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“This (law) is the most significant rollback of refugee rights in Canada in over a decade,” said Adam Sadinsky of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers. “It’s disappointing that Canada has joined other countries in a race to the bottom in terms of protection of rights for migrants and vulnerable people.”
I know a lot of people are lamenting the change, but I can’t help but read this line above from the article, and think about the findings from the recent auditor general’s report related to Student Visa Frauds. The AG report noted that Canada’s government had capacity to investigate 2000 fraud cases per year – but that it received around 75000 such allegations per year.
A huge gap between how people ‘wish’ the country worked/functioned on that front, and the reality.
With a surge of more than 10x in a short period, our government is overwhelmed on this front. Just like our healthcare system is overwhelmed – I’ve had relatives on wait lists for specialists for years at this point. Pretty much all of Canada’s gov functions seem incapable of keeping up, even with bloated public servant numbers (under Trudeau, they hit a record of like 22% of working people working for public sector, iirc).
We need immigration of all sorts, but it needs to be managed at a level we can handle as a country. If our government can’t even come close to processing their basic paperwork in a timely manner, it’d be crazy to think our other systems that require a whole lot more than pushing a button/admin paperwork, such as healthcare and housing, would be able to keep up with the increased demand. Putting in stricter conditions for refugee claims, given that the system is likely overwhelmed by the volume, makes practical sense.
I can directly speak to the overwhelmed healthcare point. Conservative governments have consistently and deliberately underfunded and hamstrung healthcare in several provinces to make it easier to push for privatization. I have been in some of the meetings and heard it firsthand.
I was even in one meeting during covid where they planeed to announce creating a new long term care facility while explicitly telling everyone not to mention they were also closing two others.
That’s the exact same thing that’s happening to the NHS in the UK.
Fuck globalization lmao, it doesn’t even matter where you choose to live anymore everything’s fucked. Welcome to Cyberpunk
20772027Yeah, those darn conservatives and their meddling during covid. It’s like they didn’t even realise the liberals were in power.
Healthcare is a provincial responsibility.
And the two most populated provinces have had very conservative governments for years now so…
I can understand this, but I can’t help but worry about friend of mine from Ukraine who came here through a work permit and has been trying to get refugee status since then at the risk of being sent back now that their permit has expired. They didn’t apply as a refugee initially since they came here a few months before the invasion.
They’ve told me the struggles with the waitlists, and it just sounds so frustrating. I understand student visa fraud being an issue, but doing a blanket cutoff like this will put lives at risk.
At a personal level, there’s going to be shitty situations all around. As noted, I personally have relatives who’ve been on waiting lists for years for things like basic mobility issues, which is significantly lowering their quality of life (like, they can’t really go out at all, they’re just stuck waiting). That’s largely the result of the health care system being overwhelmed by the surge in population. So not cutting off immigration surges, and not curtailing this sort of thing, is putting local/Canadian lives at risk.
Again, shitty to hear about your friend – and I know looking at aggregates doesn’t really make that any less shitty on a personal level. Best of luck, hopefully they can stay.
Theoretically, the government canceling thousands of claims will reduce the waitlist for the claims they don’t cancel. Hopefully they keep an exception for Ukrainian refugees, because Canada seems to be pretty good about supporting Ukraine if I’m not mistaken.
I hope your friend’s claim doesn’t get canceled and that they get to stay. It sucks for the rest of the people whose claims are getting rejected, but narrowing the scope might help Canada better serve a smaller, more manageable number of refugees.
Again, this is theoretical. I don’t know the details. I just hope they’re not rejecting any Ukrainians’ requests for refugee status…
Bullshit. The government is wasting millions on defense, on oil and gas tax exemptions and subsidies, and on a whole host of other wasteful and pointless programs to benefit the capitalist class. Seeking asylum is a fundamental human right under article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. If claims have gone up, 10 times, hire and train more staff to handle them. There are communities in the Maritimes with staggering levels of unemployment, and the Trump tarifs are making us shed jobs. So the government could at the same time uphold Canada’s moral standing AND give employment to Canadians.