Canada's Despicable Discrimination Against Palestinians and Further Complicity in Genocide
At the February 10 vigil in Ottawa to honour the tens of thousands killed by Israel in Gaza, the Palestinian Youth Movement distributed a leaflet -- Families Belong Together -- to explain the situation regarding to the Canadian government's temporary visa program.
The Palestinian
youth inform that on January 9, Canada opened a
Temporary Visa Program, ostensibly to help evacuate Gazans to Canada. A
wait time of over 300 days, makes the visa program effectively useless.
They note that hundreds of Palestinians in Gaza are being killed every
day by the
Israeli regime to whom Canada proudly provides material support and
political cover.
Since the launch of the Temporary Visa Program, Canada has been slow to respond to family members who have applied to bring their loved ones to Canada to escape the Israeli genocide in the Gaza Strip. Three weeks after the program opened, only a small number of applicants have heard back from the Canadian government on the next step in the application process.
The Immigration Canada website confirms there is a wait time of 312 days -- almost a whole year -- before Gazans will be given the green light to escape Israeli genocide. A small number of Palestinian-Canadians who have submitted a request to review eligibility have received the approval to go ahead and submit the application -- an estimated 10 per cent.
The leaflet states: "Instead of streamlining the process, the ministry has introduced complex and invasive measures. On December 21, Canada's Immigration Minister Marc Miller announced that Canada will only accept 1,000 applications in total, leaving the rest of Palestinians with Canadian relatives who weren't able to be part of the 1,000 applications to die. The cap on applications is arbitrary and notably much lower than normal."
The leaflet notes that the application process for the temporary visa for Gazans under Israeli genocide is very complicated. First, applicants must request that the Canadian government verify their eligibility using their inquiry system 'Web Form.' If an applicant receives the approval, they are then met with invasive and discriminatory requests for information that has not been required of applicants from countries such as Ukraine, Colombia and Venezuela for similar special measures programs.
"Applicants must provide the following: all their passport information (current and past), all their social media handles (current and past), detailed travel history in the past ten years, and any records of body scars, a request that is very discriminatory, violating, and questionable from the Canadian government," the leaflet points out.
The leaflet explains how limits on who is eligible to apply will split families apart: "As of now, the criteria include the Canadian's parents, husband/wife, children, siblings and their significant other as well as siblings' children under the age of 22. This means that the rest of the family members and first-degree relatives are left to be under the constant fire of the Israeli regime. We demand that Canada remove these criteria and open the door for the special measures to all the family members of Palestinian-Canadians."
The Palestinian Youth Movement's demands are:
1. An expedited application
process;
2. Remove the 1,000 person cap on applicants;
3.
Remove invasive and discriminatory criteria;
4. An immediate
ceasefire.
This article was published in
Volume 54 Number 14 - February 28, 2024
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2024/Articles/MS54145.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca