Hurrah! Head Tax victory

It was budget day, and the Minister of Finance was in the House of Commons wearing shiny new shoes and bringing down what he was calling a good news formula. Amid the hoopla, the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration released some very good news of her own, though so quietly you may not have heard it even yet.

On February 28, Minister Elinor Caplan announced the lifting of the contentious Right of Landing Fee of $975 for refugees as of that very day. It was not a day too soon for those who had unrelentingly denounced the fee as a Head Tax, since it had been introduced five years earlier as a deficit-fighting measure.

The minister called it a “good first step.” Those who had worked so hard to see the fee lifted were caught in a mix of emotions: elation tempered by weariness and a need for prudence. As good a piece of news as this announcement is, the fee remains in place for immigrants. So the campaign to have the fee lifted completely will continue.

NEW MINISTER, NEW WIND

A new wind had rejuvenated the campaign to rescind the landing fee after Caplan was named minister last summer. Members of the coalitions that make up the Getting Landed Project (housed at CPJ) talked to her, held news conferences, got stories printed, did radio interviews on stations across the country. In short, they did all they could to raise the issue among the public and among Liberal MPs, who could push the issue with Caplan.

Petitions were signed, copious letters written, leaders of many faiths spoke publicly, and testimonies were given by refugees and immigrants for whom the landing fee had been a real hardship - and by those paying back government loans, for whom it still is a burden (see Gada’s story).

For Getting Landed Project coordinator Ahmed Hashi, the rescinding of the landing fee for refugees was “some of the best news we’ve had from the Ministry of Immigration for a long time.

“The reasons to lift it were well known,” he adds. “It was not necessary, a financial burden on the backs of the poorest. It was unfair.”

The decision “creates a very good working relationship,” with Caplan. “The minister is accessible and invites input from agencies and organizations involved with refugees and immigrants. She listens carefully and makes her own decisions.”

Which is all to the good because there are many issues affecting refugees on the burner.

SECURITY CONCERNS

High among them is the question of security clearances for those seeking permanent residency status. While recent news has been full of stories of people smuggling, fake documentation and governments cracking down, the flip story of the prolonged limbo periods and deep mistrust of legitimate refugees is not being told.

By early April a report by former Ontario premier Bob Rae on two such cases was expected “any day now,” and plans put in place to highlight the report in a news conference and other media coverage.

An emerging but related issue is that of enforced DNA testing before sponsorships are approved. Sponsorship of refugees in Canada goes back to the 1970s and the Vietnamese “boat people.” Now, much sponsorship is done by family members.

To prove a relationship, the appropriate paperwork must be produced, such as a marriage or birth certificate. The problem is, Ahmed Hashi explains, Immigration officials in some foreign postings (Kenya being the most notable) reject many documents brought to them and demand DNA tests by the sponsor in Canada and the sponsoree abroad. The blood samples must be sent to the same lab in Canada, prolonging reunion and incurring significant costs (to the tune of $900 and up). Hashi doesn’t dispute the necessity of close scrutiny, but objects to “legitimate documents being dismissed.”

In Ontario, a recent provincial government decision to charge $925 for the adoption of a child from a foreign country has been denounced with much the same language as the landing fee, and also branded a Head Tax.

With the federal Head Tax lifted for one group, it is disheartening to see another such tax emerge. And it serves as a reminder to celebrate victories when they come, if only to keep our spirits alive for the next round.

the Catalyst, Volume 23, #3, April 2000