[Wamvan] NOII Factsheet: Everything You Can Stomach Knowing about Jason Kenney]

Thu Jul 7 14:49:32 PDT 2011

MINISTER OF CENSORSHIP AND DEPORATION JASON KENNEY’S RECORD:
Everything You Can Stomach Knowing about Jason Kenney

http://noii-van.resist.ca/?p=1027

Conservative Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism
Jason Kenney is known as the ‘Minister of Censorship and Deportation’
because he is one of the most repressive immigration ministers in Canadian
history. Here is why:

==> ON DETENTION AND DEPORTATION:

- Deportations from Canada have skyrocketed with 13,000 deportations in
the past year.

- Conservatives have justified the months-long detention of over 500 Tamil
asylum seekers aboard MV Ocean Lady and MV Sun Sea by fear-mongering and
falsely claiming they are “illegals” and “terrorists”.

- Harper and Kenney have campaigned for Bill C 49, now reintroduced as
Bill C-4, to combat “human smuggling”. This bill is based on Australia’s
internationally condemned policy of mandatory detention and subjects
asylum seekers, including children, suspected of using a smuggler to
mandatory detention for at least one year.

- A recent CTV News report revealed that government lawyers were forcing
the detained Tamil refugees to pay back thousands of dollars in smuggling
debt in order to be released from jail.

==> ON REFUGEES:

- Canada accepts under 20,000 refugees per year, less than 0.1% of the
world’s displaced population. A UNHCR report indicates that the number of
asylum applications to Canada has fallen 30% from 2005.

- Under the Conservative government, the number of approved asylum claims
has dropped by 56%.

- Some of Immigration and Refugee Board adjudicators, such as David
McBean, have a zero-percent acceptance rate.

- In 2010, there were 8,466 Pre-Removal Risk Assessment applications made
by asylum-seekers facing removal orders. Only 89 were approved.

- Kenney’s refugee Bill C-11 has created a racist two tier legal system
based on nationality.

- In 2009 Kenney imposed visa requirements on Mexico and the Czech
Republic, claiming that these refugees were “system-abusers”. While Kenney
was imposing these visa requirements, a 24-year-old woman was deported
back to Mexico where she was murdered.

- Kenney wants provincial governments to curb social assistance – already
inadequate – to refugee claimants.

==> ON IMMIGRANTS:

- Conservatives boast a record number of immigrants but they cut overall
immigration by 5%.

- The number of family class immigrants accepted has dropped by 10,000
since the Conservatives took power. This is a 15% decrease.

- The Conservative government has similarly decreased skilled worker visas
by about 20%.

- The Harper government cut $53 million in programs that offer support for
new immigrants.

- The “backlog” that Kenney was claiming to fix has increased by an
additional 173,000 people awaiting skilled worker visas.

- Kenney wants immigrants to “integrate” and speak the colonial languages
of English and French.

==> ON FAMILY SPONSORSHIPS:

- Despite assuring Parliament that the parents and grandparents visa
category would remain stable, Jason Kenney was slashing these visas by
over 40%.

- The overall number of family-class application is down by 15%, 11000
visas, since 2006.

- The average length of time for family sponsorships is now a wait of up
to 14 years, while the government collects millions of dollars in
sponsorship application fees.

==> ON MIGRANT WORKERS:

- The number of temporary foreign workers, who do not have the basic
rights afforded to permanent residents, is up 30% over the past four
years.

- In 2008 Canada received more people on temporary work permits (>250,000
people) than as permanent residents. This ensures that businesses have a
larger pool of cheap labour who do not have to be paid minimum wage, have
no labour protections, and are under constant threat of deportation.

- The government proposed major changes to foreign worker programs
including limiting most workers to a term of four years, after which a
six-year ban will be imposed before workers can return to Canada.

- Kenney has overseen several work-place raids in Ontario, where CBSA
officers have stormed farms, factories, and homes in order to arrest and
deport hundreds of migrant and non-status workers.

==> ON WOMEN AND LGBTQ COMMUNITIES:

- A proposal for “Conditional Permanent Residence” will impose conditional
status on sponsored spouses. This proposal places women in particular risk
of abuse and violence by making their status conditional and dependent on
their partner’s.

- Kenney supports Quebec’s Bill C-94 that discriminates against women who
wear the niqab (face veil) by denying them essential public services
including health and education.

- Kenney’s new citizenship guide makes racist references to “barbaric”
cultural practices and Hollywood stereotypes of forced marriages and
honour killings, devoid of a universal analysis of gender violence.

- Kenney appointed an infamous anti-gay activist, Doug Cryer, to the
Immigration and Refugee Board.

- Kenney appeared at anti-gay comic Guy Earle’s fundraiser to help him
raise money he was ordered by the BC Human Rights Tribunal to pay as
damages for his homophobic remarks.

- Kenney deliberately removed gay rights references from the new
citizenship guide. After mounting pressure and given his record of voting
against same-sex marriages, he was forced to retreat.

==> ON WAR AND OCCUPATION:

- Canada’s new citizenship guide, supervised by Kenney, glorifies a
history of militarization and includes prominent recruitment ads for the
Armed Forces.

- Kenney has labelled Iraq war resisters as bogus refugee claimants.

- Kenney barred British MP George Galloway, because of his opposition to
the military occupation of Afghanistan. Galloway eventually fought this at
the Federal Court of Canada and won.

- Kenney unequivocally supports the state of Israel and
internationally-condemned Israeli war crimes.

==> ON ANTI RACISM:

- Kenney spoke against a UN report documenting poverty, discrimination,
and racial profiling in Canada.

- Kenney pulled Canada out of the Durban World Conference Against Racism
even before the apartheid state of Israel did.

- Kenney cut funding to the Canadian Arab Federation due to their
involvement in pro-Palestine work.

- Kenney has rehired a senior aide who was found to be illegally
soliciting money for advertising campaigns through the “Conservative
Ethnic Paid Media Strategy” targeted at immigrant voters.

“I plead guilty. I am a racist” – Jason Kenney, Montreal 2009.

We demand an end to Kenney’s detentions and deportations.
We demand an end to Kenney’s exploitative migrant worker programs. We
demand an end to Kenney’s support for military occupations from
Afghanistan to Palestine.
We demand an end to Kenney’s discrimination against women, LGBTQ,
immigrants, and racialized people.

-----------------------

The People v. Kenney
Freedom to move
Right to stay, and to Return
We are many.

-----------------------

Follow No One Is Illegal’s People v. Kenney Campaign:
http://noii-van.resist.ca/?page_id=4139

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No One is Illegal-Vancouver Coast Salish Territories is a grassroots
anti-colonial migrant justice group with leadership from members of
migrant and/or racialized backgrounds. We strive and struggle for the
right to remain, the freedom to move, and the right to return. As a
movement for self-determination that challenges the ideology of
immigration controls, we take action to combat racial profiling, detention
and deportation, the national security apparatus, law enforcement
brutality, and exploitative working conditions of migrants. The ongoing
apartheid reality instituted through reserves and sweatshops is one that
must be fundamentally uprooted and transformed. We envision a humanity
where everyone has the right to sustenance and the ability to provide it,
where we are free of oppression, misery, and exploitation, and are able to
live meaningfully in relationship to one another and in reverence for
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Harsha Walia

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-- 
Harsha Walia

https://twitter.com/HarshaWalia
https://www.facebook.com/nooneisillegal
http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/author/dtes-power-women-group

-- 
Harsha Walia

https://twitter.com/HarshaWalia
https://www.facebook.com/nooneisillegal
http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/author/dtes-power-women-group

-- 
Harsha Walia

https://twitter.com/HarshaWalia
https://www.facebook.com/nooneisillegal
http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/author/dtes-power-women-group

-- 
Harsha Walia

https://twitter.com/HarshaWalia
https://www.facebook.com/nooneisillegal
http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/author/dtes-power-women-group

-- 
Harsha Walia

https://twitter.com/HarshaWalia
https://www.facebook.com/nooneisillegal
http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/author/dtes-power-women-group

-- 
Harsha Walia

https://twitter.com/HarshaWalia
https://www.facebook.com/nooneisillegal
http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/author/dtes-power-women-group