An immune system is an essential part of every complex living organism. Without it, foreign toxins and diseases can infect the body, compromising its health and even its life. A healthy immune system will be pervasive, ready to deal with intruders wherever they appear and deal with them accordingly.
An immune system can fail in two ways. It can fail to address legitimate threats, or it can attack healthy parts of the body and destroy what it’s supposed to protect. Unfortunately, Canada has both problems.
In March, the Liberal government announced that 28,145 active warrants for deputation have been issued to failed refugee claimants. That’s more people than live in Lethbridge, Alberta or Brandon, Manitoba.
As the Trudeau government explained, a Canada Border Services Agency (CSBA) officer “may issue a warrant for the arrest and detention of a foreign national if the officer has reasonable grounds to believe the individual is inadmissible under the IRPA [Immigration and Refugee Protection Act] and either poses a danger to the public or is unlikely to appear for an immigration process, such as a removal from Canada.”
Rejected claimants deemed “inadmissible on grounds of serious criminality” numbered 646. Of those, 410 committed their crime and were convicted in Canada while 236 were convicted in their home country. CBSA wouldn’t say how many of these were currently in detention.
“It is important to differentiate between inadmissibility and the current public safety risk. Inadmissibility applies to an individual who has previously committed a crime but who may not pose public safety risk today,” read the government’s response.
CBSA did confirm there are “73 individuals detained that are failed refugee claimants” while another 12,882 people are “enrolled in an alternative to detention program.”
In an interview with the Toronto Sun, immigration lawyer Richard Kurland said the active warrant list is dwarfed by how many refugee claimants the government has given up looking for.
“This is a drop in the bucket, the inactive inventory is normally at least 100,000,” he said.
Between 2017 and 2023, 321,788 people applied for asylum but only 145,751 or 45% were accepted. The majority have been rejected, have abandoned or withdrawn their applications, or are still in process.
“I’m not convinced that they don’t know where they are,” Kurland said, suggesting if they aren’t causing problems, sometimes the government lets them be.
That’s not what a healthy immune, er, immigration system does. Couldn’t Ottawa at least keep them on the warrant list? That keeps them from getting welfare in some provinces.
While the government turns a blind eye on those who should be deported, it keeps an all-too-watchful eye on legal gun owners. There is no evidence to suggest that legal gun owners are more likely to do criminal acts, or that disarming the population would lower crime. Nevertheless, Ottawa and a few municipalities seem bent on hassling gun owners and banning ever-increasing classifications of guns.
After the federal government legalized marijuana sales, new laws allowed police to demand on-the-spot alcohol tests that will end up in fines if refused. They can even enter a home without a warrant to do such a test. If you guzzled a beer at the bar and metabolized it only after getting home, too bad. The cops arrive to see how buzzed you are sitting in your own living room.
No, fifty-five years after Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau said the government has no business in the bedrooms in the affairs of the nation, it has invaded the back pockets of Canadians and every room in their house. The tax code has mushroomed past its initial 11 pages to somewhere past 3,000, requiring Canadians to disclose their money earned so they can take it, then disclose their medical receipts, and business expenses just to get some back.
Carbon taxes address the air you breathe and the vehicle you drive, and now the Online Harms Bill C-63 is reaching for your tongue. The bill, not yet law, enables people to be persecuted, er, prosecuted for “hateful” speech. Because the cases will be heard by tribunals and not courts of law, the threshold for guilt will not be only a preponderance of evidence. The tribunals can even protect the accuser’s identity.
Even pre-crimes can be prosecuted. If a complainant deems someone likely to say something hateful, they can be put on house arrest or have a tracking device attached to their person. Although the technology is new, the tactic is an old one that Nazi and Soviet Communist regimes used against enemies of the state. In these days of cancel culture, truth sounds like hate to the offended.
If Canada were a human being, a doctor would find its health in decline. The nation is eating too much (heavy taxation, deficit spending, and uncontrolled immigration), not physically active enough (slumping private sector job growth, investment, and productivity) and has a compromised immune system that allows destructive elements it should not and attacks healthy parts of the body. This country needs an intervention before it destroys itself.
Lee Harding is a Research Fellow for the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.
