Canada's Immigration Policy

Source: The Toronto Star URL: N/A Date: April 4, 2005 Editorial: Suppress terror not civil rights

How far is Prime Minister Paul Martin's government prepared to go to fight terror? Too far, if recent signals from Ottawa are any indication. As Canada's anti-terror laws undergo Parliamentary review, Justice Minister Irwin Cotler has mused about expanding the federal government's power to slap draconian "control measures" on people suspected of terrorist ties. Cotler has suggested that anyone in Canada, citizen and non-citizen alike, should be subject to the controls. Right now they are applied only to non-Canadians who arrive here, and are found ineligible to stay because they threaten public safety. They can be held in detention until deported, or are held under a kind of house arrest. Consider the case of Adil Charkaoui, one of a handful of such cases. The Morocco-born man came here in 2003, but was deemed a security risk because of his ties to a banned Moroccan terror group that sympathized with Al Qaeda. Charkaoui was denied entry and ordered deported. Rather than go, he chose to spend 21 months in voluntary detention in Montreal, fighting the ruling. These cases take an unreasonably long time to wend their way through the courts.

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Original author: Canadian Press (CP) Source: The Toronto Star URL: [link] Date: January 14, 2005 Immigration minister resigns amid controversy, promises to fight

OTTAWA - Judy Sgro, who was already on political life support, succumbed today to a fresh allegation of wrongdoing and resigned as federal immigration minister. But she said she was only stepping down to allow her to prove she's innocent and fight to clear her name. She became the first casualty in Prime Minister Paul Martin's seven-month-old minority government, which limped back to power in June on promises of being squeaky clean after the sponsorship scandal. Sgro's departure came after allegations made by a Toronto pizzeria owner, reported in today's Toronto Star, that she promised him asylum in return for providing food and workers for her re-election campaign last June. Harjit Singh, who is fighting deportation to India, claims in a sworn Federal Court affidavit that when word of their arrangement leaked out, she ordered his deportation to "save her job."

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Original author: Alexandre Deslongchamps Source: Bloomberg.com URL: [link] Date: January 14,2005

Jan. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Canada's Immigration Minister Judy Sgro resigned the post, saying she wants to clear her name after an illegal immigrant alleged she had offered him asylum in exchange for help in her election campaign. Sgro, who will be replaced by Joe Volpe, was already under investigation for speeding up a Canadian citizenship application to a Romanian stripper who helped her campaign.

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Original author: TASC, tasc at web dot ca Source: TASC Listserv Date: December 27, 2004 Carolers Bring Candlelight and Songs of Hope on Xmas Eve December 24, Toronto -- The stretch of Rexdale Blvd. between Martingrove Blvd. and Highway 27 is one of the dreariest in Toronto. A desolate airport area strip with the constant roar of transport trucks and flights overhead is home to a nondescript government of Canada building, a converted hotel which is now a jail for refugees. Run by the Corbel Management Group, a private security company, the 72-room Heritage Inn, replacing the former Celebrity Inn refugee jail, but without any particular signage, is just another building that thousands of people pass by every day, few knowing the purpose of the facility. And while we do not know the details of the contract with Corbel, one might readily assume that, as with other privately-run prison facilities, profits are made by keeping as many people behind bars as possible.

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Original author: Stewart Bell, for The National Post Source: The Ottawa Citizen URL: [link] (subscribers only) Date: November 22, 2004 Report warns retaliation possible for removal of al-Qaeda associates

TORONTO - A new Canadian intelligence report says terrorists might attack Canada in retaliation for the arrests of several al-Qaeda associates who are being deported for reasons of national security. In the report, titled Al-Qaeda: Potential Threats to North American Targets, the federal government's threat analysis unit said Canada's efforts to deport al-Qaeda suspects could trigger a violent response. "Canadian agencies have aggressively pursued removal proceedings against inadmissible classes of foreign nationals associated with al-Qaeda constituents, which may also provide extremists with an impetus to attack Canadian interests." The report by the Integrated National Security Assessment Centre (INSAC) was labelled Restricted Distribution because of its "sensitive nature," but a copy was disclosed to the National Post under the Access to Information Act.

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Original author: Mitchell Goldberg, freelancer Source: The Montreal Gazette URL: [link] (subscription required) Date: August 10, 2004 Ottawa broke promise on appeals. Churches step in to correct injustice because refugee system is arbitrary

Judy Sgro, minister of Citizenship and Immigration, was right about one thing in her recent call to churches to stop offering sanctuary: Refugees shouldn't be in sanctuary. She was wrong, however, in her diagnosis of the problem, which lies not with the churches that offer sanctuary, but with the flawed refugee-determination system that fails to protect some refugees. When refugees' lives are at risk because the government is not protecting them, some people of conscience feel a moral obligation to fill the gap by providing sanctuary.

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Original author: unknown
Source: Canadian Council for Refugees Listserv
Date: January 8, 2004

To: ICLMG members and friends

Below are the orders in council by which certain parts of CIC are transferred to the new Border Agency and the responsibility for decisions relating to those aspects to Anne McLellan (Solicitor General, styled Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness). This means that decisions on enforcement related matters (e.g. decisions on countries with a temporary stay of removals) are made by Anne McLellan, not Judy Sgro.

One of the effects of this is that the security certificate used to be signed by 2 Ministers (Citizenship and Immigration and Solicitor General, IRPA 77(1)), but it now seems that only one Minister will sign it, since the 2 roles are combined.


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