News and views from SA Canada Trudeau clings to Harper’s odious laws
2016Barry Weisleder 2016-12Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 10 →
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C izenship, John McCallum, can designate innocent anada’s Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Cit groups of individuals arriving in Canada for discrimi natory treatment.
Designated Foreign Nationals (DFNs) are subject to mandatory detention for lengthy periods, with mini mal review. There is no right of appeal to the Refugee Appeal Division for those whose refugee claims are denied.
Even if a claimant is eventually recognized by Can ada as a refugee, he or she cannot begin the process of bringing relatives to this country for at least five years—a violation of the fundamental right to speedy family reunification.
The DFN regime was introduced in 2012 by Ste phen Harper’s Conservative government. The Jus tin Trudeau Liberal government pledged to rectify this odious policy. Notwithstanding complaints from groups like the Canadian Association of Refugee Law yers and Amnesty International Canada, no action has been taken.
Trudeau also proclaimed that 2015 would see the last first-past-the-post Canadian federal election, her alding the prospect of proportional representation at Instead, he approved the Kinder Morgan Trans Moun tain pipeline on Nov. 30.
Then there’s the goal of ending tax breaks for the rich, including the use of highly regressive executive stock options. Ninety per cent of that benefit goes to the top one per cent of earners, among them the top bankers and heads of mining and telecommunications corporations.
That’s to say nothing of putting an end to accepting hefty political contributions from corporate big wigs who pay to have dinner, and thus direct access, to the P.M. and his cabinet ministers—a practice that Justin said did not pass the sniff test, however technically le gal it may be.
Affordable childcare? Forget it. Poverty and home lessness? Study it. End the combat role for Canadian Forces abroad—by increasing deployment in Eastern Europe and by sending troops to Africa? Right.
So, now we can chalk up another broken promise. It seems there’s just no place at the Trudeau table for refugees. n