TORONTO – Canadian federal politicians suddenly “woke up”, in the heart of summer, after realizing that the immigration system in Canada not only doesn’t work (the processing times are inexplicably infinite), but actually favors entry of characters with disturbing pasts and bad intentions at the expense of people with a clear past who, instead, have to overcome a thousand obstacles to obtain work permits, permanent residence or citizenship, despite having a job and proven skills.
A late awakening, for politicians, given that these problems have long been under the eyes of anyone living in Canada. It took the arrest of father and son on charge of terrorism (they are both immigrants: the first has already obtained Canadian citizenship, the second has not yet, as we already wrote here: “Who gave citizenship to a terrorist?” …the paradoxes of the Canadian immigration system) to convince parliamentarians to meet, and ask the ministers responsible for testify publicly “as soon as possible”. Finally, since that just three months ago, three young Indians were arrested on charges of having killed Hardeep Singh Nijjar, 45, murdered in June 2023 outside a Sikh temple in Surrey, British Columbia, and it emerged that one of the three who ended up in prison had obtained the “Visa” in record time and despite publishing photos of weapons on Facebook: but no one had cried foul (read our article here: Visa in record time for one of Nijjar’s alleged killers).
Now, however, the “awakening”: in an emergency meeting of the Committee for Public Safety and National Security of the House of Commons, in fact, members of Parliament from all the main parties voted unanimously to call to testify the ministers of Public Safety, Dominic LeBlanc, and Immigration, Marc Miller, as well as the relevant federal officials, to answer questions about the case of father and son on charge of terrorism. There will be six “hearings” and they will start at the end of August. In addition to the ministers, MPs will also question RCMP Commissioner Michael Duheme, interim CSIS director Vanessa Lloyd, Canadian Border Services Agency president Erin O’Gorman, deputy ministers of the departments of Public Safety and Citizenship, as well as the former Minister of Public Safety, currently High Commissioner of the United Kingdom, Ralph Goodale.
As known, in July the RCMP arrested Ahmed Fouad Mostafa Eldidi, 62, and Mostafa Eldidi, 26, in Richmond Hill, Ontario, on charges of being “in the advanced stages of planning a serious and violent attack on Toronto”. The two are facing a number of terrorism-related charges, including conspiracy to commit murder for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in association with the Islamic State Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. The men were due to appear in court today, in the afternoon. Most of the charges stem from alleged activities in Canada, but the father was also accused of committing aggravated assault abroad in June 2015 for the benefit of the terrorist group.
The Parliamentary Committee will now review “the security screening process in place to examine applications for permanent residency and citizenship, to ensure that persons involved in acts of terrorism cannot enter Canada”.
On Monday, only because he was requested by journalists, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also spoke on the issue, limiting himself to saying that the federal government is taking the internal review of the situation “extremely seriously”.
In the pic above: Federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller during a meeting with a group of immigrants in September 2023, in a photo taken from his Twitter page @MarcMillerVM
