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Monday January 31, 2005 |
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some
questions for minister volpe
by Angelo Persichilli
(Versione italiana)
THE HILL TIMES
Democracy is not cheap, but it doesn't justify waste of
money, time, or human resources.
The events surrounding the 17-year saga of Harjit Singh
in Canada tell us a lot about what happens when a murky immigration policy,
coupled with an idealistic judicial system, becomes open to abuse by people
who have a lot of money to spend on lawyer fees.
How much did Mr. Singh spend on legal fees during this
17-year long fight? Did he pay for them? I assume he did. But if he didn't,
was he entitled to legal aid? If he was, then how much did his fight cost
the system? If he wasn't, then is it fair that only people with money can
take full advantage of our legal system, while poorer people, who are often
refugees, can't?
And that is not all.
Even if he paid for his legal fees, how much
money did the federal government spend over 17 years to dispute Mr. Singh's
claim? How many hours and how many bureaucrats had to deal with his file?
How many cases, in total, do we have? I don't have the answers, but I have
been hearing from informed sources that it's in the "billions" of dollars.
As I said earlier, democracy and justice are
not cheap, and real democracy and real justice are not slow.
These are the questions I have for new
Immigration Minister Joe Volpe.
How many refugee claimants are in Canada? How
long does it take to process their claims? How much does the government
spend to process all those applications?
The former minister of immigration, Judy Sgro,
once told me that in one year Canada had almost 3,000 applications for
refugee status from people arriving from Costa Rica. Only one was accepted.
The next question is: How does our system
work? Try to guess.
Someone arrives in Canada as a tourist. He or
she then seeks refugee status. From that moment on, the new claimant is
protected by our Chart of Rights. Bureaucrats and lawyers start debating.
The claimant starts a new life in Canada. He or she often gets married. Then
the inevitable happens: their claim is rejected.
At this point, a new phase of the process
kicks in. The claimant appeals to stay on humanitarian and compassionate
grounds. The argument goes like this: "How dare we kick out someone that has
honestly worked in this country for so many years? They now have children
and Canada is their country."
Some just give up and return to their home
countries. Others fight on and we've all seen the cameras at airports
immortalizing the departure of a good family, making all of us feel like
insensitive idiots.
Well, idiots, maybe.
We spent billions of dollars, yes, billions,
on a system that doesn't work, doesn't do justice for the applicants, or for
Canadian citizens and taxpayers.
And the sad part is that Canada needs
immigrants.
Now, if we need more people and many of those
refugee claimants are already working and integrated into our system, why
don't they apply for a regular landed immigrant visa, instead of looking for
expensive short cuts around our system?
The unfortunate answer is that our system is
a mess. First of all, there is mass confusion between refugees and landed
immigrants.
We don't have a policy that brings people who
will help this country to prosper, to grow and to help pay for the growing
tab for an aging population.
We all have a general idea of what
immigration is all about. We use and abuse catch-phrases like, "We must
attract the best and the brightest," and we want, "knowledge" and
"education." But when "knowledged" and "educated" people arrive in Canada,
we don't know what to do with them, and we tell them to drive a taxi.
And those are the lucky ones. Most of the
people who want to immigrate to Canada have to go through a points system
that seems to be the brainchild of the producers of the TV game-show
Jeopardy. I've been told that if a carpenter from Portugal wants to come to
Canada with his family and he doesn't speak English or French, he looses so
many points that his wife, in order to make up for the loss, must have a
Nobel prize in literature.
Of course if those people really want to
emigrate, they will choose destinations other than Canada. If they really
want to immigrate to Canada, they must become refugees.
So, I have a couple questions for the new
Minister of Immigration, Joe Volpe: how much money does the Immigration
Department spend? How much does it spend processing refugee claimants? How
much does it spend on landed immigrants? Do you have a plan to fix this
mess?
Of course, I don't have the answers.
Otherwise, I would have written about them. But I can only offer him a small
piece of advice: during the next electoral campaign don't feed your
volunteers pizza. |
