “in the shadows of this horrific crime”.
In the face of the tragedy, media elites couldn’t resist the opportunity to lecture Canadians, play identity politics and pretend xenophobia and so-called Islamophobia are sweeping problems in Canada.
We know the opposite is true, that Canadians are compassionate and accepting.
Unfortunately, many in the media prefer to search for and even invent signs of racism.
Days before Canadians stood in freezing temperatures to show solidarity with Canadian Muslims, the CBC tried to paint us as a bunch of bigots.
On its show Marketplace, the CBC went undercover to test Canadians on whether they would be susceptible to what it deemed as racist messages.
Journalists at the government-funded broadcaster — using taxpayer resources — hired an actor to sell…(READ MORE)
Let’s just jump into the piranha pond without caveats (they’ll come later) and say that much of the criticism of Kellie Leitch’s campaign statements on immigration has been overblown and distorted by those with hostile ideological and political agendas.
Pause.
Still with me? Good. Now, let’s rewind and start with what she gets wrong.
Whether Leitch knew in advance that her campaign for the Conservative party leadership was asking prospective supporters via email if the “Canadian government (should) screen potential immigrants for anti-Canadian values as part of its normal screening for refugees and landed immigrants” is now beside the point, as she quickly embraced the position.
So did most Canadians. A Forum Research Inc. poll commissioned by the Toronto Star a week later showed 67 per cent of Canadians agreed with her. This included 87 per cent of Conservative voters as well as healthy majorities of Liberals (57 per cent) and New Democrats (59 per cent). But being popular does not make a policy good — and what Leitch is proposing is not good policy because it is unintelligible and impractical.
Phrased generally as “keeping out people who hold ‘anti-Canadian values,’” the idea has an almost tautological appeal. It is much harder, however, to explain what, precisely, you mean by “anti-Canadian values.” Like the cultures in which they are embedded, values are frustratingly hard to define. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s promotion of “tolerance,” “acceptance,” “equality” and “diversity” (and once, curiously, “inclusive diversity”) reduces Canadian values to platitudes whose gauzy abstraction cannot bear much scrutiny.
Leitch’s list is not much more specific. Defining them in the negative, she says that “anti-Canadian values include intolerance toward other religions, cultures and sexual orientations, violent and/or misogynist behaviour and/or a lack of acceptance of our Canadian tradition of personal and economic freedoms.” As with Trudeau, it all seems to boil down to tolerance and acceptance. The problem, of course, is that if Leitch and Trudeau appear to agree, it’s only because what they are saying is too ambiguous to have practical meaning.
Leitch found this out the hard way, when — under pressure from CTV’s Evan Solomon — she was unable to explain whether an observant Christian who, as a tenet of his faith, does not accept same-sex marriage would be barred from immigrating to Canada. One could add devout Muslims, Orthodox Jews … or, frankly, most people from non-Western countries. Her evasion was telling, as was her querulous eventual non-answer: “I’m not going to go point-by-point, issue-by-issue and trivialize this issue.”
Sorry, Dr. Leitch, but it trivializes a complex and important debate to raise questions without providing answers. And don’t complain about being pressed for details: This is your policy.
When I worked at Citizenship and Immigration Canada, we seriously considered whether a values pledge for permanent residents or new citizens would be effective, or even just a useful symbolic statement. After looking at examples from Australia and the Netherlands, we concluded that, while they may have an intuitive appeal, such pledges are ultimately empty exercises. Even assuming one could agree on a list of values that newcomers would pledge to uphold (would Conservatives trust Trudeau to draft this? Would Liberals have trusted Stephen Harper to?), it would be about as meaningful as clicking “accept” on a computer program’s ‘Terms of Use’ and, in practice, probably even less enforceable.
Nor are the experiences of Australia and the Netherlands — both of which have similar or worse integration problems than Canada — a compelling endorsement of such “screening.” This isn’t surprising: People will sign or say almost anything to come to Canada (or Australia, or Europe). Just ask the officials charged with immigration fraud detection. The tens of thousands of people who submit fraudulent education and employment credentials, marriage licenses and language test scores along with their Canadian permanent resident applications every year will hardly balk at signing a values pledge that is neither verifiable nor backed by a credible threat of enforcement.
An in-person interview, which Dr. Leitch has also called for, is a much better idea — but not for the reasons she proposes. Face-to-face interviews, which were the rule for most immigrants until the early 2000s, are much more effective at catching all sorts of fraud than a paper file review that is often conducted half-way around the world by people unfamiliar with the language or culture of the applicants. Former immigration officer James Metcalfe’s description of what was lost when Immigration Canada abandoned interviews is typical of what many older officials in the Department of Immigration will tell you:
There are all kinds of things that tipped me off about the veracity of an applicant’s claims. For example, I have never met a chef or cook who did not have burn marks or cuts or scars on their hands or arms. I have also never met a mechanic who had lily-white hands with no cuts or split fingernails …
(O)fficers were (also) allowed to award points for an applicant’s personal suitability for Canada. They could assess the individual’s ability to communicate in English or French right there, because they were in the same room together. Likewise, I interviewed applicants with obvious prison tattoos or gang related tattoos, which was a big red flag. That kind of instant vetting is all gone now.
(Interestingly, most immigrants who came through the old interview process also recall it fondly and can usually tell you the name of, or at least describe, the immigration officer who was their first introduction to their new country.)
But note what Metcalfe doesn’t talk about: abstract values or beliefs. The criteria that an in-person interview can confirm are the objective and verifiable traits of language ability, education, employment history and criminality. Leitch is quite right that in-person interviews absolutely should be required of permanent resident applicants — but as part of the existing vetting process, not a new “values” screening process. (The usual objection that it would cost too much is easily solved: Charge the applicants.)
Using interviews to screen for “anti-Canadian values”, however, would run into the same problems as a written values test or pledge. And as Leitch doesn’t explain how she would overcome those problems, it’s reasonable to conclude that her immigration policies are poll-driven pandering.
Which is a shame, because her failure to articulate a detailed policy doesn’t mean she’s wrong about the bigger picture. There are legitimate concerns about Canadian immigration that are not being acknowledged, let alone addressed, by our political leaders and public commentators. Worse, Prime Minister Trudeau and the Liberal government are determined to exacerbate these concerns by substantially increasing raw numbers of immigrants while loosening or abandoning policies designed to ensure that immigration serves the interests of Canada rather than the electoral prospects of the Liberal party.
What Leitch has so awkwardly stumbled upon is a real and legitimate concern about what our communities will look and feel like if current immigration policies continue unchanged, or change for the worse under the Liberals’ plans. There is already a well-founded suspicion that Canada’s immigration policy is being designed by professional immigration lobbyists and their emotional and ideological progressive allies to benefit foreigners first and Canadians second, if our interests are given any consideration at all.
What could give people that idea? To start, the Liberals have increased already high annual permanent resident targets to 300,000 per year (a Liberal-appointed advisory panel recommended increasing targets by a further 150,000, to 450,000 per year, so keep an eye out for that), even though the government’s own polls showed that only 8 per cent of Canadians wanted more immigration when the target was “only” 250,000 per year. Three times as many wanted less immigration.
What else? A non-exhaustive list would include:
Lifting the visa-requirement on Mexico, which was imposed because in 2009 there were almost 10,000 asylum claims from this close ally and NAFTA partner (after the visa requirement was reinstated, that number fell to 120 in 2015). This decision has been taken before the efficacy of the government’s new electronic travel authorization process has been tested.
A photo-op refugee policy. When Trudeau announced that his government would bring in 35,000 to 50,000 Syrian refugees, an Angus Reid poll showed that more than 70 per cent of Canadians opposed the plan. No one could fail to be moved by stage-managed photos of the prime minister greeting the first Syrian families (almost certainly selected under the previous government’s refugee policy) at Pearson Airport, but immigration is a numbers game and the Trudeau government was clearly listening to registered refugee lobbyists like Janet Dench and a narrow urban sliver of their base in setting targets way out of proportion with Canadian preferences for lower numbers.
A cynically political refugee selection policy. Trudeau’s government trumpeted the arrival of the late Alan Kurdi’s uncle’s family to Canada, even though Kurdi had been living safely in Germany and his family in Istanbul. Why would our refugee policy prioritize a family living in first-world comfort over persons facing genocide, unless the decision eschewed “evidence-based policy” in favour of an emotive political narrative?
Permanent increases in refugee resettlement. Because the Liberals have mostly stopped talking about it, Canadians might be under the impression that the newly-inflated refugee resettlement program was a one-year thing. It wasn’t. After the initial cohort of Syrian refugees arrived in 2015, another 25,000 arrived in 2016 and 25,000 more resettled refugees are scheduled for 2017.
An apparent lack of concern for the effects of high levels of refugees on local communities. Teachers in Surrey, B.C., for example, say their number one challenge is a lack of resources to accommodate a large influx of maladjusted and under-educated refugees. It apparently never occurred to the government that swamping communities with families from war zones might have effects that exceed existing integration resources. Housing, education and medical systems across the country will experience similar problems. It’s fortunate for the Liberals that the media have an almost missionary attraction to integration success stories, while mostly ignoring the challenges and failures.
A pledge to raise the maximum age of dependents who can immigrate with their parents from 18 to 22. This will enable and encourage more chain migration through arranged marriages, spousal sponsorships, and parent and grandparent sponsorship of persons who are not selected for their potential economic contributions to Canada — but whose primary qualification is being a relative of someone who was.
Loosening the rules to qualify for citizenship based on residency in Canada. The Liberals are reducing the residency requirement from four years to three and are no longer requiring a permanent resident to spend at least half of each year in Canada to qualify for citizenship, meaning more absentee and oversees candidates will get the benefits of a Canadian passport.
Promising to increase the number of temporary foreign workers and repealing measures put in place to ensure Canadians have the first crack at jobs.
All this in the first 18 months of the new Liberal government. The cumulative effect will be to increase overall immigration significantly and remove safeguards designed to make immigration more likely to address Canada’s economic needs.
Each policy has been a conscious choice by the new Liberal government and together they reveal Justin Trudeau’s vision of Canadian immigration. Fewer people selected for language ability, economic skills, or other traits that have been shown to improve integration. Watered-down citizenship and language requirements that will relax the ties between new citizens and Canada. A tolerance for significantly higher levels of illegal immigration from Mexico and elsewhere. And relative indifference to the settlement outcomes of the tens of thousands of Syrian refugees who have passed through his photo line and will continue to do so for years to come.
Beyond the content of the policies, the important point about these choices is that they are, in fact, choices. It’s no good telling people that population change or demographic and cultural change is inevitable and that they must accept it passively, because it’s not true. Immigration isn’t like aging or the weather, against which one rails vainly; immigration policy is a set of deliberate decisions made by governments — by politicians. Different choices will lead to different outcomes. Worse choices will lead to worse outcomes. And Trudeau and his hapless former minister of Immigration, John McCallum, have chosen to make Canada’s immigration policy worse in almost every way.
If you require fewer newcomers to be able to speak English or French, you will get more ghettoization. If you allow companies to hire more workers without having to first test the Canadian job market, you will get more workers competing for jobs Canadians would be willing to do for higher wages. If you increase the opportunities for families to game the immigration system through arranged marriages of adult dependents, you will get more immigrants who are not selected based on skills they can contribute to Canada. And if you allow more people to bring over their grandparents to live with them, it will impose a higher burden on the Canadian healthcare and welfare systems. These are stubborn facts.
By increasing the quantity of immigrants while reducing their quality in objective terms, Prime Minister Trudeau risks fuelling existing unease with Canada’s immigration and integration policies. By making deliberate choices that Canadians have told the government in poll after poll they oppose, he is thumbing his nose at the electorate.
If the electorate continues to object, the blame is on the nose-thumber, not the thumbee. If people don’t like the policy choices a government makes, they are free to say so, and to say so loudly and stridently if the government continues to ignore them. In a democracy, they should.
Given Justin Trudeau’s determination to defy the existing Canadian immigration consensus — that immigrants should be carefully selected to benefit Canada and for their potential to integrate — it is dishonest to dismiss Leitch’s clumsily-articulated campaign positions as racial dog-whistles or lump her in with fringe white-nationalists. She is on the side of the majority and that majority deserves to be taken seriously.
You can be concerned about immigration and integration policy without being racist. You can support some immigration without being in favour of more immigration. You can support some kinds of immigration without favouring other kinds. You can question the efficacy of current screening and call for more stringent screening without being a fearmonger. Most Canadians agree with one or more of these views. Heck, most Canadian immigrants themselves agree with them. If you’re going to slap opprobrious labels on everyone who raises such concerns, you’re quickly going to run out of labels.
Believing that Canadian immigration policy (like any other government policy) should be designed first and foremost to benefit Canadians — and not the hundreds of millions of foreigners who would like to be Canadian — is not xenophobic. A desire to preserve a way of life that represents the pinnacle of historical human society is not a symptom of incipient fascism. Concern that rapid changes to the look and feel of your community risk upsetting a quality of life that is vanishingly rare around the world is not unreasonable. It is simply a layman’s intuitive application of the precautionary principle.
Sure, change might come with some benefits (and almost certainly some costs), but why change so aggressively something that is already the envy of the world? The caution and scepticism that is sneered at today as blinkered nationalism would have been — until recently — praised as common-sense patriotism.
In 1991, Nathan Gardels, the editor of New Perspectives Quarterly, sat down in the postcard-perfect Italian town of Portofino to interview the philosopher Isaiah Berlin. Gardels asked Berlin about the reemergence of nationalism in Europe since the collapse of the Soviet empire and the liberal sage’s response is worth quoting at length:
(Johann Gottfried) Herder virtually invented the idea of belonging. He believed that just as people need to eat and drink, to have security and freedom of movement, so too they need to belong to a group. Deprived of this, they feel cut off, lonely, diminished, unhappy. Nostalgia, Herder said, is the noblest of all pains. To be human means to be able to feel at home somewhere, with your own kind.
Each group, according to Herder, has its own Volksgeist — a set of customs and a lifestyle, a way of perceiving and behaving that is of value solely because it is their own. The whole of cultural life is shaped from within the particular stream of tradition that comes from collective historical experience shared only by members of the group.
“Herder’s idea of nation was deeply nonaggressive,” Berlin insisted. There was nothing in Herder, “about race and nothing about blood. He only spoke about soil, language, common memories, and customs.” Warming to his subject, and personalizing it, Berlin added:
Like Herder, I regard cosmopolitanism as empty. People can’t develop unless they belong to a culture. Even if they rebel against it and transform it entirely, they still belong to a stream of tradition. … But if the streams dry up, as for instance, where men and women are not products of a culture, where they don’t have kith and kin and feel closer to some people than to others, where there is no native language — that would lead to a tremendous desiccation of everything that is human.
So where does this leave Canada and Canadians, when their ostentatiously cosmopolitan young prime minister (photographed recently wearing a T-shirt with the literally nonsensical slogan: ‘I am a global citizen’) tells the New York Times that we are the first “post-national” state?
The definitional and factual problems with Trudeau’s statement have been exposed elsewhere, but it’s worth considering what Trudeau himself thought he meant by it. In that same interview he explained: “There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada … There are shared values (Dr. Leitch, call your office!) — openness, respect, compassion, willingness to work hard, to be there for each other, to search for equality and justice. Those qualities are what make us the first post-national state.”
Got it? (It helps if you ignore the fact that these qualities, which would be claimed by every modern liberal democracy, are in no way incompatible with the idea of nationhood.)
If we’re not a nation (or the union of multiple nations, as Stephen Harper formally recognized), I suppose it doesn’t matter who we let live here or what they do once they are here. It’s all cool, man. Anyone can click their heels and be a Canadian — there’s no place like home, whatever “home” means, amiright?
Trudeau’s shallow vision of a country, unrooted and hardly worth rooting for, echoes Yann Martel’s description of Canada as “the greatest hotel on earth” (it’s still hard to believe he meant that as a compliment). Most Canadians, including those most accepting of change, would feel pretty strange living in a hotel, surrounded by a shifting and unpredictable population of strangers.
As Isaiah Berlin knew, for people to feel most human they need to feel they belong to a common culture that amounts to more than just platitudes. Nor is fluency in the same language sufficient (though Trudeau seems determined to undermine that aspect of Canadian culture by downplaying language ability for immigration, even while paradoxically reinforcing official bilingualism for our ruling elite). It means familiarity with the same experiences, cultural tropes and stories. If you are not born and raised with those cultural markers, it means embracing them yourself and instilling them in your children.
This is not controversial to most Canadian immigrants. They have chosen to come to Canada precisely because our culture and values, ineffable though they may be, underpin a social certainty, security and opportunity that their birth countries do not. They know better than most Canadians the difference between people who come to Canada to better themselves and contribute to their new country and those who come to leach off our generous social benefits, nursing resentment and uninterested in integration.
Instead of wasting time on symbolic but ineffectual “values” screening, Conservatives should talk seriously about restoring and then further tightening selection standards such as official language ability that have been shown to correspond to better immigration outcomes.
They should promise to reverse Trudeau’s cheapening of Canadian citizenship by restoring the longer residency and acclimation period before permanent residents are eligible to apply for it. If they want to push the envelope, they could propose requiring basic English and French-language ability for sponsored spouses, as Britain does to discourage forced marriages, to ensure spouses are not trapped in a linguistic ghetto and are able to participate fully in their new society.
On overall numbers, someone needs to speak for the large majority who oppose the Liberals’ recent increase in immigration levels. It bespeaks an unhealthy public discourse that, until this month — when Maxime Bernier and Steven Blaney made noises about restoring Harper-era levels of immigration — no one in any major party was reflecting the majority view favouring lower temporary and permanent immigration levels. It is not surprising that the only candidates willing to take even a modest stand against ever-increasing immigration are from rural Quebec, where a sense of a common identity is most deeply rooted.
What accounts for the silence? I suspect the media outlets which mediate the national conversation are largely to blame, but so too is the timorous consensus among our political class that even mentioning immigration is somehow an affront to our social cohesion. In truth, the threat comes from our failure to discuss, let alone address, the problem. And if you doubt either the discomfort or the problem, try raising the topic of housing prices in Vancouver or gang violence in Scarborough and listen as exquisitely self-conscious progressives dance uncomfortably over and around the unspoken root cause of bad immigration and indifferent integration policies.
It is long past time that we began thinking about and discussing immigration policy as policy, and not simply an exercise in lump-throated nostalgia, national mythology and wishful thinking. Already, most large Canadian cities contain neighbourhoods in which Canadians can feel alien in the country of their birth. That is a failure of either immigration selection policy or integration policy, or both. More immigration and worse selection — the twin highlights of the Liberals’ profligate immigration policy — will exacerbate this failure.
At least one of our national parties needs to take seriously the concerns of a majority of Canadians about what level and kind of immigration best serves Canadians and their communities. Someone needs to make the case for the lower immigration levels and better selection criteria that Canadians have told the government they want, and which will enable smoother cultural and linguistic integration of newcomers.
On the evidence so far, that person is probably not Kellie Leitch. But for now, she’s the only one stepping up.
Last week, President Donald Trump was quick to get to work in his first week on the job, and implemented a wide-range of policies that would directly impact Canada.
The Trump Administration indicated that President Trump was looking forward to move quickly on renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement. President Trump indicated that he was looking forward to meeting Prime Minister Trudeau. According to a spokesman for the President, “Canada has a very special status” to Donald Trump and Canada would not be a target when NAFTA renegotiations begin.
President Trump signed executive actions to move forward on the construction of the Keystone XL and Dakota oil pipelines. This move should help the Canadian economy and bring much needed jobs to the province of Alberta.
(This column originally appeared in the Toronto Sun)
The US needs to protect its borders, it needs to take a tough stance against Islamist terrorism and it has every right to increase screening and vetting of newcomers. But Donald Trump’s executive order (EO) on immigration and refugees is not the right approach.
There is a lot to unpack in Trump’s EO, and while trying to understand the law and its impact, it’s important to separate the facts from the hysteria.
First, and despite the rhetoric, this is not a Muslim Ban.
The vast majority of the world’s Muslims, including all American Muslims, will not be directly affected by this order.
The EO includes a four-month pause on all refugees, and a three-month ban on all citizens of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Sudan. The ban includes all citizens of these seven countries, including Muslims, Christians, Jews, and athiests. The order does not list any religion, nor does it ban people from the world’s most populous Muslim countries.
Second, it is untrue that no nationals of the countries on Trump ban list have perpetrated an act of Islamic terrorism on US soil.
Both the 2016 mall attack in St. Cloud, Minnesota and the attack at Ohio State University were carried out by Somali nationals. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for both attacks.
Senators Jeff Sessions and Ted Cruz released a report highlighting the 580 individuals who have been convicted on terrorism charges in the U.S. since the September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks. Of the 380 foreign-born terrorists, 21 were from Somalia, 20 were from Yemen and 19 were from Iraq.
Curiously, the largest terrorists-producing countries, including Pakistan, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories are not included in the blanket ban. Likewise, the 9/11 hijackers were mostly from Saudi Arabia, another country not included in the ban.
That Trump didn’t include these countries is puzzling, and undermines the national security rationale behind this order.
The most troubling aspect of this order is the…(READ MORE)
There is a lot to unpack in Donald Trump’s executive order (EO) on immigration and refugees, entitled: Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States. The order includes a 120-day pause on the admission of all refugees, a 90-day pause on entry into the United States for people from seven countries, and other measures aimed to increase national security, the screening and interview process, data collection and the admissions process.
Despite the rhetoric, the EO is not a Muslim ban. The vast majority of the world’s Muslims, including all American Muslims, will not be directly affected by this order. The EO is a ban on all refugees for the next four months, and a ban on all citizens of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Sudan for the next three months. The ban includes all nationals of these seven countries, including Muslims, Christians, Jews, atheists and all other religious minorities. The order does not list any religion, nor does it ban people from the world’s most populous Muslim countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, India or Turkey. It is unhelpful, however, that the son of Trump’s national security advisor, Mike Flynn Jr., celebrated the order on Twitter, using #MuslimBan. It is difficult to defend against accusations of a “Muslims ban” while key members of Trump’s inner circle are flippantly calling it a Muslim ban.
The directive was aimed to increase security and screening for people from a region that has been plagued with terrorism, violence and Islamist extremism. However welcome action is on this front, the executive order goes too far. It is too broad, too blunt, and will have far-reaching and adverse consequences. In light of the dramatic and hyperbolic reaction, it is useful to highlight the positive aspects of the EO, while also criticizing the problematic and unhelpful aspects.
The Good
Section 5 of the order states that the U.S. will “suspend the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) for 120 days.” The stated purpose of this order is to stop admitting any and all refugees while the administration works on improving its vetting and security process. Fair enough. The current system has proven that it is not adequately able to stop nefarious and problematic individuals from entering the United States. When individuals are fleeing war zones and failed states, the United States does not have the capability or information to determine if a person is who they say they are. The U.S. can and should take steps to improve its ability to collect clear information and insight for the people it admits. There should be more steps taken to screen and vet newcomers, particularly those fleeing hotspots for terrorism, cultural violence and Islamist extremism.
A temporary ban on refugees from the Middle East is justifiable, however it is unclear why the ban needs to apply to all refugees. The United States, like all other Western countries, has an obligation to accept and resettle refugees. It is disappointing that the United States will cease to uphold this obligation for the next four months.
It’s also worth noting that the ban applies to all refugees, both those resettled through international organizations and landed asylum seekers. When an individual or family arrives on U.S. soil and asks for asylum and protection, even if they are a bona fide refugee with evidence of persecution, according to this order, that United States will reject and deport them back to an unsafe country. Section 5 (e) states that “the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security may jointly determine to admit individuals to the United States as refugees on a case-by-case basis.” Given the number of landed asylum seekers who arrive each year, upwards of 80,000 per year, it is difficult to fathom how this will work, logistically and practically.
Section 5 (d) states that, following the pause, the U.S. will admit no more than 50,000 refugees per year, and section 5 (f) purports to prioritize individuals who are fleeing religious persecution. That is a welcome step. The United States has shown that it is unable to process a massive volume of refugees properly. It is useful for the U.S. government to cut back while it fixes its process for vetting refugees.
Another positive aspect of the EO is a directive to not only screen individuals for security red flags, but also for violent and radical cultural attitudes and values. Section 1 of the EO directly states that newcomers must accept and embrace our Western values:
“In order to protect Americans, the United States must ensure that those admitted to this country do not bear hostile attitudes toward it and its founding principles. The United States cannot, and should not, admit those who do not support the Constitution, or those who would place violent ideologies over American law. In addition, the United States should not admit those who engage in acts of bigotry or hatred (including “honor” killings, other forms of violence against women, or the persecution of those who practice religions different from their own) or those who would oppress Americans of any race, gender, or sexual orientation.”
The EO calls for important improvements to the screening process, and Section 4 spells out these improvements. While we should remain skeptical of how the government plans to evaluate some of these measures, these are necessary changes, including: ” the development of a uniform screening standard and procedure, such as in-person interviews; a database of identity documents proffered by applicants to ensure that duplicate documents are not used by multiple applicants; amended application forms that include questions aimed at identifying fraudulent answers and malicious intent; a mechanism to ensure that the applicant is who the applicant claims to be; a process to evaluate the applicant’s likelihood of becoming a positively contributing member of society and the applicant’s ability to make contributions to the national interest; and a mechanism to assess whether or not the applicant has the intent to commit criminal or terrorist acts after entering the United States.”
Finally, the Section 8 (a) and (b) reinforce a previous law that requires all individuals seeking a residency visa to undergo an in-person interview. This is excellent. All individuals wishing to migrate should be required to have an in-person security interview, they should be tested by an immigration officer to determine the person is being honest and is a good fit for migration. From a logistical perspective, the interview process will actually help speed up the immigration process, since the applicant can directly answer any questions an immigration official may have about person’s application and personal history. This is another welcome improvement to the system.
The Bad
This EO contains measures that are helpful, some measure that go too far, and some measures that don’t go far enough. One area where the order does not go far enough is Section 3, which bans nationals from seven countries: Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Sudan. These seven countries are all run by Islamist fundamentalists, or have sizable insurgencies of Islamist terrorists. They are either failed states or enemy nations. But the reach of Islamist extremism extends far beyond these seven countries. The EO explicitly ties its actions to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, whose attackers were legally admitted into the United States with student and temporary visas. 9/11 is part of the stated rationale for the ban. But the ban doesn’t apply to any of the countries where the terrorist hijackers originated from, namely Saudi Arabia, but also Egypt, Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates. Many have pointed to San Bernardino terrorist Tashfeen Malik, herself a green card holder, as rationale for barring permanent residents. But Malik was from Pakistan, another country not on the list.
Senators Jeff Sessions and Ted Cruz released a detailed report earlier this week on the 580 individuals convicted of terrorism charges in the United States since 2001. At least 380 of those individuals were born outside the U.S., with the largest terrorists-producing countries being: Pakistan (62), Lebanon (28) and the Palestinian territories (22). None of these countries are included in the ban. Of the deadliest Islamist terrorist attacks that have occurred on U.S. soil in recent years, the Boston Marathon bombing and massacres in Orlando and San Bernardino, this ban would not have prevented the perpetrators (or their parents in the case of second generation terrorists) from entering the U.S.
If Trump wants to ban migration from problematic countries that produce Islamist terrorists and ideological extremists, he should have included countries like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the Palestinian territories in this ban. That he didn’t is puzzling, and undermines the national security rationale behind this EO.
There has been confusion and contradictory statements over whether this ban applies to dual citizens – people who were born in one of the seven countries but fled and received citizenship in another country. The U.S. State Department has said the ban applies to dual citizens, while Trump’s National Security advisor Mike Flynn told Canada’s Prime Minister’s Office that Canadians will not be affected. If a person was born in Libya but moved to Canada, became a Canadian citizen, and travels using a Canadian passport, it is unclear whether this person would be denied entry. Surely a test case will emerge in the coming days, and we will see how the law is applied. (Disclosure: my husband falls into this category. We have spoken to several immigration lawyers and practitioners, who all believe he would be denied entry in the U.S. because of this ban.)
The Awful
Perhaps the most troubling aspect of this law is that it denies lawful visa holders and permanent residents, also known as green card holders, from re-entering the United States. While the executive order does not specifically mention U.S. permanent residents, it has been widely reported that the White House directed the Department of Homeland Security to include green card holders from these seven countries in the bar from entering the United States.
Section 3 (c) of EO prevents nationals from the seven countries from entering or obtaining an immigrant or non-immigrant visa, meaning they cannot visit the United States, obtain a work or student visa, or change their status in the United States. The wording of this order is clunky – simply saying the US will “suspend entry” for these nationals.
There is a difference between increased screening and a flat-out ban. This is a ban that will turn away lawful residents at the border. This is problematic.
The U.S. has every right to stop new applications from being approved, and prevent people from known terrorist regions from obtaining visas to come to the United States. But this ban also applies to people already in the United States, people who already possess visas and are lawful residents. If a person’s visa happens to expire in the next 90 days, they will not be granted a new visa. They will be forced to leave the country, even if they have a job, a home, a family or are enrolled in a school program in the United States. Families will be separated. People will lose their livelihood. Good people—law-abiding, pro-Western people who have never broken a law and have followed America’s immigration system to a T—will be sent away, for no good reason.
Another troubling aspect of this order is how it defines nationality. While the order justifies this ban because the U.S. cannot trust or verify information coming from these seven countries, it simultaneously relies on these seven countries to verify who is a citizen. If a person was born in Iran, they will be treated as an Iranian national, even if that person fled Iran and no longer considers himself a citizen. Iran does not recognize dual citizens, it prevents its citizens from renouncing citizenship, and it considers anyone born in Iran or born to an Iranian father to be a citizen. The U.S. is abiding by these bizarre definitions, the laws and regulations of an Islamic terror state.
Like any broad government edict, this order will have adverse and far-reaching negative consequences. Perhaps the most troubling aspect is that the United States will turn away and deport people who are otherwise friendly, pro-Western allies. Both Muslims and non-Muslims from countries that are fundamentally at odds with the United States will be forced to go back to adversarial countries, where they will face persecution or even death.
If the order is upheld, the U.S. will deport some of the world’s leading nuclear physicists back to Iran, a country actively pursuing a militaristic nuclear program. Rather than studying and working at Harvard in partnership with America, these physicists will be sent back to Iran, where they will likely be forced to work for the Islamic regime’s illegal and immoral nuclear program.
Conclusion
The United States can and should take measures to improve national security and protect its borders. Immigrants should be screened and interviewed. Extreme vetting of refugees and migrants from terrorist hot spots should take place.
More steps should be taken to ensure that newcomers are properly screened and vetted, both for affiliation with terrorist groups but also for values and ideology.
Western countries should reject individuals who hold views and have values contradictory to our values and founding principles. Vetting and screening should be done to ensure those selected will embrace Western values and integrate into Western society.
Trump’s EO, however, is both too broad and not far-reaching enough. The vagueness and lack of clarity in this order is counter to the rule of law. The EO breaks a 1965 law that prohibits discrimination based on country of origin, and the fact that it bypasses Congress contradicts the constitution. Its blanketed and arbitrary application undermines our liberty.
The President’s order, as it is currently written may or may not help make America safer. It may prevent a hostile visitor from entering the U.S., it could also force a highly-trained nuclear physicist to leave Boston on a deportation flight for Tehran.
As it stands, the president’s order threatens to embolden America’s adversaries, and alienate fair-minded Americans who support common-sense immigration security reform. It helps enemy nations and terrorist organizations in their messaging and recruitment.
While some components of the EO are reasonable and welcome, other aspects contradict and undermine its usefulness. Conservatives, and all fair-minded people, should demand revisions and urge that the blanket ban of lawful residents in Section 3 be dropped. Until we see these critical improvements, conservatives cannot celebrate or defend the President’s order.
(This column originally appeared in Maclean’s Magazine)
Seventeen years ago, on Feb. 15, 2000, I wrote a letter that I thought would forever separate me from the Islamic Republic of Iran.
I sent a letter to Iran’s embassy in Ottawa renouncing my Iranian citizenship. A day earlier, on Feb. 14, I had taken my Canadian oath of citizenship. Having sworn allegiance to the Queen, I thought it appropriate to tell Tehran’s mullahs that I no longer had any need for, or allegiance to, them. Since then, I’ve spent much of my life fighting the mullahs and their agenda of hate. I’ve never returned to Iran since my family left when I was a child.
This past week, president Donald Trump decided that despite my hatred for the Islamic Republic’s mullahs, I am too big a threat to be allowed entry into the United States.
As a Canadian, this would normally not be that big a deal. Except I am the founder and CEO of a tech company with offices in Toronto and San Francisco. This means I cross the Canada/U.S. border at least once a month—sometimes two or three times a month. And not being allowed entry into the United States would make it much more difficult for me to build a business that has American investors, American employees, and American customers.
I am a conservative. I am a conservative on immigration issues. I believe in strong immigration laws and protected borders. I believe there are people in the world with hateful ideologies who mean to harm those of us in the West. I know some of them. I grew up living next to them.
Those people on TV chanting death to America, death to the West; they aren’t kidding. They mean it. But for the life of me, I can’t understand how not allowing me to enter the United States helps fight those people. How does deporting Iranian-born nuclear scientists that are studying at Harvard or MIT back to Tehran help make America safer?
In 2008, there were 97 Iranian-born, non-U.S. citizens serving in the U.S. military. Under Donald Trump’s executive order, all of them would be barred entry back into the United States. How does deporting loyal U.S. soldiers back to Iran help make America safer?
For the past two days, I’ve been asking myself these questions over and over again. I can’t find any good answers.
The government of Canada seems to believe this executive order does not apply to…(READ MORE)
