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April 7, 2012 - No. 14 Withdraw Bill C-31, Protecting Canada's Immigration System Act! Retrogressive and Arbitrary Means
to Deprive
Refugees the Right to Asylum, Divide Canadians and
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The Harper government
presents the bill and the
regulation of refugees as
necessary to prevent the abuse of Canada's "generous refugee system,"
giving
the impression that Canada facilitates the arrival of tens of
thousands of
refugees each year and assists their re-settlement in Canada. The facts
belie
this propaganda of Minister Kenney and others. Since coming to power,
the
Harper government has steadily reduced the number of refugees entering
Canada. According to Citizenship and Immigration Canada, the number of
refugees having their claim for asylum approved dropped by 56 per cent
from
2005
to 2008. In 2010, there were 8,466 Pre-Removal Risk Assessment
applications
made by asylum-seekers facing deportation. Only 89 were approved!
Kenney stated in a press
conference, "I should highlight
that we have seen
many cases of foreign criminals arrested, convicted and deported, who
came
back to Canada using fake papers. Under the biometric visa system, this
will
effectively, be virtually impossible." According to Bill C-31, "the
Minister,
with the approval of the Governor in Council, may enter into an
agreement
with any foreign government for the provision of services in relation
to the
collection, use and disclosure of biometric information and for the
provision
of immigration application services and other related services on that
government's behalf for purposes related to the administration and
enforcement
of their immigration laws." Protest by Roma against the discrimination they face in Europe, November 2010. (Amnesty International) |
In trying to justify its Bill C-31, the Protecting Canada's Immigration System Act, members of the Harper government repeatedly cite "bogus refugees" coming from Europe as an example of why reforms are needed to the refugee system. Much of this disinformation is directed against justifying the violations of the rights of the Roma who seek asylum in Canada as a result of persecution in Europe.[1] On March 26 for example, Conservative MP Robert Goguen read the following script that has been repeated by most other Conservative MPs during debate on Bill C-31: "In 2011 a significant portion of refugee claims came from the European Union. Claims from this region alone accounted for 23% of all claims last year, up from 14% in 2010, more than from Africa or Asia. On average, EU claims were abandoned in 14.5 months or withdrawn in 10 months. In recent years virtually all EU claims were withdrawn, abandoned or rejected. The bogus claims from among the 5,800 EU nationals who sought asylum last year cost Canadian taxpayers $170 million. Hungary, an EU member state, has become Canada's top source country for such refugee claims. Hungarians made over 2,400 refugee claims around the world in 2010. Of those, 2,300 were in Canada. That is 23 times more claims made in Canada than in the rest of the world put together. By comparison, the United States received only 32 Hungarian refugee claims in 2010. I think these numbers speak volumes.
"Our refugee system was designed to provide protection to those who genuinely need it, people who have escaped brutal regimes, violence, oppression and persecution in these countries. These people need to come to Canada for protection or they risk losing their lives. However, the majority of claims are coming from safe and democratic countries that respect human rights. The fact that Canada receives more refugee claims from the democratic European Union than from Africa or Asia should be a clear wake-up call. Clearly, there is something wrong with our refugee system and it needs to be fixed."
Conditions of Roma in Europe
In citing increased refugee claims
from
Europe in 2011, Conservative MPs provide no context or explanation of
why this is the case.
In
France, President Nicolas Sarkozy has been carrying out a campaign to
arbitrarily deport France's national minority Roma people to Romania
and
Bulgaria. Between 2009 and 2010 alone roughly 20,000 Roma were deported
from France following the bulldozing by French authorities of the camps
in
which they lived.
Roma people living in Europe have for centuries faced discrimination and persecution by the state, up to and including genocide. To give one example, in Germany laws were on the books from the 15th to the 18th century whereby Roma could be executed without trial. Later, during the Second World War, it is estimated that from 220,000 to 1.5 million Roma people were murdered in Nazi concentration camps or executed by the Einsatzgruppen (paramilitary SS death squads) in occupied Europe.
The French people have demonstrated en masse against the deportation orders of the President and his government to particularly target and round up the Roma for deportation. On September 4, 2010 for example, about 100,000 people demonstrated in Paris and 130 other French towns, exposing the government lie that Sarkozy's actions have the support of the people. Large demonstrations against deportation also took place in other European cities, including in Italy, Belgium and Serbia.
President Sarkozy has tried to deny that the Roma were specifically being targeted for deportation, but a government memo uncovered in 2010 exposed his lie. The memo stated: "300 camps or illegal settlements must be evacuated within three months; Roma camps are a priority. It is down to the préfect [state representative] in each department to begin a systematic dismantling of the illegal camps, particularly those of the Roma."
President Sarkozy's Family Ties
Something that may not be so well-known is that during
the
Second World War, the aristocratic family of president Sarkozy lived
comfortably in
their luxurious palatial home near Szolnok with their servants,
undisturbed by the
Nazis and their collaborators.
Until 1944, Hungary was ruled by the fascist Horthy regime, which openly allied with the Nazis. In March 1944, the Nazis installed the collaborationist Arrow Cross Party as the government, headed by Prime Minister Döme Sztójay, leaving Horthy as regent.
The Szolnok sugar factory was a notorious collecting
point for Jewish
prisoners who were sent to the occupied territories, such as Austria,
to perform
slave labour or to imprisonment in the concentration camps. The
Hungarian Nazi-collaborationist governments also
participated in the
deportation of the Roma.
In 1944, when the communists liberated Hungary, Sarkozy's father, Pal, fled to Hitler Germany. He returned to Hungary in 1945, but fled again to Austria, then Germany and finally sought asylum in France under the hoax that he was stateless. Pal subsequently divorced his first wife, Nicolas Sarkozy's mother Christine de Ganay, who later married CIA employee Frank G. Wisner. Wisner was the CIA's link with the Gehlen Organization set up after the war by the Americans and made up of Nazi intelligence agents who provided the Americans with information about the communists and re-established the Hitlerite fifth column throughout Europe. Thus the CIA enabled these Nazi war criminals to escape justice.
Sarkozy's actions against the Roma are a sad testimony to the profound constitutional crisis France is facing. When the French nation was established as an act of revolution, all French nationals were declared French citizens. Even then this did not extend to the residents of the colonies annexed by France and, while modern conceptions of citizenship rebel against criteria based on nationality, race, age, wealth or gender, France has systematically refused to enfranchise residents of Arab or black origin.
It is also known that once the arrangements that opposed Nazism in France after the Second World War were dismantled, what was brought back in their place were the Nazi arrangements from when Marshal Petain collaborated with Hitler. Who is Sarkozy collaborating with today? Or is he doing this in the name of France directly this time around?
TML Weekly Information Project vigorously
opposes the
campaign of terror against the Roma in France and its expression here
in
Canada in the form of attempts to prevent Roma from gaining asylum in
Canada based on the Harper government's claim that Europe is "safe."
Note
1. Roma groups left India in repeated
migrations many
centuries ago. The term "gypsy" arises from the erroneous belief that
they
originated in Egypt. The Roma were in Persia by the 11th century, and
reached the Balkans by the beginning of the 14th century. Most Roma
speak
Romany, a language related to the modern Indo-European languages of
northern India, besides the language of their country of residence. The
Roma
people first settled in France at the beginning of the 15th century.
International Transfer of Offenders Act
Irrational "Reasons" for Arbitrary Abuse of
Ministerial Powers
On February 29, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews issued his reasons for denying Richard Goulet a request for transfer to Canada under the International Transfer of Offenders Act (ITOA). Goulet is a Canadian citizen being held in prison in the U.S., convicted of the conspiracies to distribute and to import marijuana into the United States. On January 29, the Federal Court of Canada demanded that Toews provide reasons for his decision ruling that Toews' denial of Goulet's transfer was unreasonable as it contradicted a risk assessment by a Correctional Service Canada Director and that, aside from his arbitrary use of his ministerial powers, no adequate reasons were provided for the denial. The Court gave Toews 45 days to reconsider the request for transfer "on the merits and in accordance with the requirements of the [Act]."
The Goulet case is significant because it reveals attempts by Ministers of the Harper government to operate arbitrarily in violation of the statutes that they are bound to uphold. It is also significant because it concerns legislation that the Harper government just amended with the passage of Bill C-10, the Safe Streets and Communities Act in a manner that strengthens a Minister's arbitrary powers within the statute concerned. The recently amended legislation replaces "shall" with "may" so that the Minister "may consider various criteria," making the criteria to be considered for transfer optional and at the Minister's discretion. In effect, the amendments to the ITOA contained in the Safe Streets and Communities Act permit the Minister to pick and choose which criteria to consider in determining whether a transfer is acceptable and permits the Minister to introduce new, arbitrary criteria. In addition, the Act's main purpose has now also been amended to place an emphasis on "public safety."
Toews' reasons in the Goulet case reveal the unjust nature of his arbitrary decision and his violation of the purposes of the previous ITOA. Mr. Goulet is not requesting a pardon for his crimes. He is requesting a transfer so that he can serve the rest of his sentence in a Canadian prison, where he can presumably be closer to his family. This is a straightforward request that the evidence supports. The purposes of the old ITOA under which Mr. Goulet applied clearly state:
"The purpose of this Act is to contribute to the administration of justice and the rehabilitation of offenders and their reintegration into the community by enabling offenders to serve their sentences in the country of which they are citizens or nationals."
Despite this, Toews essentially rules that Goulet should not be transferred because he will not openly incriminate others that the government alleges must have been involved in drug trafficking in Canada. This is a violation of Goulet's rights based on allegations that have no evidence.
Mr. Goulet should be permitted to return to Canada in accordance with the principles of the ITOA. Toews' attempts to use Goulet's request for transfer to force a confession out of him is a violation of Goulet's human rights and the rule of law.
Whether one agrees or disagrees with the crimes of which Goulet was convicted in the U.S., he has human rights. The Harper government cannot be permitted to violate the rights of Canadians in the name of "public safety," "national security" or "security of the economy." It must not pass!
Toews' Reasons
In his reasons, Toews stated that in his previous decision he "denied Mr. Goulet's transfer based upon my opinion that he would, after the transfer, commit a criminal organization offence."
Trying to justify this, Toews claims that Goulet would not snitch on those the government alleges he worked with in Canada.
"Mr. Goulet has not contradicted or expanded upon any of the information included in a Sentence Data Summary [from the U.S. authorities...] Mr. Goulet has not contradicted or expanded upon any of the information included in that document and, therefore I conclude that it is an accurate rendition of the events which gave rise to his imprisonment in the U.S.
"I find that Mr. Goulet's statements in his application are self-serving and intended to minimize the extent of his offence.
"Based upon my review of the Sentence Data Summary and Mr. Goulet's application [for transfer], I find that Mr. Goulet has not been forthright in his application for transfer to Canada. He only identifies five of the nine individuals who were involved in the enterprise. His description of the offence is incomplete in that it does not set out the circumstances of his offence. Further, Mr. Goulet's application does not identify any of his accomplices in Canada who were involved in the enterprise."
In explaining the rationale behind his view that Goulet would commit a criminal organization offence in the future, Toews wrote:
"In deciding whether Mr. Goulet will commit a criminal organization offence after his return, I am not required to predict the future. To say that I must be certain he would commit such an offence would render this section meaningless. Rather, I am required to consider whether in all the circumstances there is a 'significant risk' he will commit such an offence. The fact that Mr. Goulet was involved in a criminal enterprise of the nature that I have described above and that he was not forthcoming in his application with respect to the extent of the enterprise, the sources of his marijuana or his accomplices in Canada, leads me to conclude there is a significant risk Mr. Goulet will commit a criminal organization offence."
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