The Minister will be disrupted ... members of the Conservative government will be distupted ... by Canadian doctors across this country.

If the video above cannot be viewed here, please go to the youtube page where it was posted. There were nation-wide protests organized by doctors last week to protest Harper's cuts.

From The Edmonton Journal:

An Edmonton doctor says people will die if planned cuts to refugee health benefits go ahead.

"It would be hard to imagine how that wouldn't happen," said Dr. Stan Houston, a professor of medicine and public health at the University of Alberta.

The Interim Federal Health Program, which provides temporary health insurance to refugee applicants who aren't eligible for provincial or territorial coverage, will be pared back, starting June 30.

The program will no longer include vision, dental or supplemental health benefits for asylum seekers. Most pharmaceutical benefits will also dry up.

Some claimants will still have access to hospital services, doctors and nurses, ambulances and medications or vaccines in urgent or essential situations.

Others, including those whose claims have been rejected, will have access to services only to "prevent or treat a disease posing a risk to the public health or a condition or public safety concern."

In Edmonton, the cuts could mean pregnant women will have labour complications because they haven't had any prenatal care, people with chronic illnesses, such as diabetes and hypertension, will be left untreated, and disabled people will not be able to participate in their lives and the economy, Houston said.

Refugees come from places where their lives are in peril and they need a "full spectrum" of health care, said Erick Ambtman, executive director of the Edmonton Mennonite Centre for Newcomers. About 1,500 refugees used the centre last year, for everything from therapy to parenting classes.

Compare the facts presented by these physicians with Harper cabinet Minister Oliver's dissembling and prevaricating.

The Hippocratic oath is said by medical students upon the completion of their course work and before they begin the practice of medicine. It says, in part:

I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.

I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.

I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.

The physician and the medical student who stood up to denounce cuts to the refugee health program said doctors tried to meet with government ministers but were refused access. They chose this *uncivil* and *dramatic* recourse to ensure that the factual information Cons deliberately silenced would be known.

More about Dr. Chris Keefer, who practices family medicine at the Brampton Civic Hospital, and medical student Faria Kamal, here.

Cons' Immigration Policy: Xenophobic and Pandering

I admit it. I am totally perplexed by Stevie Peevie's immigration policy.

This is the text of his speech announcing the election. Here are his top four priorities:

We will be asking Canadians for a renewed mandate to:

• Implement the Next Phase of Canada’s world-leading Economic Action Plan to protect and create jobs as outlined in the budget.

• To make life easier and more affordable for working families, the people who work hard and play by the rules.

• To make our streets safer, putting the rights of victims ahead of criminals.

• And to stand on guard for our country by cracking down on human smuggling and strengthening our Arctic sovereignty.

That last one made me go: Hunh? Human smuggling is one of the top four priorities?

WTF?

These are the people who -- sight unseen -- declared boatloads of desperate Tamil migrants to be 'criminals and terrorists'.

Yet, those same criminal and terrorists must pay off their human smugglers to get out of jail.

Tamils will stay in jail until they’ve paid off the very human smugglers that the Harper Government™ claims to be against.

Seems the 'ethnics' -- or would these be 'very ethnic'? -- aren't drinking this Kool-Aid.

The refugee rights and migrant justice group No One Is Illegal is outraged at the xenophobic message of an ad campaign launched by the Conservative Government of Canada. which shows Tamil boat people as terrorists and criminals seeking refuge in Canada.

“This election ad is xenophobic and borders on racism,” said Krisna Saravanamuttu, a Canadian Tamil council spokesman.

According to Magin Payet, member of No One Is Illegal, “The Conservatives are relying on fear mongering and racist stereotypes to vilify refugees and asylum seekers. Over the past two years, the Conservative government and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney have consistently and deliberately tried to create an atmosphere of paranoia to justify their growing trend of anti-refugee policies, including the widely condemned Bill C49, and the prolonged detention of almost 600 Tamil refugees aboard Ocean Lady and MV Sun Sea.”

“While chameleon Kenney tries to buy the immigrant vote by watching cricket and eating in ethnic restaurants, his anti-immigrant record speaks for itself. Kenney has drastically expanded slave-like temporary worker programs, under which migrant workers are exploited as cheap labour without basic rights. Meanwhile, the number of accepted refugees and permanent residents has plummeted,” states Sozan Savehilaghi, member of No One Is Illegal.

According to Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s annual report the number of refugees who had their asylum claims approved has dropped by 56% over the past four years. Since, 2008 the number of temporary foreign workers (>250,000 people) in Canada now exceeds the number of permanent residents.

The number of family class immigrants accepted into Canada has dropped by 10,000 and the number of skilled worker visas has decreased by 20% since the Conservatives took power.

“The Conservative’s recent proposal to make spousal sponsorships for permanent residence conditional for two years is yet another attack on immigrant families. Under the guise of cracking down on marriage fraud, this proposed regulation will ensure that sponsored partners are living with precarious status, alongside hundreds of thousands of nonstatus people in this country. This makes women in particular extremely vulnerable to domestic and gender violence,” states Harsha Walia, member of No One Is Illegal.

More from 'annoyed' immigrant voters.

“They didn’t care about human smuggling. He wanted to talk about that but the listeners wouldn’t let him,” said Thind.

Thind said the Conservatives’ frequent talk about cracking down on human smugglers is a message that has angered many in the South Asian community.

Reducing the number of people in India eligible for family reunification with relatives in Canada from 15,000 to 11,000 per year is the major immigration issue for the community, Thind said.

Reunification now takes an average of 13 years, he said, instead of the two to four years it took less than a decade ago. For many South Asian families, that decade-plus long wait means a permanent separation, according to Thind, from parents and grandparents.

So, human smuggling cuts no ghee with this group, yet the Cons keep yammering about it.

Ooooo. Maybe it's a dog-whistle to the 'base'. (Same Star link.)

Those uppity migrants cost us -- meaning Real Canadians® -- a lot of dough.

Once the migrants arrive on Canadian territory, [Simon Fraser University academic Andre] Gerolymatos said it takes at least two years to process their claims and each claimant ends up costing taxpayers about $150,000.

SHRIEEEEK!

Let's take a trip down memory lane. Here's the Refoooorm Party's immigration policy.

The Reform Party advocated an immigration policy based solely on the economic needs of Canada. Reform's early policy proposals for immigration were seen as highly controversial in Canada including a policy pamphlet called Blue Sheet that was issued in mid-1991 stating that Reformers opposed "any immigration based on race or creed or designed to radically or suddenly alter the ethnic makeup of Canada". The statement was considered too controversial and subsequent Reform Party policy documents did not declare any similar concern for a radical alteration of the ethnic make-up of Canada. However this controversy and others raised the question over whether Reform was intolerant to non-white people and whether the party harboured racist members. Subsequent repeated accounts of xenophobic and racist statements by individual Reform party supporters and members spread this concern, though the party itself continuously denied that it supported such views.

This just in.

The Conservative Leader will announce that if re-elected the Tories would lend money to recent immigrants so they can afford the skills training or upgrading required before their credentials can be recognized in Canada.

And just to round out your morning immigration-confusion, have a look at this ad playing only in Quebec.



Just how many sides of the mouth can Cons talk out of at the same time? Hell, I'm neither ethnic nor very ethnic and I'm insulted.

Very Important Refugees

This post is not about Minister of Immigration Jason Kenney willfully disregarding the rule of law. Others have already scoped out and plumbed the depths of that topic.

This is about the Gaddafi⎮Kadhafi family: Papa Dicktator and his progeny - Mohamed, Seif Al-Islam, Al Saidi, Motassim Bilal (aka Hannibal) and Aisha.

Once upon a time Silvio and Muammar were tight friends - perhaps allies is the more precise term. They

agreed to work together to stem the increasing numbers of migrants seeking a better life in Europe. In addition to those leaving from North Africa, thousands more have been moving up the Red Sea from Eritrea, Sudan, Somalia and other countries. Their point of entry is Italy–specifically, the small Italian island of Lampedusa, which lies in the Mediterranean midway between Libya and Sicily.

In 2009, Qaddafi and Berlusconi made an agreement that became part of an open and often vicious campaign against migrants: Libya would try to keep them from leaving in the first place; if they got out, Italy would send them back to Libya without providing them a chance to make asylum claims.

Human Rights Watch has documented the attacks on migrants in a detailed report calledPushed Back, Pushed Around: Italy’s Forced Return of Boat Migrants and Asylum Seekers, Libya’s Mistreatment of Migrants and Asylum Seekers.

More here.

So now Gaddafi clan members are attempting to escape retribution. Aisha is on the run; the UN revoked her "special goodwill ambassador" status which means her diplomatic status has been withdrawn. A few years ago, insiders speculated she and Berlusconi had a romantic connection, albeit unconsumated because Aisha, at the age of 31, was too old for him.

The Italian Prime Minister faces serious legal problems right now; his political future hangs by a thread and a furious population would not react kindly to his decision to provide refuge to anyone fleeing Libya, whether wealthy or poor.

Aisha Gaddafi may have better luck with Jason Kenney; it's not clear that he's taken any action toward deporting members of the Ben Ali clan from Canada. He and his Cabinet colleagues appear to have *flexible* standards when it comes to enforcing policies, if deposed tyrants, their families and their ill-got assets are under consideration. Other family sponsorship applicants bereft of such privilege and wealth can wait - forever.

One word of caution: if Kenney proposes to wed Aisha for the purpose of getting laid sponsoring her father's application to enter Canada, he will have to convert to Islam in order to satisfy critics and to demonstrate the marriage is legitimate. Wonder how the ReformaTories' base supporters would react to that?