Stop Bill C-50!

Stop Bill C-50 from being passed!

Bill C-50 is an alarming piece of legislation that every Canadian who believes in fairness, openness and multiculturalism should oppose. The final date for the public to oppose this is Wednesday, June 4. Please send your Member of Parliament an email or faxed copy of the letter template enclosed below ASAP.

You can find your MP’s information:
Liberal Party: http://www.liberal.ca/members_e.aspx
Conservative Party: http://www.conservative.ca/?section_id=1051®ionId=32&submit.x=20&submit.y=4
New Democratic Party: http://www.ndp.ca/myriding/lookup

Click here for LETTER TEMPLATE (jazakAllah khair to brother Dawud Israel).

Additional Information for Community Members

Recently the Conservative government introduced a series of amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA), buried in Bill c-50, a 136-page “budget implementation bill.” This fundamentally undemocratic move sneaks in critical changes to Canada’s immigration policy without proposing any of those changes before Parliament. By making it a matter of confidence, the government forces Opposition parties to either accept them or call an election.

This series of amendments places more arbitrary power in the hands of the Immigration Minister:

-Sec. 25 currently says that the Minister “shall” examine a Humanitarian and Compassionate application– this is changed to “shall” examine the H&C application if the applicant is in Canada, but only “may” examine the application if the applicant is outside Canada.

-Proposed s. 87.3 of the Act will allow the Minister to issue “instructions” setting quotas on the “category” of person that can enter Canada – including quotas based on country of origin.

-Ministerial power in deciding the order in which new applications are processed, regardless of when they were filed. This means prioritizing immigration applicants based on their ability to fulfill the needs of the Canadian job market, “whether it’s people to wash dishes and make sandwiches, or whether it’s the highly skilled engineers”, as stated by Minister Diane Finley. This is a profoundly dehumanizing and racist conception of immigrants as disposable commodities.

-New sections 87.3 (4) and (5) of the IRPA would allow the Minister to simply hold on to, return, or throw out a visa application and deny any opportunity to review that decision in Court.

For more information read:

http://www.thestar.com/article/415406
http://www.newsocialist.org/index.php?id=1570
http://www.rabble.ca/news_full_story.shtml?x=71224