Jason Kenney’s immigration revolution chalks up another succ

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Jason Kenney’s immigration revolution chalks up another success

Kelly McParland Jun 22, 2012 – 9:33 AM ET | Last Updated: Jun 22, 2012 12:52 PM ET
Two noteworthy news events took place this week involving Immigration Minister Jason Kenney. One was a rude remark he aimed at Alberta’s deputy premier in an e-mail (now forever enshrined as “the A-hole email”), which the world learned about when he accidentally hit “reply all”. The other was yet another fundamental reform to Canada’s immigration and refugee laws.

Perhaps it’s typical of the public’s addiction to the trivial that the first attracted far more attention than the second. Or maybe we’ve simply become so accustomed to momentous changes to immigration laws that we gloss over initiatives that would once have inspired fierce public debate.

Mr. Kenney has so shaken up the rules and practices surrounding entry to Canada that even opposition politicians seem barely able to mount token complaints any more. NDP Immigration critic Jinny Sims argued Wednesday that Mr. Kenney is concentrating too much power in his own hands. The Liberals grumbled weakly that the minister had unveiled his latest initiative just a few days before MPs were to break for the summer. Newspapers either ignored the story or played it short and deep inside.

It certainly merits greater attention than that. Mr. Kenney’s latest legislation is intended to put a stop to widespread abuse of Canada’s ridiculously lenient refugee laws by foreign criminals who delay being deported by utilizing a lengthy appeals system. It would reduce access to the appeals system, reduce the time they can stay in Canada and block appeals by people sentenced to lengthy overseas prison terms. Applicants considered inadmissible because of concerns about crimes related to security, human rights or links to organized crime would no longer be able to seek delay on humanitarian or compassionate grounds.

“This is a serious problem,” Mr. Kenney said on CTV’s Power Play. “We’ve had hundreds of cases of foreign criminals convicted in Canada to six months or more of a prison sentence and they’ve managed to delay their deportation for years and sometimes more than a decade.”..............http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/201 ... r-success/