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THE POLITICS OF IMMIGRATION
THE recent changes to the Immigration policy announced by the Minister
of citizenship and Immigration, Joe Volpe liberalizing the time frames and
numbers of sponsored parents and grandparents to come to Canada has elicited
negative political commentaries from the Conservative Party and various
media outlets like the National Post and the Sun family newspapers.
These critics have pointed out that the only reason the Liberal Party has
changed the Immigration policy at this time is for political purposes, mainly
to win the political support of ethnic and racial minorities, that the
Liberal Party is at its weakest politically given the scandals besetting it.
The Conservative Party and the right wing media however, never make the
same accusation when Conservative parties across Canada pander to the
corporate sector by promises of tax cuts and other business friendly
maneuvers. It is the height of political hypocrisy to accuse the Liberal
party of exactly what the Conservatives do under similar circumstances.
In fact when conservative forces lambast immigration policies or latch on
to "law and order" issues in order to win the political support of the
conservative mainstream society, these same forces do not announce
that they are doing that in order to win political victory.
Here I am only pointing to the vapid political hypocrisy employed by
the conservative forces. I am not absolving the Liberal Party of playing
politics with immigration policies. Why for example did the Liberal
Party not announce this new policy at the same time it announced related changes
In February 2005? Why make these changes in a piecemeal fashion? Why
doesn't the Liberal Party tell the country that they in fact had hardened the
immigration policies in June 2002, despite the massive outcry at the
time.
Why doesn’t the Liberal Party state that since it came back to power in
1993, they have brought the most negative immigration policies since
1976 when the modern Immigration Act came into being?
While the new changes are welcome, they should not blind us to the
fact that more needs to be done to assist the most vulnerable of the immigrants:
those who are in Canada with wives, husbands and children or are well
established but are inadmissible because of minor or forgivable
criminal convictions for which they have already paid to society. They are on
the pathway to deportation unless the Federal Court stays their
deportations, a difficult task under the best of circumstances. They should be
permitted to stay in Canada automatically despite their inadmissibility on the face
of the record. Even the so-called terrorism cases must be looked at afresh on a case
by case basis. Most allegations of terrorism are pure hysteria without any
evidence whatsoever.
The so-called evidence is hidden under the nebulous concept of "national security" and is not disclosed to the alleged terrorist or his/her lawyer. Fundamental tenets of the due process of
The law are violated in these so-called terrorism cases. And the Liberal
government has made the picture worse. If you have followed the Maher
Arar case and the goings on at the Inquiry into that case, you will know
what I mean. That case and numerous others cannot be separated from the
general immigration policies of the Liberal government or any other government.
Immigration is as political an issue as they come. Handle with care.
Munyonzwe Hamalengwa is a Toronto lawyer who practices mainly criminal
and immigration law. His e-mail is mhamalengwa@sympatico.ca;
phone
(416)644-1106
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