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Corrupt Canadian Immigration Judge Jailed - The Bigger Story

June 29, 2006

Former Immigration and Refugee Board appeals division judge Yves Bourbonnais pleaded guilty yesterday to multiple counts of obstruction of justice stemming from his leading role in a bribery scheme that targeted cases he was scheduled to hear. He was sentenced to six years in prison.

It's a sad fact of life that, from time to time, we hear of corruption in the judicial system. We may be disappointed but we're not shocked. In the end the bad guy was caught and punished, as he should have been.

The real issue here is that Mr. Bourbonnais was appointed a judge in the first place. Back in 1996, then Immigration Minster Lucienne Robillard named Mr. Bourbonnais to the bench. Had the former Minister done a background check she would have learned that in 1988 Mr. Bourbonnais had been convicted of breach of trust for selling government office furniture from a prosecutor's office and two courthouses. Just the kind of person we'd want to uphold our laws.

It's got to make you wonder about the quality of the security screenings that were conducted on the thousands of immigrants who entered Canada between 1996 and 1999, the period of time during which Mrs. Robillard served as the chief Canadian gatekeeper.

Blog written by David Cohen on Friday, June 30, 2006

 

 

Missing the Point

June 22, 2006

In a recent speech, Prime Minister Stephen Harper defended the need to keep Canadian borders open against calls that immigration was breeding terrorism in Canada.

As if we have a choice.

The debate is no longer about whether Canada should remain open to immigration. That debate became moot when Canadians realized that low birth rates and an aging population would eventually lead to a shrinking populace. Baby bonuses and other such incentives couldn't convince Canadians to have more kids, and demographic experts have forecasted that a Canada without immigration would pretty much disintegrate as a nation by 2050.

So, if Canada needs immigration to avoid becoming one giant nursing home before going gently into that good night, why are we still acting as if closing our borders is a viable policy option? Instead of debating a non-issue, Canada needs to focus its energy on the real challenge: preventing the ghetto-ization of our immigrant communities.

As much as some people might prefer to receive immigrants from England and France, the reality is that those most likely to want to immigrate to Canada come from non-Western cultures. The success of Canada as a nation depends on our society's ability to avoid marginalizing those cultures that seem different from the mainstream. Integration will not occur without meaningful opportunities for Canada's immigrant population to participate in our economic, cultural, and political institutions.

Accomplishing this integration and avoiding the problems of ghetto-ization may be a challenge, but it is a worthwhile one. Given Canada's demographic realities, the only serious immigration debate to be had is how best to address this challenge. However, as long as our Prime Minister and others find it necessary to focus on rebutting calls to close the borders, valuable energy is being wasted. Like paying bonuses for babies, closing the borders is an outdated concept, and Canada's politicians would be wise to steer clear of this retro debate.

Blog written by David Cohen on Friday, June 23, 2006

 

 

Respect Your Elders

June 06, 2006

Apparently "respect your elders" is a proverb that officials at Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) have never heard.

While Canadian citizens and permanent residents have little problem gaining status for their spouses and children, there is an increasing backlog of parents and grandparents hoping to reunite with their family members. A 2005 promise by the Liberals to triple the number of parental and grandparent sponsorships from 6,000 to 18, 000 a year hides the fact that this number is in fact lower than pre-2002 levels. This is simply not high enough, as years of limiting sponsorships to 6,000 a year has contributed to a crippling 100,000 person waitlist.

But the worst part may not be the limits CIC is placing on parental sponsorship, but the opaque way it is doing so. Because CIC does not reveal the processing times for its various immigration offices around the world, a Freedom of Information Act request was filed to obtain the wait times from these immigration offices. This request discovered a backlog of parent's and grandparent's sponsorship applications that may, like at the Hong Kong office, take 9 years to clear.

Yet these backlogs are not uniform around the world. Parents migrating from the US and processed at the Buffalo office will gain permanent residency much faster than offices in New Delhi, Beijing, and elsewhere in Asia. Because processing times are a direct result of the number of immigration agents CIC places at a given office, the question is: who is making these decisions?

The Canadian government has been about as transparent as a puddle of mud when it comes to explaining how each office is prioritized. Why should parents from Asia have to wait longer than parents from the US, if both are sponsored by Canadian citizens or permanent residents? It seems that officials in CIC have decided to do some social engineering, without making the process accountable to Canadians. A parent is a parent is a parent, no matter the country they come from, and if the Canadian government believes otherwise, they should explain to the public why this is so.

The lack of transparency by the government on this issue seems tied to their unwillingness to prioritize parents and grandparents the way they do spouses and children. As CIC discriminates against one type of immigration application, immigration officials should remember that reunited families make for stable citizens. By forcing the government to be transparent on this issue, we may also force them to explain why there are over 100,000 parents and grandparents waiting to reunite with their families in Canada. After that, it will be much harder to continue leaving mom and dad out in the cold.

Blog written by David Cohen on Friday, June 16, 2006