About 200 people turned out in Montague, P.E.I., Saturday to protest the closure of the Island’s only Employment Insurance processing centre. The federal government said the shutdown will take place in March 2014, resulting in 28 job losses
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The federal government has defended a program that gives asylum seekers living in community free accommodation and household goods packages worth up to $10,000. Immigration Minister Chris Bowen says the goods must be left behind in the accommodation when the people move on or are accepted into Australia.
Married newcomers to Canada better be in love or be prepared tough it out in the relationship for two years if they don’t want to be kicked out of the country. Citizenship and Immigration Canada is changing Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations to make a sponsored spouse stay in the relationship for at least two years once they receive permanent residence status, or they have to leave Canada.
“To be blunt, Canada’s refugee system is broken,” said Immigration Minister Jason Kenney. “Too many tax dollars are spent on bogus refugees.” The legislation would crack down on human-smugglers and grant authorities the ability to collect biometric data from people entering Canada on a visitor visa, work permit or study visa.
New legislation introduced Thursday would give the federal immigration minister the power to designate which foreign countries are safer than others and therefore less likely to be a legitimate source of refugees. Refugee claimants from countries on this safe list – democratic nations with a solid human-rights record and an independent judiciary – would find it much harder to fight to stay in Canada under the proposed law. Their application would be fast-tracked and resolved in as little as 45 days, down from up to 1,038 days.
No refugee determination system will ever be perfect. There will always be those who try to game it, as well as many more who cannot access it at all. Immigration Minister Jason Kenney’s refugee reforms, aimed at making the process more efficient and decisive, are generally good. If implemented, they will improve an unwieldy asylum program. There are, however, legitimate concerns about a lack of due process in the new bill, known as Protecting Canada’s Immigration System Act.
Most Canadians feel immigrants are just as likely to be good citizens as people who were born here, a recent Environics Institute survey suggests. Canadians also don’t appear to have problems with dual citizenship or with Canadian citizens living abroad, according to the telephone survey, which the Environics Institute says is the first poll to directly ask Canadians their views on citizenship.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2012/02/13/f-citizenship-survey.html?cmp=rss
For the past several years, the Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders has been Europe’s ultimate single-issue politician: He likens Muslim immigrants to Nazis, and he wants them to leave. Amid the bitter mood of intolerance that dominated the early years of the economic crisis, this was enough to launch his Party For Freedom (PVV) into third-place status, but now there are signs that Dutch voters are getting tired of the blond-maned firebrand’s distinct flavour of xenophobia.
Doctors and researchers are putting greater stock in ethnicity as a variable in health outcomes. A large body of research suggests certain groups are at a higher genetic risk for particular diseases. And physiologically, what is accepted as “normal” and “healthy” varies between ethnicities. But there are no universal standards or terms of reference used to classify ethnicity, which has made it a highly fraught subject. Some say it shouldn’t be considered a variable at all, arguing that the link between ethnicity and health is manufactured.
Citizenship and Immigration cut $59.3-million and the equivalent of 13 full-time positions last year, from seven different departmental activities in 2011-2012. The department’s budget is $1.5-billion, and it employs the equivalent of 4,759 people full-time. The department made a number of changes to improving program efficiencies and moving its public resources online, including forms and information kits. Switching to e-forms made for savings in both the permanent and temporary economic residents programs as well as the citizenship program, adding up to $3.8-million.
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