Ontario’s child welfare system needs fundamental change to address the isolation, vulnerability and abandonment experienced by too many children in foster care and group homes, says a groundbreaking report written by youth about their plight.

The report, based on unprecedented legislative hearings last fall by youth from the child welfare system, calls on the province and others to work with them to produce an action plan by November.

The goal is to make Ontario a better parent to roughly 8,300 children and youth in its care and make their transition to adulthood more secure.

The report being released Monday at Queen’s Park, says the government should act immediately to raise the age of financial and emotional support from 21 to 25; allow youth to stay in foster care beyond age 18; and declare a “Youth in Care Day” to raise awareness and reduce stigma.

The province should also develop ongoing health and education plans for every child and youth in care; collect and publish information on their experiences during and after they leave care; and create an online clearing house of information and resources for them, the report says.

“Every child and youth deserves to feel and know that we are loved and cared for,” says the report, based on almost 200 submissions from young people during two days of hearings last November. “We are vulnerable youth and need more than a system of policies for this to happen.”

The hearings arose from the youth’s need for “our parent — the province — to listen and to understand the struggles around leaving care.”

The trauma of their young lives, coupled with frequent moves in foster care leave too many ill-equipped for adulthood.

Just 44 per cent complete high school. As adults they are more likely to experience poverty and homelessness, suffer mental health problems and become involved with the criminal justice system.

Youth are counting on Ontarians to listen and act, said Wendy, 20, one of the hearing’s four youth leaders.

Her support from Durham Region Children’s Aid ends in August when she turns 21.

(As with the legislative hearings, only first names are being used to protect the youth and respect the often harrowing nature of their experiences.)

“I think people who read the report will begin to understand what the struggles are and how it can get better,” Wendy said in an interview.

“We were focused on the issue of leaving care (at age 18 and 21), but there are a lot of things that happen during care that affect what happens to you after,” she said. “It really starts from the day we enter care.”

Wendy, who was removed from her substance-abusing parents when she was 13, said she was “lucky.” She was only moved twice and is still living with her current foster parents who treat her like a daughter. Unlike most youth who leave the system at age 18 or 21 with no permanent family, she knows the love of her foster parents is unconditional and forever.

“I have not moved out, nor will I have to when I turn 21,” she said. “When I do move out, I always have them as a safety net to go back to if times get rough, or just to spend the night on the holidays.

“We need to look at how I got here,” she added. “For me it was a stroke of luck. But we can’t rely on a stroke of luck.”

The report, entitled My REAL Life Book, reflects six main themes of youth who addressed the hearings, including feelings of vulnerability, isolation and being “left out” of decision-making about their lives. The unpredictability of foster care and group home arrangements, the struggle when care ends, and the lack of one meaningful adult relationship to carry them into adulthood are also highlighted.

Lindsay, 20, who entered foster care with her younger sister in New Liskeard, Ont. when she was 14, said she is often overwhelmed by loneliness and isolation.

Initially, she thought life away from her addicted and abusive single mother would be better. And in many ways it was: Her foster parents provided love, stability and the expectation that she would go to university and become a successful adult.

But she said it felt odd to be excluded from her foster family’s vacations. And restrictions such as needing her Children’s Aid approval to go on sleepovers or ride in a car driven by adults other than her foster parents, always reminded her of her Crown ward status.

Like most youth in care, Lindsay moved out on the day she turned 18 when the province’s legal responsibility for her ended and her foster parents no longer received funding to support her.

“On my 18th birthday I woke up in my foster home and that night I went home to a completely different place,” she recalled of the student rooming house where she rented a room with the help of a modest monthly allowance from Children’s Aid.

Suddenly she was living on her own and juggling a part-time job while trying to complete Grade 12. Her grades slipped and she didn’t graduate that year. Her delayed transition to college wasn’t any easier and she dropped out after first semester. Although she is back in college now, her shaky start means she may not finish by next May when she turns 21 and loses all financial and emotional support from Children’s Aid.

Lindsay, one of seven youth who wrote the report, longs to go to university after college, but doesn’t know how she will manage unless the government acts on the report’s recommendation to raise the age of support to age 25.

As she says in the report: “All we’re asking for is for four more years. Four more years of care to find people who matter to us, who don’t fall into the circle of the unhealthy lifestyle we’ve been born into.”

Ontario’s Provincial Advocate for Children and Youth, Irwin Elman, released a research report earlier this year that showed the $26 million annual price tag to extend support to age 25 for youth in the child welfare system would be more than recouped through reduced jail and social assistance costs and increased tax revenue as they are better able to complete their education and get good jobs.

Over 40 years, the return on this investment would amount to $132 million in current dollars, the report said.

Elman says Monday’s report is an opportunity for the province to “do right by its kids.”

“We can move when we want to. I don’t think 60 days to appoint a panel and another 60 or 70 days to create a blueprint is too much to ask,” he said.

In a statement, Minister of Children and Youth Services, Eric Hoskins, called the hearings and the report “without precedent,” “groundbreaking” and “brave.” He will respond formally on behalf of the government Monday.

* Almost 17,000 of Ontario’s 3.1 million children are in the care of Children’s Aid Societies

* Of these children, the province is legal guardian to more than 8,300 Crown wards who have been permanently removed from their parents due to abuse or neglect.

* The average annual cost of maintaining a child in foster care is $45,000

* Just 44 per cent of youth in care graduate from high school

* 81 per cent of all Ontario youth graduate from high school

* 43 per cent of homeless youth have been involved with the child welfare system

* 68 per cent of homeless youth come from foster homes or group homes

* 82 per cent of children in child welfare have diagnosed special needs

Source: My REAL Life Book, Report from the Youth Leaving Care Hearings

< http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1177881–ontario-s-youth-leaving-care-hearings-call-for-fundamental-change-to-child-welfare-system >

Ontario is shaping up for a fight with the federal government over the now defunct long-gun registry after Premier Dalton McGuinty said Friday that he wanted stores to keep records of who buys firearms, despite objections in Ottawa.

The defiant statement came on the same day RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson warned all chief firearms officers in the country that they must not to create any semblance of a long-gun registry in their jurisdictions.

“The coming into force of the Ending the Long-Gun Registry Act leaves no doubt that Parliament has sought to eliminate any form of a long-gun registry,” Paulson wrote in a letter.

But Ontario has a different interpretation of the Firearms Act, and it will be up to the federal government to introduce legislation to counter the record-keeping practice, said McGuinty.

“We’re not going to adopt a long-gun registry here in Ontario,” McGuinty said after touring a local website development company.

“But we will maintain a practice that’s been in place since 1978.”

At the same time, Quebec has mounted a legal challenge preventing the destruction of federal long-gun records.

“Let’s not have an exchange between the RCMP expert in this area and the provincial experts in this area,” McGuinty added.

“Let’s turn it back to the feds and say if your intention was to not only eliminate the long-gun registry but a pre-existing practice, I think you need to make that clear.

“Right now there’s obviously some uncertainty.”

Federal Public Safety Minister Vic Toews sent a letter Tuesday to all provincial chief firearms officers, telling them the collection of point-of-sale data is no longer authorized under the Firearms Act.

He asked the RCMP to notify him “immediately” if they learn that chief firearms officers are engaged in “unauthorized data collection.”

Toews’ letter to Paulson added that the RCMP and the Canadian Firearms Program were to provide “no assistance or direction” to any province that may be undertaking measures to create a provincial long-gun registry.

Officials with the Chief Firearms Office of the Ontario Provincial Police have previously said the OPP would continue to maintain records of all firearms sales and who bought them.

While they have insisted this is not an attempt to create a provincial long-gun registry, some observers have complained that Ontario police are flouting the will of Parliament, and creating a new provincial gun registry “by the backdoor.”

Toews said the collection of point-of-sale data is no longer authorized under the Firearms Act.

Paulson reiterated this point in his letter.

“I instruct all Chief Firearms Officers to ensure that the licensing conditions you impose on business records pursuant to the Firearms Act do not facilitate the creation of long-gun registries in your jurisdictions,” he said.

Ontario Community Safety Minister Madeleine Meilleur has written Toews to clarify the province’s position on the issue.

Meilleur says recent media attention created confusion, so she wanted Ottawa to know Ontario does not want a provincial gun registry and will “comply fully” with the requirements of Bill C-19, which killed the federal long-gun registry.

But in an interview, Meilleur said Ontario retailers will continue to take down names and address of anyone purchasing a gun as part of the permit process.

She said the chief firearms officer of the Ontario Provincial Police interprets section 58 of the Firearms Act as giving him the power to impose that requirement.

With files from Postmedia News and The Canadian Press

< http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/05/11/rcmp-boss-warns-provinces-against-backdoor-long-gun-registries/ >

Every generation updates and renews the values that make us who we are. I once found it hard to truly understand what those in my grandfather’s generation meant when they spoke of making the ultimate sacrifice in wartime to allow their loved ones back home to live in a democracy.

Until, that is, I myself almost lost it all in a remote village in Afghanistan on behalf of the values that make us Canadian, values that I now see as under threat not by a foreign force, but by a domestic one.

Compared with others who did make the ultimate sacrifice in Afghanistan, like my friend Bill Turner, who took my place in the field, my story has been well publicized.

On March 4, 2006, I was part of the 1st Battalion PPCLI battle group in the tiny village of Shinkay, when during a meeting with local elders to discuss their needs for water, housing and education, an insurgent sneaked up behind our group and buried a crude axe in my skull.

Unconscious, I was taken to the base hospital in Kandahar, where I was stabilized for the flight to a U.S.-run hospital in Germany. Fast forward through 10 hospitals and today I am back living in Canada with the goal of proving wrong those doctors who said that I’d never walk again.

Every morning, I also wake up and count my blessings, as we all should, that I get to spend another day with loved ones. My wife Debbie has stood beside me like a rock, and my young daughter keeps giving me that jolt of energy that only kids can give their parents, and I need it more than most. We now have a son on the way.

Frequently, however, the newspapers bring clouds to my day. The Canada I went overseas to fight for was a tolerant and open society, always striving to do the right thing, and to bring to the world a sense that tomorrow can be better than today.

Today, though, the government in Ottawa seems to want to throw all that out the window. Stephen Harper’s vision of Canada seems to begin, and end, in the tarsands, and everything else be damned. Tolerance is redefined as applying only to anyone who agrees with that vision. Everyone else is “radical,” an “extremist,” or even included in his government’s new program battling terrorism.

This is an insult to those of us who have fought, and sacrificed for our country, against real radicals, real extremists and real terrorists.

When I read about ministers of the Crown attacking and smearing heroes like David Suzuki, who are trying to put us on a more sustainable pathway, I wonder what’s happened to Canada. I fear for the kind of world my daughter and son stand to inherit should we cave in to this oil-driven agenda. Not a good one, I am certain.

If my own story gives inspiration to others, and I hope it does, then it’s about exactly that — hope. I was given little chance of surviving, let alone thriving, and I’ve already half proven that wrong.

With determination, we can overcome all manner of adversity, and reclaim who we are both as individuals and as a people. We face this challenge now with Ottawa, with a government that is taking our country in the wrong direction, undermining the values that make us who we are. I am loath to have to admit to my children that the irreversible degradation of their planet continued on my watch.

Capt. (ret’d) Trevor Greene now lives in Nanaimo, BC with his wife Debbie and daughter Grace. They are expecting a son in June. The Greenes run a foundation to educate Afghan girls as teachers.

< http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/1177442–trevor-greene-from-one-battlefield-to-another >

Ottawa will strip thousands of refugees of health-care coverage starting in July unless their conditions pose a threat to public health.

Critics called the move “mean-spirited” and warned that denial of health care could lead to unnecessary deaths.

“If this is what they are doing, there is no question that the application of this will result in people dying,” said lawyer Rick Goldman of the Canadian Council for Refugees.

Currently, all refugees are covered by the Interim Federal Health Program (IFHP), which provides basic health coverage, sometimes with supplementary services such as pharmaceutical care, dentistry, vision care and devices such as walkers and wheelchairs, if required.

As part of an overhaul of the asylum system that takes effects in July, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney will establish a “safe country” list and expedite the processing of claims from these countries.

The plan announced Wednesday stipulates that rejected claimants and refugees from designated countries won’t be eligible for health care unless their conditions put the public at risk. All refugees will also be stripped of supplemental health coverage.

Although Kenney has not revealed the safe country list, Mexico and Hungary, which are likely to be designated, accounted for more than 5,000 asylum claims in Canada last year.

“These reforms allow us to protect public health and safety, ensure that tax dollars are spent wisely and defend the integrity of our immigration system all at the same time,” Kenney said in a statement.

Ottawa spent $84.6 million on the refugee health program in 2011. The changes will save the government $100 million over five years.

< http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1168118–ottawa-to-cut-health-care-for-some-refugees >

The federal government is delivering on a promise to crime victims by doubling and making mandatory the surcharge convicts are required to pay upon sentencing.

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson introduced legislation Tuesday that, if passed, would require convicts to pay an additional 30% on any fine imposed by the courts.

If no fine is imposed, they will automatically be charged $100 for a summary conviction or $200 for an indictable offence.

The fines are generally collected and retained by provincial and territorial governments to help cover the cost of programs and services for victims of crime.

Sentencing judges are currently able to waive the surcharge should an offender demonstrate it would cause undue hardship — the new bill will also put an end to that.

Those who can’t pay will instead be able to participate in provincial programs that allow offenders to earn credits for work performed in the region where the crime was committed in lieu of financial penalties.

The bill makes good on a Conservative election promise and also responds to a request by Canada’s federal ombudsman for victims of crime, who called for a doubling of the surcharge in a February report.

< http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/04/24/tories-to-double-make-mandatory-100-200-surcharge-for-convicted-criminals/ >

Nothing demonstrates the impact of the 30-year-old Charter of Rights and Freedoms as the court decisions that have sprung from it. Among the highlights:

• If you are a woman, you have an unrestricted right to an abortion. The Supreme Court struck down an unfair law in 1988, and Parliament failed to agree on another law to replace it.

• If you are homosexual, you can marry and divorce someone of the same sex. You are also eligible for the same spousal or child support payments as opposite-sex spouses.

• There’s almost no chance your country could bring back thedeath penalty, now that the Supreme Court has ruled the death penalty is contrary to principles of fundamental justice.

• If you’re arrested, police must advise you of your right to a lawyer, and give you a reasonable opportunity to consult one before questioning you. But you cannot insist on the lawyer of your choice, nor do you have a constitutional right to legal aid. You have a right to silence, and your refusal to answer questions can’t be taken as a sign of guilt.

• Police can pull you over in a RIDE program and ask if you have been drinking. But your roadside statements can’t be used to incriminate you. If you’re asked to blow into a breathalyzer, you must be informed of your right to speak with a lawyer.

• If you’re charged with a crime, you have a right to see all relevant evidence in your case; police and prosecution cannot withhold information that could potentially work in your favour.

• Police can’t search your home without a warrant, but they’re free to go through your garbage if it’s on your property line. If you’ve thrown a tissue in a garbage can, police can take it for DNA testing.

• Elementary or high-school officials can search student backpacks or lockers for illegal drugs, without a warrant.

• You cannot help another person commit suicide.

• You can watch a film in Ontario without having it censored by a bureaucrat.

• You have limited freedom to spank children. Off limits: Kids under 2 and teenagers. Hitting children in the head and using objects. Acceptable: Mild, fleeting force to correct behaviour.

• You have a right to negotiate pay and work conditions with an employer, but no constitutional right to collective bargainingand, if you’re an Ontario farm worker, no right to join a union. During labour disputes, you can picket your place of business and other secondary sites.

• If you are the complainant in a sex assault case and request a ban on publication of your identity, a court will automatically grant it. A defense lawyer has no automatic right to cross-examine you about your sexual history or to embark on a fishing expedition through your medical or counseling records.

• If you live in Quebec, you can buy private health insuranceand the commercial outdoor signs don’t have to be in French only.

• You cannot smoke marijuana in the privacy of your home without committing a crime.

• If you’re an inmate, you can vote in federal elections.

< http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1165520–key-decisions-involving-the-charter-of-rights-and-freedoms >

Investing in people, not prisons, would be a good start in addressing the problems that so often contribute to society’s ills. Stephen Harper’s prison-promotion strategy, with its $19-billion price tag, will be disastrous for all Canadians (Harper’s Promise Fulfilled As House Passes Crime Bill – online, March 12).

Inmates return to Canadian streets without counselling, without rehabilitation, without mental health care, without addiction treatment and without the supports necessary to be successfully reintegrated into communities. Interest in rehabilitation has been lost in favour of punishment. This crime legislation will make us less safe as a country.

Instead of prisons, use the money to lift people out of poverty, improve health care, addictions and mental health care, end child poverty and homelessness, give our seniors a decent standard of living, address high unemployment rates, invest in postsecondary education, address the plight of our First Nations communities and enrich our social programs to narrow the gap between the rich, the poor and the vanishing middle class.

David Simpson, St. Thomas, Ont.

< http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/letters-to-the-editor/march-14-letters-to-the-editor/article2368282/ >

One day after the Harper government adopted Bill C-10, its controversial get tough on crime legislation, Quebec Justice Minister Jean-Marc Fournier announced on Tuesday a series of measures aimed at softening the effects of the federal law on Quebec’s youth justice system.

And Fournier, who last November argued passionately against C-10 before a Commons justice and human rights committee, mused over just how permanent the more contentious elements of omnibus bill would be.

“It is not because a law is adopted that it will be there for a century,” he said. “When we share our expertise, our experience … others will follow and change will come to C-10.

“It’s not for a politician sitting in an assembly to establish the sanction for a crime. That was the kind of justice many centuries (ago). We’ve got a system where we have judges, we have prosecutors, we have lawyers. They know the facts. Not all cases are the same and they’ve got to have the tools to adapt justice to the case.”

The tools Fournier will provide for Quebec’s justice system include:

-Publishing the name of a juvenile charged with a serious offence only in “exceptional” circumstances.

-Using an order in council to allow prosecutors to inform the court of their decision not to seek adult sentencing of young offenders age 16 years and older. C-10 allows the procedure to be applied to young offenders 14 and older.

-Creating a drug rehabilitation program that would allow courts an alternative to a minimum sentence in the case of non-violent crimes.

Fournier repeatedly reminded reporters that while the federal government could adopt laws, the administration of justice was a provincial jurisdiction, and Quebec possessed 40 years of experience in dealing with youth crime, experience based on the ideal that rehabilitation is preferable to imprisonment.

“In Bill C-10, the concept of rehabilitation has been retained, but its importance has been diminished,” he said. “The legal power we have (as a province) is to add nuance to the manner C-10 is written … to conserve the idea of long-term protection for the public and to conserve the concept of rehabilitation.”

Fournier reiterated his support for certain sections of C-10, such as pre-trial detention for young offenders charged with serious crimes. But he also repeated his concerns that enforcing the legislation will cost Quebec an additional $80 million annually, while the construction of new prisons to house the anticipated influx of extra prisoners created by the law would cost more than $700 million.

In Quebec City, Parti Québécois MNA Bernard Drainville said C-10 is one of a series of measures by the Conservative government that make “a very, very strong case for Quebec’s independence.”

“It’s a defeat for Quebec, it’s a defeat for our values,” Drainville told reporters.

If Quebec was a country, the law would not apply, Drainville said.

“Who will pay?” Drainville asked, pointing out that Fournier has said Quebec would not pay for the Harper government’s election promises, and called on Ottawa to pony up the cash.

< http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Quebec+measures+soften+effects+federal+crime+bill/6294764/story.html >

The Conservatives have used their majority to pass the so-called omnibus crime bill within the first 100 sitting days of Parliament as promised, despite continued opposition from Canada’s largest provinces which vowed Monday not to sit back idly as the measures come into force.

The deeply polarizing Safe Streets and Communities Act, which passed by a vote of 154 to 129, effectively will become law in a matter of hours, if not days, when the bill receives royal assent. The Tories will mark their 100 day milestone on Friday.

“These are very reasonable measures. They go after those who sexually exploit children, people in the child pornography business and it goes after drug traffickers,” Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said hours before the final vote.

“This will be welcomed, particularly by victims, those involved with law enforcement and, as we know, Canadians are supportive of what we are doing in this area.”

While critics fear the bill will have little impact on reducing crime and may even harden some offenders, Nicholson offered little about how the success of the bill might be measured.

“We have a number of strategies,” Nicholson said. “But, again, this sends the message out to people (that) if you get involved with this kind of activity, there will be consequences.”

As per his promise to the provinces, Nicholson said the implementation of the various aspects of legislation will be “spaced out” over a period of time, though it seemed to provide little comfort to his regional counterparts.

Ontario Community Safety and Correctional Services Minister Madeleine Meilleur said in a statement Monday that: “Ontario taxpayers cannot be expected to pay the full costs for federal anti-crime initiatives” which the province has pegged at more than $1 billion.

Ontario anticipates the bill will result in an additional 1,500 inmates and will require the construction of a 1,000 bed facility to accommodate them. The province, she added, is already looking forward to opening two new facilities in Toronto and Windsor to replace older jails, but that initiative never anticipated the impact of the omnibus crime bill.

“With the opening of the two new state-of-the-art facilities . . . we have taken appropriate steps to address Ontario’s future inmate capacity needs,” she said.

“We expect Ottawa to do what’s right and provide additional funding to help Ontario deal with the consequences of Bill C-10.”

She called on Ottawa to create a federal-provincial task force to discuss the impact of the legislation and to explore solutions. If a suitable agreement to help defray the costs isn’t found, Meilleur said Ontario may look at other options, including reviewing its current custodial service agreements with the federal government.

The Quebec government, which has been among the most vocal critics of the bill, also was quick to express its disappointment Monday.

“We would have preferred Parliament accept the amendments put forward by the Quebec government in conjunction with a number of organizations,” Quebec Justice Minister Jean-Marc Fournier said in a statement.

The amendments were brought forward by Quebec last fall in a bid to address its concerns about C-10’s impact on youth rehabilitation programs. Fournier left Ottawa fuming last November after his request went nowhere.

While the province supports a number of the provisions contained in C-10, he said the bill as a whole “harms” the province’s prevention and reintegration programs.

He said his government would unveil Tuesday new measures to combat recidivism.

“As the attorney general, it is my responsibility to apply criminal laws but it’s also my responsibility to safeguard the public and prevent recidivism,” he said.

Quebec has estimated the new measures would cost the province $600 million and also has vowed not to pay for it.

The final vote on C-10 was to take place last week but the NDP employed a series of procedural delaying tactics, including trying to adjourn the House of Commons, which saw the vote pushed back to Monday.

Justice critic Jack Harris made no apology for stalling the bill, which does far more than target child sex offenders.

Had the Tories broken the bill up into bite-sized pieces, Harris said the official Opposition would have been happy to support elements related to mandatory minimums for child sex offenders.

“They refused to do that and, you know, the contentious parts of the bill are still there,” he said. “We think it will lead to more punishment but not safer streets, not a deterrence against criminals and in fact there will be more victims, more crimes and less safety on our streets.”

Comprised of nine bills, many of which failed to pass in previous Parliaments when the Conservatives had a minority, C-10 also cracks down on pot producers, young offenders, Canadians imprisoned abroad who are seeking a transfer to a Canadian institution and ex-cons seeking a pardon.

It also provides for victims of terrorism who are seeking to sue the perpetrator and eliminates house arrest for a number of different crimes, something Canada’s budget watchdog estimated will cost the provinces $145 million a year.

The government has been coy about the overall cost to the provinces and has insisted the entire Safe Streets and Communities Act will run the federal government $78.6 million over five years.

< http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/03/12/contentious-tory-crime-bill-passes-as-countrys-biggest-provinces-voice-concerns-over-costs/ >

This week Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, the energizer bunny of the Harper cabinet, popped up to put more polish on his argument that immigration needs to be driven by business specs. “People with flexible human capital, high levels of language proficiency and a pre-arranged job,” he said, “are set for success, so that will be an important guidepost as we move toward transformational change.”

My question is: If his policies are about nation-building, as he often proclaims, why does it sound so boring? Like an accountant’s approach: plug in the figures, match them with skill sets and out comes a nation. For most of recent history, immigration to the New World was, for those experiencing it, an adventure, full of tragedy, achievement, a sense of loss yet creativity. Where do you plug that in, minister?

Of course, those earlier phases were based on economic criteria too: Chinese workers who built the railway, Italians who built cities, Jews in the needle trades — but they were less predictable demographics than Kenney’s credentialed professionals, who might turn bitter if they’re driving cab rather than going straight to an “average annual salary of $79,000.”

Earlier groups started near the bottom; there was a randomness and chaos to their trajectories along with an energy suited to “nation building.” My friend Graz, former patron of Dooney’s Café and The Annex Live (and for the moment merely between bistros, I hope) stood behind the bar one day sorting basil for the kitchen and inhaling deeply. “Basil reminds me of Calabria,” he said. His Portuguese neighbours grow basil in pots on their front steps, not for pesto, just “for the smell.”

You don’t know what will emerge when you toss these types into a new setting. They tend toward enthusiasm and gratitude rather than bitterness or a sense of entitlement. Graz’s brother is an MPP and former cabinet minister. Another brother is a retired high-school French teacher.

Or take the language proficiency so coveted by Kenney. What’s wrong with having to master a language from scratch? It gave anglophone lit some of its treasures. Kids who spoke better English than their parents felt empowered. They wrote songs with crazy, tight rhymes (“I’m bidin’ my time/Cause that’s the kind of guy I’m”) just to show they could. The next generation, like Bob Dylan, né Zimmerman, didn’t need to prove they could rhyme and revolutionized pop music by not rhyming. That’s the potential in uncontrollability.

What helped cushion the damage lurking in the uncertainty among those earlier waves? Clearly it was family and community. But this is what Kenney’s policies will undermine, by weakening family unification as a rule, even though most Canadians support it. Instead, who will those entrepreneurial professionals turn to? Their employers and the government so well-disposed toward them. As relatively isolated individuals, they’ll have fewer ways to draw on their culture and thread it into their new nation’s. But they may find time, while rising to their $79,000 average, to join their local Tory riding association.

I mean it. This is the Harper version of multiculturalism. They couldn’t have copied the outright anti-immigrant, anti-multiculti stances of admired figures like Germany’s Merkel or France’s Sarkozy. But they managed to embrace it while backing off and making faces about it. Jason Kenney appears at (almost) every ethnic gathering yet sounds negative and hostile in most of his policies: denouncing levels of fraud in getting citizenship, changing the test, banning veils at the ceremony and this week attacking “birth tourism.” It’s like the Harper version of Canadian nationalism. They’ve decided to live with it, but that includes restoring symbols of the British crown — astutely having it both ways.

What I find oddest is a whiff of the “social engineering” that libertarians and neo-cons are supposed to loathe. Kenney says his policy is “about matching immigrants with the jobs rather than just pushing them into the general labour market to sink or swim.” The only neo-con component in that sentence is sink or swim. This jibes with other Big Government, interventionist behaviours by the Conservative government. We can attribute it to hypocrisy or, more generously, the chaotic, contradictory element in all human activity, no matter how self-deluded.

< http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/1143396–jason-kenney-s-immigrant-song-sounds-strangely-off-key >