Somebody Got Suckered

Short version of this story: Iggy refused to to deal with Tamil protesters because of their possible connections to the LTTE. The NDP had no such compunctions, and harvested the Tamil vote.

And the CPoC? They unleashed the hounds on any politician appearing next to anyone with even vague connections to The Tigers, which seems to have freaked out Iggy and co. and guided their response to the issue.

And then the CPoC turned around and quite shamelessly ran people with LTTE connections.

I'm shitty at poker, but one day before I die I would like to play poker with Iggy.

Serious Stuff

Me being me, this post from yesterday morning on the Federal Government's new legislation to combat human smuggling was a bit flippant. Trust the Galloping Beaver to finger some of the real issues with the proposed law:

...say for example you're a member of the Karen ethnic group living in Mah Sot refugee camp, Thailand. You cannot go back to Burma because the disgusting bunch of military fetishists running the show over routinely send the army after you and friends. You are effectively stateless and cannot claim citizenship in Burma or Thailand because neither country really wants much to do with you. Canada comes along and grants you refugee status and you come here to live, leaving many of your family and friends behind. When you are processed and formally recognised as a refugee by Canada, you are granted permanent residency.

After a number of years, you can apply citizenship and thus a Canadian passport. However, before that you can do that you may apply for a Travel Document because you can't actually get a passport from your home country, or the country you fled to. This travel document legally protects you because it says to foreign governments 'I'm now under the protection of Canada, do not mess with me'. If you want to travel to see family and friends still stuck eating sandy rice in a dusty camp, this travel document allows that to happen. You are free now, and can live, play and travel with more security than you've ever had in your life.

What the Conservatives now want to do it seems is take that security away and punish refugee claimants for being refugee claimants. While your claim is being processed, they want you to effectively remain a prisoner within Canada. Don't go home, don't visit your dying mother, don't got back to celebrate the wedding of your sister. Not only that, but the Conservatives also seem to want to be able to revoke your claim should you ever leave the country.

I'd also make note of this bit of commentary from the Vancouver Sun:

David Poopalapillai, spokesman for the Canadian Tamil Congress, said he was particularly troubled with the provision that prevents those smuggled into the country from sponsoring family members for five years. "Once you become a landed immigrant, you've been accepted as a legitimate refugee claimant," he said. "You say to them you can't sponsor your spouse or your kids? That's inhuman. You want the family to suffer and suffer? It's not the Canadian way of doing business."

The opposition parties have promised to give the new legislation a "good, long look", and hopefully they will do that. Some aspects of it--targeting the owners of ships like the MV Sun Sea--appear salvageable, as they are aimed at the criminal activity that drives human smugglers, and not the actual smuggled refugees. Given how the committee process works in a minority parliament, there's no doubt that some kind of bill can emerge from said process that may actually do some good. The opposition parties should rework the proposed legislation so it becomes that bill, give it back to the government, and see if they'll sign.

The Problem With Conservative Math...

...is it makes you do silly things:

OTTAWA - The federal government will unveil a sweeping package of reforms Thursday aimed at cracking down on refugee fraudsters, QMI Agency has learned.

Among other things, Ottawa will make it easier to kick out bogus refugees who travel back to the country they claim they are fleeing from for vacations, and will move to restrict the health-care benefits refugees receive in Canada while they wait for their claims to be processed.

Government sources said the package of measures to be announced Thursday is partly a response to stories QMI Agency published earlier this year about abuse of Canada's immigration and refugee system.

In August, QMI Agency reported on a secret government survey that showed that many Tamils who came to Canada claiming that their lives were in danger in their native Sri Lanka subsequently returned safely to that country. They would then come back to Canada and wait out their refugee claim.

In legislation to be tabled Thursday, the government will make it easier to revoke someone's refugee status immediately if a refugee claimant heads home for holidays, birthdays or to sponsor other family members.

"It's a serious problem," said one government source.

Well,the only serious problem in this case was with QMI columnist Brian Lilley's mathematical abilities, which assigned statistical significance to a "review of files" (not a "survey") that Stats Canada insisted did not have any. Furthermore, the new legislation does not seem to mention revoking the refugee status of someone who returns home during a lull in their country's civil war; since this is apparently what most of the Tamils in the Statscan report were doing, it wouldn't likely effect them one way or another. Which is an advantage of legislation based on fake math and aimed at fixing imaginary problems: only non-existent people get hurt.

More worrisome is this provision:

CTV News reported Wednesday that the new legislation will give the federal government new powers to detain migrants and human smugglers for up to one year or until their identity and status is determined. The network also reported that bogus asylum seekers will remain behind bards until they are deported.

Maybe its just because I hate the sound of the lute, but forcing refugees to remain in proximity to travelling songsmen is akin to torture, except that when you are water-boarded at least you eventually pass out.

Canadian Life Coalition Demands Minister of International Cooperation Bev Oda's Resignation

...for her Abortion flip-flop. They're also calling her a "pro-abortion activist".

And I'm not sure quite how I feel about it. On the one hand, its stirring up just this kind of dissatisfaction within the Conservative base that justifies, politically, making the lack of abortion funding in the gov's G8 Maternal Health initiative an issue.

On the other hand, Oda's latest statement shows--here, and in the case of the Tamil Migrants, and in the case of the flying, veiled Muslim women--that the Harper government is capable of doing the right thing once they've achieved a certain temporal distance from their own rhetoric. Because, in the end, after spouting alarmist nonsense, the processing of Sun Sea refugees has by all accounts gone forward in an exemplary (meaning humane) fashion. And after pandering to the Sun Media crowd for a couple of days, the nonsense about possible Muslim terrorists flying Air Canada while veiled has been allowed to die away (because, seriously, how could having terrorists on board make an experience with Air Canada significantly more crappy?).

Though I disagree with Wells: the CLC response to Bev's back-peddling demonstrates that the SoCons will not let Harper and Co. off lightly for this most recent display of human decency.

And, more importantly, if you think that Canada's response to refugee ships might be a little more firm, or if you think that you really should have to match your face to some piece of photo ID before boarding an airplane in our country, this whole Harper gov. tactic of masking a commitment to the status quo behind inflammatory rhetoric trivializes your debating points.

Why Did The Tamil Cross The Sea (Again)?

Bryan Weese keeps up the Fox News North drumbeat o' fear, but his story does contain, way down at the bottom, some new and useful information. Remember the non-scientific non-survey of Tamil refugees that Brian Lilley wrote about last week? He used some of the figures in it to conclude:

...the majority of successful Tamil refugees travel back to Sri Lanka, raising questions about the legitimacy of their refugee status.

Actually, it didn't really raise such questions, and Lilley only thought it did because he ain't too handy with numbers. His case relied on the assumption that the Tamils who went home both arrived in Canada and returned to Sri Lanka in 2009 (read through the link above for details).

However, from Weese' story we find out that this is almost certainly not what transpired:

The Canadian Tamil Congress said many of those trips were likely taken during the four-year ceasefire in the civil war from 2002 to 2006.

Booyah! Hack on hack violence.

OT: This guy is also tracking the decline and fall of FNN. Worth a read.

Your Daily Nazi: Shame On CTV

There are many points you can argue over Canada's response to the Tamil migrants. But you really shouldn't, as CTV did, put Paul Fromm on national television (see vid through link) and let him spout off like he's a normal person. He isn't; here is what he is. And, more specifically, here's a nice little story from just a few days ago about Paul's protesting the arrival of the Sun Sea, with the freakin' Aryan Guard, in front of Jason Kenney's office, no less.

CTV has really screwed up on this one: at least some background on the man behind "Canada First" should have been provided; it isn't like he's an unknown quantity.

Lumberjacks: They're Just Like Tamils, But More Hairy

OTTAWA, May 26 /CNW Telbec/ - Yesterday's occupation of seven federal Conservative offices by representatives of Canada's largest forest workers union has resulted in a high-level meeting and a conference on the future of the forest industry.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has agreed to meet with representatives of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union in Ottawa on June 2nd - the day thousands of forestry workers will join in a march to Prime Minister Stephen Harper's office.

Iggy On The Tamil Protest

The Liberal party did the right thing yesterday. The government, on the other hand, did nothing.

What They Want

...according to the Canadian Doctors of Tamil Descent:

1) Begin diplomatic pressure on Sri Lankan government and the United Nations to call an immediate and permanent ceasefire to halt this ongoing medical humanitarian tragedy;

2) Demand the immediate supply of food, water and medicine to people in 'no-fire zone' and internment camps by NGOs;

3) Begin dialogues with both sides to ensure the safety of the 130,000 civilians trapped in the conflict zone;

4) Cease all direct monetary aid to the Sri Lankan government and divert through NGOs to ensure delivery of necessary humanitarian assistance
to the affected; and

5) Use legal expertise to initiate the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and other means to secure Tamils from the FAILED-STATE, Sri Lanka."

And I am glad, frankly, that Mr. Ignatieff's office seems to have gotten beyond the fact that some of the protesters may be waving inappropriate flags. I find myself unmoved knowing that the guys who did this ...sported emblems approved of by the international community.