Canada's Immigration Fiascos

Canada admits people into this country at a rate and a volume not matched by any other developed industrialized country. And when all so often people go before the Immigration and Refugee Board for hearings, and they are refused acceptance; for good and practical reasons, we would hope; they somehow manage to evade deportation by evoking 'rights' and instituting one legal challenge after another - or just disappear into the greater community.

Such claimants need never have had concerns they would be refused if they ever appeared before Khaled Mouammar, currently president of the Canadian Arab Federation and vice-president of the Ontario chapter of CUPE. From 1995 to 2005, Mr. Mouammar was a member of the IRB, appointed by the Liberal government who saw nothing amiss in his pointed activism, but everything to applaud in his presenting as an ethnic minority from among whose ranks they sought political support through the ballot box.

Amazingly the Immigration and Refugee Board itself did not appear to be unduly alarmed, nor feel it need inconveniently rouse itself to enquire how it might be that Mr. Mouammar - acting in his official capacity to introduce into the country those applicants whose backgrounds and personal accounts might fit them into the country's proudly pluralist population as potential citizens capable of accepting its social contract, values and priorities - broadly overshot the mark of anticipated acceptances.

The acceptance rate for refugee claimants from North Africa and the Middle East, on Mr. Mouammar's file was a whopping one hundred percent. His rate of acceptance was more than double other IRB officers. "I think it's fair for Canadians to ask why Mouammar's acceptance rate was so much higher than the IRB average for the same countries, as well as whether he was letting people in who he shouldn't have", said a spokesperson for the Minister of Immigration.

And well might we ask whether refugee claimants from Algeria, Iraq, Israel, Morocco and Tunisia might represent in aggregate, potential future citizens for Canada. Their heritage, culture and traditions might or might not have marked them as culturally and socially malleable, capable of accepting another way of life. The idea is to question the individuals, to weigh the likelihood of their life experiences, their claims, their capability of adjustment to Canadian life.

"My conclusion is that, statistically, you definitely wanted him in the room with you if you were from Algeria or Iraq, or if you were making a claim against Israel", opined immigration policy analyst and lawyer, Richard Kurland. "I would like to see some close scrutiny of who this fellow accepted because his numbers are off the radar screen, even in comparison to the generally questionable record of the IRB" said former diplomat Martin Collacott.

One might hazard certain guesses, on the strength of the very public utterings of the president of the Canadian Arab Federation who ardently supports Hamas and Hezbollah as "legitimate political parties", and describes Israel as a genocidal regime, guilty of "war crimes" whose defence forces should be placed on a terrorist list, replacing Hamas and Hezbollah.

If the current government does decide to delve into the issue and instruct the IRB to investigate and report back to the Minister, it will only validate Mr. Mouammar's claim that the Minister is a "whore", alongside his government, in their support of Israel.