Fast Family Reunion for Spouses is the Real Issue     May 2008 Click square for index On May 21st the Globe front page pushed red buttons for the xenophobics of the world in a lead article "Fraud Squads Chase Down Marriages of Convenience" - conveniently planted to coincide with the Canadian Council for Refugees' Spring conference in Winnipeg. The article misses a key point: Canada has human rights treaty obligations to promote the family and to protect family life. Hence allowing spouses to enter Canada with their partners in a timely manner is a "must do" of the modern world. Small consolation that buried in a short editorial, the Globe conceeded problems with Bill C50 while missing several concerns from my April 2008 analysis. The article is unfortunate on a number of counts. Most seriously, the article misses the real problem as seen by refugees and other vulnerable non-citizens and those who work with them. Their problem has been well documented by reports of the Canadian Council for Refugees: it can take far too long to get the spouse of a refugee or similarly situated non-citizen to Canada. It can take years. For a country with obligations to promote the family and to protect family life that is unacceptable. To my mind, the obligation calls for enabling immediate travel of a spouse to be with his or her partner - it does not call for fraud squads. There is an even greater obligation to allow small children to travel to visit a parent - but that's another story. Worse than missing the underlying obligations on Canada, the Globe misconstrues solutions to the possible marriage of convenience problem used by the US and Australia. The US and Australian approach in theory allows these countries to meet their family rights obligations by allowing faster family reunion. The spouse is given a conditional visa. Permanent residence follows by application after a two year period. Instead of issuing its Temporary Resident Visa made valid for two years to the non-citizen spouse of a Canadian or resident non-citizen, it seems Canada is paying fraud squads to spy on weddings. There are other issues with the article which are less serious. The sense of crisis is not supported - the article in the inner pages confesses that the Minister (as usual) cannot give any details and so the article labours to create some sense of scale. The term "fraud" reinforces negative labelling of refugees and vulerable non-citizens used consistently over the last twenty year period which can only fan xenophobia. The Globe says it wants to avoid racism, but manages to imply an Indian community connection. The public does have the right to be told about Canada's problems in the tricky world of refugee and migrant affairs, but a big newspaper has a big responsibility to make sure it takes a bigger view. It should do more than present a problem seen by the government authorities. TOP   Click:

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