refuse to be invisible! join the fight against racist immigration laws

TAKE ACTION AGAINST BILL C-50. NO TO REPRESSIVE IMMIGRATION CONTROLS!
TUESDAY, MAY 13TH @ 5 P.M. meet outside BURRARD SKYTRAIN STATION (corner Burrard and Dunsmuir)

WHAT IS BILL C50?

/arbitrarily reject/ an immigration application, even if it meets criteria/ have the power to issue restriction quotas on the category and the country of origin of people/ control the order in which applications are processed/ simply hold on to, return or throw out a visa application.

Recently the Conservative government introduced a series of amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act buried in Bill c-50, the ‘budget implementation bill’.

This fundamentally undemocratic move sneaks in critical changes to Canada’s immigration policy without proposing any of those changes before Parliament. These sweeping changes will give enormous and arbitrary powers to the Minister around application processing, while perpetuating a racist and anti-poor agenda of setting immigration agendas based on ‘labour market needs’. The government is stating that these measures are a solution to the growing backlog by essentially giving the Minister the power to kick people off the backlog/waiting list.

By excluding immigrants based on their country of origin, this Bill reproduces openly racist immigration policies in Canada, like the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1923, the Order in Council of 1911 prohibiting the landing of “any immigrant belonging to the Negro race”, that of 1923 excluding “any immigrant of any Asiatic race”, the “None is too many” rule applied to Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi-occupied Europe during Second World War, or the targeting and internment of Japanese and Italian Canadians during Second World War.

These proposed legislative changes come in the context of a global capitalist and nationalist reinforcement of labour flexibility as the guiding principle of immigration policy, where migrants are only as valuable as their labour. In conjunction with the Security and Prosperity Partnership Agreement, it is clear that the priorities will be relativelyvwealthy people applying under the skilled worker program and investor classes, as well as increasingly vulnerable temporary migrant workers.

It also means that people who are not deemed “useful” to the current Canadian market are simply not welcome, which would disproportionately affect poor people, elders, children, people with health problems and disabilities, and so called “unskilled” – mostly women – workers. Indeed, the major lobby behind these changes comes from employers’ organizations and business lobbies.

In respose to an overwhelming negative reaction to these amendements, the Immigration Minister has recently been forced to attempt to spin these regressive changes, including launching a intense advertising campaign only in ethnic media to help get the bill through second reading within the next week or two!

Join us in an action to call for the scrapping of Bill C-50! Demand justice and dignity for migrants- No One Is Illegal!

** For a joint statement by No One Is Illegal chapters, visit: https://noii-van.resist.ca/?p=696

** For recent articles and other resources on Bill C50, visit: https://noii-van.resist.ca/?cat=13

Organized by: No One Is Illegal Vancouver:
https://noii-van.resist.ca    noii-van@resist.ca    604-779-9306

Endorsed by: Canadian Arab Federation, Vancouver Catholic Worker, Canadian Muslim Union, Siraat Collective, Salaam Vancouver, Coalition of South Asian Women Against Violence, SFU Interfaith Summer Institute for Justice, Peace and Social Movements, Al-Awda Vancouver, Neworld Theatre, Indigenous Action Movement, Battered Women Support Services, Association of Chinese Canadians for Equality and Solidarity Society, Bolivia Solidarity Committee, Industrial Workers of the World, Justice for Migrant Workers, Christian Radicals.