(Prime Time Crime exclusive Nov. 23, 2004)
Double Standard at Canada Immigration
By Leo Knight
Prime Minister Paul Martin’s newly-minted Immigration Minister Judy Sgro, spent the last week being griddled by the Opposition Conservative Party last week in the House of Commons over allegations that she abused her ministerial office to help someone who worked on her campaign.
Incredibly hard to imagine that a Liberal in Canada might have broken the rules to show favouritism to a friend or supporter as it may be, but, there it is.
A Romanian stripper, er, exotic dancer, Alina Balaican, 25, volunteered to work on Ms. Sgro’s campaign in the 2004 federal election. She had also overstayed her temporary visa to this country and had been ordered deported. After the campaign and her appointment to Executive Council as Immigration Minister, Judy Sgro paid her back by intervening in the process and granting her a temporary work visa.
Diane Ablonczy zeroed in on the Minister in Question Period this week on the case: “Why did the minister use her position to help a political supporter jump to the head of the queue?” thundered the Conservative immigration critic. Initially Sgro stood mute, preferring to let her parliamentary secretary, Hedy Fry take the flak to defend the indefensible. You remember Hedy – who railed on about the burning crosses on lawns in Prince George, don’t you? Now there’s a picture of credibility.
In the same week, the Opposition also attacked Sgro over allegations of an Indian national wanted on a Canada wide arrest warrant issued by her department regularly hung out at her campaign office after bringing pizza for workers.
Last Tuesday, Sgro made a feeble attempt to respond to the withering criticism. “I have the opportunity to grant humanitarian and compassionate grounds on individual case. And I get hundreds of requests from every member in this House,” sputtered the embattled minister.
Then she hid behind specious privacy arguments to explain why she could say no more on the subject of the pardoned peeler.
Well, perhaps it would be useful to look at one such case.
In January 2002 Steven Francis Brown, a professional electrician from Middlesborough in England, applied to come to this country with his wife and daughter. In the spring of that year, the Liberal government changed their policy ostensibly to make it easier for more qualified applicants to enter the country. They bought in some stupid regulations about existing applications already in the system prior to the legislation change. In a nutshell, they moved the goalposts for incipient immigrants’ eligibility scoring.
Applicants are rated on age, education, Official Language Proficiency, experience, arranged employment and adaptability. The total scoring is 100 and a score of 70 was needed prior to the legislation change and 75 points afterward.
Steven Brown was scored at 72 and eligible under the legislation as it stood when he initially applied. He could have had a score at least 10 points higher had he bothered to arrange employment for himself prior to applying, but he didn’t, assuming he had enough points to qualify and he was after all, a skilled tradesman coming to a country screaming for skilled tradesmen.
But he didn’t count on the ideology of our natural governing poverty and the discrimination inherent in the liberal left.
In his ratings he was assessed a perfect 10 out of 10 for age. Presumably, being youngish, and employable and able to contribute to the Canada Pension Plan for a few decades played in his favour here.
In the next category, education, he was assessed a 20 out of a possible 25. Hmmm, he is a certified electrician, not an apprentice. But okay, he’s not a university grad, so let’s accept the mark-down. He got maximum possible points for Experience, 21 out of 21 so let’s assume bureaucrats at Immigration Canada recognized what they had here.
Whoops! Bad assumption.
He got zero out of a possible ten for arranged employment even though his skills are in high demand not only in this country, but in BC where he planned to live and where his brother, former Vancouver Whitecap Phil Brown, has been living since the early ‘80s.
But where the Liberals really screwed Steven, was the other two categories; Adaptability and Official Language Proficiency. In the first he was assessed a five out of ten. Excuse me! He is from Britain coming to British Columbia where his only brother has lived for the past 20 years. He has a very marketable trade and he scores only five out of ten in Adaptablility?
In the latter, he was scored 16 out of 24.
Huh? He lives in England. Their official language is E-N-G-L-I-S-H! You know, minus the accent, very similar to one of our official languages. Are we saying he is not proficient in at least one of our official languages? What absolute bloody nonsense!
Hey Judy! How good is either the English or French of the Romanian stripper? Has the good minister been to Richmond, BC lately? The south side of Vancouver? There are whole pockets of people in Canada who don’t even have a passing acquaintance with either official language and they are allowed in.
Has the minister taken a cab in any major city in any part of this country and actually found a driver who was particularly good in either official language? Hell, her former boss, the gone-but-not-lamented, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien was virtually incoherent in either English or French.
James Moore, MP, has tried to get Immigration Canada to review the file in Steven Brown’s case and has essentially been told to take a hike. Steven’s brother, Phil, has also taken up the fight and in a letter written in July by some pointy-headed bureaucrat named “A. Gorman” in the Ministerial Enquiries Division, Executive Services, tells Phil to take a hike too. Politely of course.
The bureaucrat spouts some nonsense about “skilled workers are selected for their flexible skills which will ensure their success in a fast changing labour market.”
The construction industry in BC has been on fire, along with the economy in general in this province the past few years. It is really hard to understand how a certified electrician could not possibly be needed. Urgently in fact.
Maybe if he takes off his clothes and gets a job with the Chippendales he might be able to curry favour with the Minister. Since he can’t alter the fact he is a white male with a marketable skill from England, clearly he needs to get Ms. Sgro’s attention in another way.
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