Samantha Power / samantha@vueweekly.com. Apr. 20, 2011

While the Conservative party campaign boasts of the highest rates of immigration in 50 years, the facts aren’t quite supporting the claim, though that hasn’t stopped the Conservatives from launching an aggressive campaign attempting to secure the votes of Canada’s diverse ethnic communities. Conservatives are hoping to repeat some of the success of 2008 when Tory strategists targeted ethnic communities across Canada to capture new seats. According to a fundraising document accidentally revealed by Jason Kenney’s office in early March, Chinese voters in downtown Toronto neighbourhoods make up 40 percent of the vote and are increasingly voting Conservative, from 18 percent in 2004 to 25 percent in 2008. In BC, targeting South Asian communities almost doubled Conservative votes. Continued missteps by campaign strategists in the last few weeks are helping to bring attention to poor Conservative immigration policy in the last four years, however.

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By Georgia Straight Staff, April 20, 2011

A group of Canadian immigration lawyers, practitioners, and academics issued today (April 20) the following open letter:

Despite the media hype and government propaganda, Canadian immigration experts, both academics and lawyers, do not think that the Conservative government is doing immigrant communities any favours. Stephen Harper, Jason Kenney and the Conservatives have targeted the so-called “ethnic vote,” hoping to convince immigrant communities that the Conservatives have made things better for their communities and that these communities should support them. However, a review of the facts shows that this government’s policies have not been friendly to immigrant communities. Moreover, the Conservative government has made a habit of using immigration issues to stir up anti- immigrant sentiments amongst other Canadians.

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Samantha Power, Vue Weekly, Apr. 20 2011

While the Conservative party campaign boasts of the highest rates of immigration in 50 years, the facts aren’t quite supporting the claim, though that hasn’t stopped the Conservatives from launching an aggressive campaign attempting to secure the votes of Canada’s diverse ethnic communities.

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The Canadian Press Posted: Apr 13, 2011 3:58 AM ET

Outspoken former British MP George Galloway has made good on his threat to sue Canada’s immigration minister over an attempt to ban him from entering the country for a Canadian speaking tour. A statement of claim served on Jason Kenney and his assistant Alykhan Velshi alleges they abused their official powers by banning Galloway from Canada in March 2009. The statement of claim, which seeks $1.5 million in damages, also alleges that Kenney and Velshi defamed Galloway in British newspapers. Galloway, an outspoken supporter of the Palestinian people, was planning to visit Canada to make a series of speeches about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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By Anca Gurzu, Published April 13, 2011

With Immigration Minister Jason Kenney sitting across from him, Harjinder Thind fielded call after call from irritated Indo-Canadians. The minister was there as a special guest for Mr. Thind’s popular Vancouver-based program on radio station Red FM, and had intended to talk about the Conservatives’ plan to tackle human smuggling. But earlier in the year, Vancouver immigration lawyer Richard Kurland had obtained documents that showed the Harper government was planning to halve the number of parents and grandparents allowed from India under the family reunification category. The documents also showed the government was going to more than double the number of Chinese allowed into Canada.

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