Category: Canada

Canada: Will gay Russians now be seeking asylum in the West?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update August 16th:  The Wall Street Journal has a story, here, about gay Russians who seek asylum in the US.

There is a story from Canada yesterday that got me thinking that this could be the next big scam for Russians to get into the US and Canada.  Earlier generations of Russian “refugees” claimed religious persecution in the old Soviet Union and that bought them a ticket to America.

Homosexuality is a hanging offense under Shariah Law in certain Muslim countries, but not in Russia.

Will Russia’s newest laws discouraging homosexual behavior produce the next wave?   And, here is what I’ve wanted to know ever since the US refugee contractors began their campaign to resettle more gays/lesbians—how do you know if he or she is lying?  Are we going to have witnesses in the bedroom or simply take their word for it?  Or, here is an idea, we could have people with finely honed ‘gaydar’ detection abilities interview them (I can hear the howls from our PC readers!).

From The Vancouver Sun:

A Vancouver immigration lawyer says he has seen a jump in business from Russia after new anti-gay laws came into force.

While it’s still too soon to say whether a crackdown on homosexuals in Russia will result in a spike in refugee claims from that country, lawyer Ron Hughes, who specializes in gay and lesbian asylum claimants, is beginning to notice a difference.

Hughes handles a few dozen lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) cases a year and the last time he had a Russian client was before the fall of the Soviet Union – until now.

Go to the article and read more details of recent asylum cases in Canada.  However, this, near the end, was of interest to me.  Whenever I see lists like this, I wonder how the Far Left (great advocates for gay rights) actually works side-by-side with the Islamic agitators in the US like CAIR.

As a matter of fact, gay activists in the US should be working side-by-side with conservative judicial warriors fighting to keep Shariah law out of American courts!

Homosexual criminality 75 countries consider consensual sexual acts between adults of the same sex to be a criminal offence: Punishable by death: Iran, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen, and parts of Nigeria, Gambia and Somalia.

Punishable by jail: Afghanistan, Afghanistan, Algeria, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belize, Bhutan, Botswana, Brunei, Burma, Burundi, Cameroon, Comoros, Cook Islands, Dominica, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gaza Strip, Ghana, Grenada, Guinea, Guyana, Jamaica, Jamaica, Kenya, Kiribati, Kuwait, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Namibia, Nauru, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Qatar, Samoa, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, St Kitts & Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent & the Grenadines, Sudan, Swaziland, Syria, Tanzania, Togo, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

Note 1: Jamaica has some of the toughest sodomy laws in the world short of the death penalty, with homosexual activity carrying a 10-year prison sentence.

Note 2: Homosexuality is legal in Russia, but recent new laws make pro-gay “propaganda” illegal.

Canada announces it will take 1,300 Syrian refugees (to begin with)

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Actually they didn’t say “to begin with,” that was me, because we all know that this is just the beginning with literally millions of Syrians on the move throughout the Middle East.

Syrians on the move. We are coming to Canada!
Washington Post photo

Be sure to read what the director of one of the largest Syrian camps said recently (here)—-most difficult refugees in the world!

Apparently the Canadian government has succumbed to pressure from its 100,000-strong Canadian ‘Syrian community.’

1,300 will soon be on the way, according to The Star:

Ottawa will resettle 1,300 Syrian refugees to Canada from Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey over two years to address the deepening humanitarian crisis there, says Immigration Minister Jason Kenney.

The announcement on Wednesday came a month after the Syrian Canadian community made a public appeal urging the federal government to establish a special program for displaced refugees caught up in the two-year-old civil war between Syrian President Bashar Assad and the opposition.

The latest United Nations data shows more than 4.25 million Syrians are internally displaced and more than 1.6 million have fled to neighbouring countries.

“Our focus . . . is finding a long-term political solution to the crisis there,” Kenney told a news conference in Edmonton. “Our country is making an important effort to ensure the most vulnerable Syrian refugees are provided protection.”  [They love that word too—vulnerable!-–ed]

A coalition representing Canada’s 100,000-strong Syrian community welcomed the announcement, but worry about the lengthy screening and processing involved in the resettlement program.

“It is a step in the right direction. They finally recognized the crisis in Syria, which is the largest refugee crisis in the world today,” said Faisal Alazem of the Syrian Canadian Council in Montreal, one of seven groups involved in the coalition that met with Kenney in June.

Then US readers take note, in Canada many refugees are resettled with PRIVATE FUNDING.  In the US almost all refugees are resettled with taxpayer money funneled through resettlement contractors.

Two hundreds of the 1,300 Syrian refugees will be resettled with financial support by the Canadian government, while the rest will be assisted by community and faith groups that have sponsorship agreements with Ottawa.

If the US required private financial support and added legal responsibility for the resettlement sponsor group or individual sponsors, the refugee flow would be seriously curtailed.  It’s just too easy to want more (and more) refugees when using someone else’s money!

Australians lamenting the high cost of educating asylum seekers’ children

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I have a pile of stories I want to post, just the run of the mill news about refugee problems around the world—you know the boring stuff.  I look on those stories now as a refreshing vacation of sorts from the daily diet of refugee/immigrant terrorist stories of late.   Here is one in my stack.

Children of the ever-growing tide of boat people arriving in Australia will cost the taxpayers $55 million over four years, here at the Herald Sun.

The Aussies say more kids are on board these boats, but from what I’ve seen most asylum seekers are young virile Muslim men.

But before I give you some of the story, something just occurred to me—at least in Australia they are having discussions on this topic. That’s just how it is in Canada too where it seems there is a daily dose of political back and forth IN THE MEDIA on the details of the problems and costs  those country’s face with their ever-expanding refugee and asylum systems.

In the US we aren’t even having a public discussion on the topic! 

When is the last time you saw an article in a major national publication outlining the cost of educating asylum-seeking children? 

How many of you even have a rough idea of how many asylum seekers are granted asylum (like the Tsarnaevs) in the US each year?

I follow the press from Canada and Australia and can assure you these discussions are happening at least weekly if not more frequently.  Here in the US the media must have decided such topics are verboten! Verboten!  Verboten!

Back to the news from Australia:

EDUCATING asylum seeker children will cost more than $55 million over four years amid a record number of minors arriving on boats.

The Opposition has accused the government of cutting university funding while spending millions on meeting the educational needs of asylum seeker children with more than 3000 arriving so far this financial year.

How refreshing is this—they even have an opposition immigration leader!

Opposition Immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said the the costs of educating children had to be met but he blamed the bill on a blow out in boat arrivals.

“While Julia Gillard is actually cutting funding to schools and universities, she is providing an education revolution for asylum seekers arriving on illegal boats,” he said.

“Labor’s budget blowout on asylum seekers of more than $10 billion, includes the federal government paying for the full education costs of students who have arrived by boat.

“Given the record number of children coming on boats, it is not surprising that these costs are so high.”

[….]

Meanwhile, the government revealed the arrival of two new asylum boats carrying 150 people yesterday.

More than 2300 people have arrived so far this month.

Here are some statistics for US asylum seekers granted asylum in 2011.

Of all the individuals granted asylum in 2011, 54 percent (13,484) were granted asylum affirmatively, while 46 percent (11,504) were granted asylum defensively.

An additional 9,550 individuals outside of the United States were approved for asylum status as immediate family members of principal applicants. [The Tsarnaev boys would have been in that number, whatever it was back in about 2002—ed]

So that amounts to close to 35,000 in one year.  Gee, wonder what that costs us to educate the kids?  And, those are just the ones granted asylum, what about those who are still in the pipeline waiting for approval or who have never identified themselves or been caught yet.

By the way ‘granted asylum affirmatively’ means they got here and asked for asylum, and ‘defensively’ means they got here illegally, got caught and are in removal proceedings and asking for asylum.

Update for comparison:  News from burning Stockholm reports that Sweden approved 44,000 asylum seekers in 2012!  Most are from Muslim countries. Yikes, no wonder they are suffering!   Imagine what those kids are costing the welfare nation.

In 2012 alone, Sweden accepted 44,000 asylum seekers, up by nearly 50 percent from a year earlier.

Trade deal could open Canada for more asylum seekers

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Around the world countries are struggling with the flow of asylum seekers.  I have stories to post from South Africa and Australia where both countries are struggling to cope with tens of thousands who want in.   Canada has been trying to deal with its asylum overload by throwing out asylum requests for those citizens of so-called “safe” countries.

For new readers, ‘refugees’ are brought into a country by the government largely with the “help” of the UN, but asylum seekers get across a country’s border somehow (visa overstays are common) and then ask for asylum.   Asylum technically is for people who have been persecuted or fear they will be persecuted on account of race, religion, nationality, and/or membership in a particular social group or because of a political opinion.

Canada has said that there are “safe” countries and will not accept asylum claims from those countries, nonetheless, Stephen Harper will soon have to decide if he will be pressured into opening Canada’s borders to several countries with whom they wish to engage in a special trade deal.

From the Globe and Mail:

In Cali, Colombia, next week, Stephen Harper will ponder a choice driven by the forces of globalization. Trade talks are increasingly applying pressure on Canada to lower restrictions on foreigners entering the country, and in turn, squeezing the refugee-protection system.

Mr. Harper will travel to Colombia to meet the leaders of a new trade bloc, the Pacific Alliance, to consider whether Canada should join. The alliance might be the next big thing in Pacific Rim trade, quickly reducing barriers between emerging Latin American nations and then with Asia.

But the biggest obstacle for Canada isn’t reducing barriers on goods crossing the border, it’s lowering restrictions on people.

The members of the Pacific Alliance – Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru – have dropped visa requirements so their citizens can travel freely within the bloc without forms and fees. They’d expect Canada to do the same if it joins, letting their citizens visit without getting a visa in advance. They find Canada’s visa-application process onerous, and say it rejects too many tourists and business people.

But for Canada, it’s not a straightforward decision on paperwork. Ottawa imposes visas on some countries so they can screen out people who might claim refugee status here. The pressure to lift them forces choices about the asylum system.

[….]

But visas are a tricky hurdle. Lifting them immediately would raise concerns about a flow of refugee claimants from Colombia or Peru.

Read on.  Canada has already given refugee status to some Mexicans so this surely would open the door to ‘visitors’ who then apply to stay in Canada.

Religious immigrants changing Canada’s demographics

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

In the last 40 years Christian immigration to Canada has dropped from 78% to 47.5%.

Baitul Islam Mosque, Maple, Ontario, Canada

I haven’t had much time of late for reports on our “welcoming” Canadian neighbors or the Australian asylum seeker on-going crisis (there they are taking failed asylum seekers off public welfare while “humanitarians” howl), so here, in order to begin catching up, is a story about Canada’s changing demographics.   I think that the reporter, Benjamin Shingler, is trying too hard to make a point that immigrants, passionate about their religion, will benefit Canada.   I wouldn’t go that far when it comes to the growing Muslim population.

From Canadian Press/AP:

While the Christian faith continues to dominate Canada’s immigrant profile, its proportion has been steadily fading. Where more than 78 per cent of immigrants to Canada prior to 1971 identified themselves as Christians, that proportion has dropped to 47.5 per cent among those who arrived over the past five years, the survey found.

Meanwhile, the Muslim, Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist faiths have been growing, claiming 33 per cent of those immigrants who arrived between 2001 and 2011. Among those who arrived before 1971, that share was just 2.9 per cent. All told, the four religions accounted for some 2.4 million people in Canada in 2011, about 7.2 per cent, compared with 4.9 per cent a decade earlier.

And then there’s the non-believers: nearly one-quarter of the Canadian population, some 7.8 million people, claimed no religious affiliation in 2011, up from 16.5 per cent in 2001.

The arrival of religious immigrants has worked to offset the country’s growing secular population, said Morton Weinfeld, a sociology professor at McGill University in Montreal.

“To a certain extent, this adds a level of traditionalism to Canadian society,” Weinfeld said. “There is probably a higher level of commitment (among immigrants) to their respective faiths.”  [How does adding Muslims, Sikhs etc. add to “traditionalism” in Canada?—ed]

Unlike its predecessor, the cancelled mandatory long-form census, the results of the 2011 survey come with a caveat: because the NHS was voluntary, Statistics Canada warns that its findings carry a greater risk of “non-response error.”  [The census will become useless as it becomes voluntary.—ed]

For many immigrant groups, religion plays a vital role as new arrivals to Canada contend with the often confounding challenges and difficulties that come with establishing a new home in a completely different country, he added.

“Churches or mosques or even some synagogues help in the adjustment and integration process.”

The Hijra continues unabated (read about it)!