Today’s editorial
by Joe Volpe in The Corriere Canadese says it all.
Ottawa should read
and weep.
Minister McCallum must
realize that this is no time to discuss menus with cannibals. Relying on Deputy Minister Anita Biguzs is a political
and public policy death warrant.
The Minister
should do with worker immigration what he did with the Syrian refugees...go over his
Deputy’s head and give the bureaucracy their marching orders.
Ms. Biguzs has lost
the ability to provide administrative integrity. She must go."
Richard Boraks, May 13 2016
NI numbers prompt row over 1.2m EU 'immigration gap'
Short-term migration - where people stay in the UK for less than a year - is not taken into account in the government's headline net migration statistics.
But former work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith said "you can't dismiss" it.
"They come in, they do hotbedding in bed and breakfasts and things like that, they then take jobs at much lower rates," he told the BBC News channel.
"This has forced the salaries of people in low-skilled and semi-skilled jobs down so they have suffered directly as a result of uncontrolled borders with short-term migration.
"I'm astonished that a government, my government, can sit here and say we had a pledge to bring down migration to tens of thousands but it's all right then because it doesn't matter how many people come in as long as they don't stay more than 52 weeks."
Mr Duncan Smith and others campaigning to leave the EU argue the UK cannot control levels of migration from Europe - which have risen sharply in the past decade - while remaining a member and abiding by the EU's rules on the free movement of people.
Immigration minister James Brokenshire told MPs the government remained committed to getting net migration - the difference between those entering and leaving the country - below 100,000 a year.
He said the curbs secured by Prime Minister David Cameron on welfare payments to new arrivals would help - and he claimed short-term migrants do not put pressure on public services because they leave after a year.
Resignation call
The minister said: "National Insurance numbers can be obtained by anyone working in the UK for just a few weeks and the ONS explains clearly why the number of National Insurance registrations should not be compared with migration figures, because they measure entirely different things.
"Short-term migrants have never been included in the long-term migration statistics which are governed by UN definitions.
"We have always had short-term migrants who do not get picked up in the long-term statistics but short-term migration will not have an impact on population growth and population pressures, as they by definition leave the UK within 12 months arriving."
BBC Assistant Political Editor Norman Smith said "there is a real row brewing" over the figures and one pro-Leave Tory MP had told him "the letters demanding Mr Cameron's resignation were already going in to the chairman of the 1922 Committee" - the powerful committee of backbench Tory MPs.
HM Revenue and Customs have, meanwhile, released estimates that recently arrived EU immigrants have contributed more than five times more in tax than they have received in benefits.
The analysis looked at the contributions made by workers from the European Economic Area, the 28 EU member states plus Iceland, Lichtenstein and Norway, who had come to the UK between 2010 and 2014.
According to the HMRC, this group of migrants paid £3.1bn in income tax and National Insurance in the tax year to April 2014. At the same time, they claimed £556m in benefits - making a net contribution to the economy of more than £2.5bn.
Norman Smith said the figures were certain to be seized on by supporters of the Remain campaign to counter claims of "benefit tourism" and warnings by Brexit campaigners about the cost of immigration.
National Insurance numbers
Almost every adult resident in the UK is given a unique code, made up of letters and numbers, that they keep for life. People born in Britain are allocated a National Insurance shortly before their 16th birthday.
It is meant to ensure tax and National Insurance contributions are properly recorded against their name. It also enables access to the social security system.
Everyone coming to the UK to work must apply for a National Insurance number.
The ONS says the International Passenger Survey, a questionnaire given to people at random as they arrive at air and sea ports, which asks people how long they intend to stay, remains the best way of estimating immigration.
Its newly-published analysis examined differences between the estimates of long-term international migration to Britain and the registration of National Insurance numbers to foreign nationals.
The analysis suggests there were 1,004,000 "long-term" migrants to the UK from the EU between June 2011 and June 2015.
But other figures for the same period show 2,234,000 National Insurance numbers were allocated to EU nationals - a gap of 1.2 million.
When short-term migration is factored in the gap is much smaller, and is in fact higher in some years, although the full data is not available for the period.
EU migration
Long-term immigration
NI number registrations
The ONS analysis says there has been a sizeable gap between the passenger survey estimates for long-term immigration and the National Insurance figures since 2006.
"This difference is likely to reflect visitors who may be in the country for less than one month who may need a NI number to work or use the opportunity to apply for one," it says.
"It may also reflect those short-term migrants that come to accompany and join relatives and friends."
The number of National Insurance numbers issued to Bulgarians and Romanians has jumped from below 50,000 to more than 200,000 since work restrictions on people from those countries were lifted in 2014.
The ONS said it did not have enough data to understand whether this was being driven by short-term migration and some of the increase might be accounted for Bulgarian and Romanian citizens already in the UK applying for NI numbers, and some people might change their mind about how long they planned to stay.
The "actual" short term migration figure from the passenger survey for this period will not be published until 2017, it said.
Economist Jonathan Portes - who first requested the information - said it was clear a rise in short-term migration was a big factor but the statistics have still "under-counted EU migration to the UK".
"The government have finally published some of its figures, which they have been keeping concealed for a while," he told the BBC News channel.
The figures shed more light on immigration in the UK, he added, but they were still based on "imperfect" estimates because "we don't count people in and out of the country".
Comment:
"Canadian Immigration policy: an oxymoron
The British debate
on European Union exit is heavy on immigration matters. Their immigration
debate is a full and frank policy discussion based on data.
The British know that
“net” immigration plays a role in defining demographics. They know who is in
their country. They know who has left their country. They know the income and
the costs generated by human movement.
The British demand
not only full and reliable data but an honest interpretation of the data. Prime
Minister Cameron may survive the Brexit debate but he could fall if his
interpretation of temporary foreign workers is proven to be knowingly
misleading.
Meanwhile, back in
the colonies:
Ottawa refuses to release data on who has left the
country and who has come in without permission. The concept of “net
immigration” is an unspoken concept in Ottawa
They refuse to release the income and costs of
unknown hundreds of thousands of working illegals
Ottawa even refuses to admit that they know how
many illegals there are in Canada
So pity John
McCallum and our MP’s. We expect them to discuss policy options. But how can
they discuss options when they don’t even have the courage to ask their
officials to either cough up the data or get out of town.
And
that’s the diffidence between a third world colony and a serious jurisdiction."
Richard Boraks, May 6 2016
Thursday, May 12, 2016
Monday, May 9, 2016
More staff going to help process Syria refugees, military may help: McCallum
Immigration minister told private sponsors as many as 10,000 Syrians would arrive by early next year
By Stephanie Levitz, The Canadian PressPosted: May 05, 2016 1:26 PM ET Last Updated: May 05, 2016 1:26 PM ET
Existing and retired staff from the immigration department are to head overseas this month to begin handling hundreds of applications submitted by private groups across the country, Immigration Minister John McCallum said Wednesday. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)
Talks with the military to provide assistance in bringing thousands more Syrian refugees to Canada are under way as the Liberal government appears to be spooling up efforts to make good on a promise to private sponsorship groups.
Existing and retired staff from the Immigration Department are set to head overseas this month to begin working through hundreds of applications submitted by private groups across the country, Immigration Minister John McCallum said Wednesday.
"We're doing everything we can to honour our commitment to deliver the refugees who had been applied for by March 30," McCallum said.
McCallum committed to private groups to bring as many as 10,000 Syrians by the end of this year or early next, a response to the outcry that erupted when the government's massive Syrian refugee resettlement program ended and the processing of applications returned to a far slower pace.
Hundreds of groups protested, saying they'd raising thousands of dollars, rented apartments and lined up other supports for Syrians under the assumption that while the large-scale airlifts might be over, helping Syrians would remain a top priority for government.
The fact it was now going to take more than a year to bring people over left many groups frustrated.
The government had resettled 25,000 Syrian refugees in Canada between November and the end of February by deploying hundreds of staff overseas to process applications, including members of the Canadian Forces who helped handled medical and security screening.
Military role
What role the military could play in the second round hasn't been decided, McCallum said.
"I don't know if military people will go back or not but we're in close conservation with them and certainly people from my department, and some retired people, are going to be doing back certainly this month," he said.
Officials at the Department of National Defence said they couldn't comment on what they're prepared to contribute. Since the end of February, 1,859 Syrian refugees have arrived in Canada -- at one point, that number was arriving in just a few days as part of the Liberal commitment.
But one of the major problems created by the surge in arrivals under that commitment appears to be easing: about 93 per cent of government assisted refugees brought to Canada by the Liberals are now in permanent housing.
In Ottawa, that milestone was reached on April 14 and now the focus is moving to making sure people can keep the homes they've found.
"Newcomer families are already disproportionately represented in our family shelter system," said Carl Nicholson, executive director of Catholic Centre for Immigrants.
"So it's absolutely critical that we invest in helping this newest and biggest community of newcomers avoid the need for shelter support."
His and two other Ottawa agencies received a $450,000 grant Wednesday from Community Foundations of Canada Welcome Fund for Refugees, a fund seeded by corporate donations from Manulife, CN and GM.
Some of the money will go towards rent subsidies and the rest for mental health initiatives and programs to help Syrians find jobs.
The Source:http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/more-staff-to-process-syria-refugees-1.3568136
Comment:
"Reality 101
The attached article about the processing of Syrian refugees confirms two core realties that Minister McCallum is employing when making policy judgment calls:
Canada simply does not have the staff to process applications
Priority in the devoting of scare immigration officers has to consider the volume of
complaining pressure groups
The problem started back in the early 1990’s when then senior bureaucrat, and now Senate leader, Peter Harder joined the crowd in believing that computers processing applications could replace human contact in the vetting of immigration applications. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Ministers were assured that the officials had a clue what they were doing. Ministers found the money to fund the fiasco.
Along with a slowdown in training front line immigration officers, the small, but effective, immigration police unit gave way to the CBSA monster.
Fast forward to 2016:
The computers have crashed
Immigration officers are not trained to deal with the realities of “successful economic establishment”
Economic immigration landings went down 90% in 2015
There are not enough immigration officers to train
Both Immigration and CBSA officers are being asked to do the impossible. A generation of immigration officers has lost the capacity to deal with real people and their real economic establishment. This has led to an army of illegal workers who CBSA cannot arrest and remove because the illegal workers are vital to the economy.
There is an army of employers with no option but to hire illegal workers
The system is in total disrepute. Even the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and the Federation of Independent Business have had enough
Quo vadis?
Minister McCallum has no option but to:
Fire his Deputy Minister for either pushing or going along with the Express Entry shell game which is based on the myth that Canada has the staff to process its economic immigration programs
Start hiring and training people to understand the importance of administering IRPA Section 12 (“successful economic establishment”) which is the only standard for approving economic immigrants
Given the time required to hire and train competent staff, the Minister has no choice but to continue stumbling through and resolving immediate serious economic immigration problems , such as illegal trades workers, on the same effective ad hoc basis that he used with the Syrian refugees"
