Federal
Government's "Temporary Resident Pathway"
for Certain
Palestinians in Gaza
Smoke and Mirrors to Cover Up Participation in Genocide -- It Will Not Pass!
Vigil in Toronto calling
for government action to bring Gazans to Canada, February 11, 2024
From one end of the country to the other, Canadians have been
expressing serious concerns about the Trudeau government's
actions and its Temporary Resident Pathway, available to only
certain Palestinians in Gaza and capped at 1,000 applicants.
This minimal number is in the face of more than 29,870
deaths and more than 70,215 Palestinians wounded
as of February 27 with almost 100 killed and
more than 170 wounded in the past 24 hours. The
majority are women and children. People view the program as a
cruel joke, both the limited number and that even though the
cap has almost been reached, not one Palestinian has exited
Gaza thus far. As well, special qualifications to even apply
show this claim of supporting Palestinian refugees is false.
The ongoing Israeli genocide has seen most of the population of 2.3 million in Gaza forcibly internally displaced over and over again, with the injured deprived of medical assistance and traumatized Palestinians now facing starvation. The U.S., Canada and others are also guilty of genocide, as they continue to defend and support Israel and place the blame on the Palestinian resistance.
Targeting Palestinian Resistance in Gaza
A CBC news item dated February 6, informs that, "no one registered with Canada has been able to flee Gaza under the new program" even though almost 1,000 applications under the program have reached the second phase "and are awaiting final admissibility decisions."
That same day during debate in the House of Commons, the NDP Member of Parliament for Vancouver East, Jenny Kwan, stated that, "The rollout of the special immigration measure for Gaza is riddled with problems. People have been rejected without any explanation. Some are rejected then later approved with exactly the same application. Now officials are saying the 1,000 cap has almost been reached, yet many have not received the code from IRCC [Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada] to move on to the next stage."
Kwan then asked what action Immigration Minister Marc Miller was taking "to clean up this mess" and if he would "remove the arbitrary cap without further delay to save lives."
His
response was that, "Right now, the challenge is actually getting an
initial list of people out who are pre-approved to cross Rafah
gates." "It is very difficult to extend these programs when we
cannot even get people out," he added.
Ignoring the human factor involved by reducing the problem to a technical difficulty over which the Minister pretends Canada has no responsibility is par for the course but totally unacceptable.
Two days earlier on February 4, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly, while on assignment in Ukraine, was also questioned by the CBC's Rosemary Barton about "the thousand or so Palestinians in Gaza who have been put on this list of extended family members of Canadians." "I've talked to a number of people now," Barton said, "whose family members are being killed. They're on the list, they could get to Canada, if there's a way to get out. But in the meantime, people are losing their lives."
Asked if there was anything she could do, Minister Joly's response was that she and the Minister of Immigration have "been working" "on this issue." She said, "We are in contact with COGAT [Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories] which is the organization under the [Israeli] Defense Department that approves, basically, the passage to the Rafah Gate." Joli added that, "we'll continue to make sure that the people that were authorized by Canada to leave are able to" and that she and the immigration minister will "continue to pressure Israeli authorities, at the same time working also with them, but also with the Egyptian government, which we also need the authorization from. We were able to evacuate hundreds of Canadians out of Gaza, not necessarily at the pace we would have liked, Rosie, because it was long, but we had to deal with many authorities giving their authorizations. We're doing the same right now." Yet to date "hundreds" are still there and the unjust demands being made of Palestinians to qualify remain. These include having to list any body scars and injuries, as if this would prove whether someone was a "security threat."
One week after the program's launch on January 16, in a CBC radio interview, Immigration Minister Miller explained that his government's Temporary Resident Pathway had been set up the way it was because of certain "geopolitical realities to the war that are unique" such as "the inability of Canadian officials to actually get into Gaza and do security checks, do biometrics. So there is a first stage to pass, which is to get physically through the Rafah Gate controlled by Israel, Egypt" "and then a second stage in Cairo where people can be welcomed and we can do [...] proper security clearances."
"We are dealing with people that are not Canadians or Canadian permanent residents" he said, adding that "we cannot take security for granted."
"There are operational challenges," he continued, "things that [...] Canadian government officials do not control and [...] a big question mark, I think, is around the Rafah crossing and it's something that we'll have to work with on the ground, in real time."
In response to the program application's questions being hurtful to family members in Canada, in particular one about injuries and scars and why it was being asked, Miller replied that, "They're not Canadians, they're not permanent residents." "It is the best that we can do under the circumstances. It's something that we have done in Afghanistan." "[C]oming to Canada," he remarked, "to be quite frank, is not a right."
Specifically with regard to the 1,000-person cap, he said that, "The extreme version to the concept of emptying Gaza and verging on the cleansing of the situation and the optics of that, if you were to take a large amount of people out of Gaza, that is something that is geopolitically fraught. It's something that we object to, but this is a situation where we are only inviting close relatives just to keep alive. So really, two different categories." Why then is Canada not objecting to and trying to stop Israel's effort to do exactly that, to empty Gaza of Palestinians?
Double Standards
In response to why the program was so different from the one set up for Ukrainians (who have received over 936,000 temporary emergency visas since March 2022) as well as the fact that Ukrainians were not required to be sponsored or prove any connection with Canadians, the immigration minister said, "Look, I understand that there is an easy comparison to be made. The Ukraine policy is one that is really unique in our history," "one that was and is broad in scope. Very different geopolitical reality. First and foremost, we're dealing with an operational government under attack in Ukraine." The Palestinians have made clear they are prepared to negotiate a ceasefire and assist in evacuations as needed. It is Israel, the U.S. and Canada standing in the way.
Need for a Humanitarian Immigration Policy for Canada
Canadians in their hundreds of thousands have and continue to express their support for the just struggle of the Palestinian resistance against occupation and genocide and their right to be through all the organizational means at their disposal, such as ongoing demonstrations country-wide, collective statements, open letters and the signing of petitions in record-breaking numbers.
In light of government crimes and perfidy, including the violation
of its international responsibilities, Canadians themselves are taking
up the discussion on what immigration policy Canada needs and the role
of the people in defining the qualifications and structures required to
be equal members of the polity, including acquiring citizenship. The
current promotion that Canada cannot provide for the many refugees
seeking asylum is an old one. The idea that accepting refugees and
determining citizenship is determined by self-serving anti-people
notions of "absorptive capacity" was put to rest when this criteria was
first raised in 1975 when the government released its Green Paper on
Immigration. Canadians scathingly rejected the criteria of "absorptive
capacity" as racist, anti-people and unacceptable. The subsequent
Immigration Act, 1976, was
the first immigration legislation said to "clearly outline the
objectives of Canadian immigration policy, define refugees as a
distinct class of immigrants, and mandate the Canadian government to
consult with other levels of government in the planning and promotion
of Canada's demographic, economic, social, and cultural goals, as well
as the priorities of family reunion, diversity, and
non-discrimination." Reviewing Canada's immigration history, treatment
of refugees and racist and discriminatory political criteria which
continue to this day is an urgent task facing the people of Canada.
Canada urgently needs a truly humanitarian immigration policy which
never again violates migrant and human rights, including the right to
conscience.
This article was published in
Volume 54 Number 14 - February 28, 2024
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2024/Articles/MS54143.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca