The Ocean Lady: Rethinking "Illegal" Migration in Canada. ⇒
3 November 2009, mid-afternoon
Australia has a higher acceptance rate for refugees than Canada? That can’t be right. Also, WTF Torries?
This is a post from my link log: If you click the title of this post you will be taken the web page I am discussing.
My guess is that the immigrant acceptance rate quoted was from before the Harper government placed a visa requirement on Mexican visitors.
Canada was rejecting most Mexican refugees (remember NAFTA?) which was probably skewing the numbers. Not wanting to look like a bunch of refugee haters, the Harper government have
hidden the truthfixed the problem via diplomatic means.I’m sure the acceptance rate will be much higher now that refugees from Mexico and Czech Republic need visas… and obviously won’t get them.
Btw, I don’t like using the term “Tories”, because these guys are Reform through and through.
by rishi on November 3 2009, 6:29 pm #
re 80% — yeah, definitely sounds iffy. that number was reported by the third panellist at the forum, a visiting prof from australia. given that australian courts are given to things like this, it gave me pause too
that said, that number’s probably altered by the fact that australia uses whole islands as detention centres before they even arrive on australian shores
hm. i should edit the article to address this. when i’d started writing it, it was meant to be just a recap of the forum, hence the allusion to australia, which now just sounds like a throwaway line that glorifies the country.
detention centres (aka jails) are frightening places. people can get stuck there for months, sometimes years (as happened in canada in 1999, when 600 fujian were detained in centres for a year and a half).
by fathima on November 3 2009, 8:27 pm #
WTF REFORM doesn’t sound as good as WTF TORY. You are right though, it’s not the right label at all. I suspect a lot of the old school Torries probably vote Liberal now. That party has probably moved much more to the right in recent years.
And yeah, I really can’t believe Australia has a better record with respect to refugees than Canada. That country is ridiculous.
by ramanan on November 3 2009, 8:47 pm #
Again, I think you need to know the context in order to be able to compare the numbers. If it is known amongst refugees that Australia is an impossible place to get into, then people without sufficient evidence of persecution (or from places that are more likely to get rejected) might not bother making the trip, further boosting the country’s acceptance rate. If you look at comparable cases (which is probably very difficult, given that both countries are on opposite parts of the planet), you may find the numbers are quite different.
Based on the statistics provided, saying that Australia has a better record w.r.t. refugees is akin to saying that Australia’s geographic location is better than Canada’s because it is a greater distance from the continental United States.
by rishi on November 4 2009, 9:36 am #
I think it’d be good to know the raw number of people they let in as well. I suspect Canada lets in more people than Australia over all. Like you, one would think if you’re fleeing persecution, going to lame ass Australia wouldn’t be your first option.
by ramanan on November 4 2009, 10:14 am #
More on this topic from Fathima.
by ramanan on November 4 2009, 3:45 pm #
According to the UNHCR, as of Jan 2009:
Residing in Canada:
Refugees – 173,651
Asylum Seekers – 54,202
Total – 227,853
Residing in Australia:
Refugees – 20,919
Asylum Seekers – 2,159
Total – 23,078
by rishi on November 7 2009, 4:06 pm #
Well, this story probably won’t help the people on the boat that was trying to get to Australia.
by ramanan on November 10 2009, 10:57 am #