The Last Exile

Apparently, when it is a Conservative MP.

If you saw this Canwest News article picked up by the Ottawa Citizen it reads like this:

A sudden wave of refugee claimants has helped make Hungary Canada’s top source of asylum-seekers, prompting the federal government to call on Budapest to take action — possibly against organized crime elements, Canwest News Service has learned.

The government hasn’t yet moved to impose visa restrictions on Hungary, as it did over the summer to deal with a flood of questionable claimants from Mexico and the Czech Republic. But the federal government also hasn’t ruled out that option after the number of asylum-seekers skyrocketed during the April-to-June period, making Hungary the third-highest source of claimants after Mexico and the Czech Republic in that period.

Now, with claims from those two countries falling to a trickle as a result of the summer decision, Citizenship and Immigration Canada figures show that Hungary has emerged as Canada’s top refugee source country — even though it is a member of the 27-nation European Union that champions itself as a bastion of human rights in the world.

“There are currently no plans to impose a visa on Hungary,” said Alykhan Velshi, spokesman for Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, in an e-mail. “Visa-exempt countries are aware that if they do not satisfy the conditions of Canada’s visa exemption, the requirement for a visa may be re-imposed.”

He said Kenney has already flown to Budapest to raise his concerns and discuss strategies “to ensure that individuals who benefit from our visitor visa exemption to come to Canada are, in fact, genuine visitors. “Kenney has previously questioned whether Czech claimants, the vast majority from the Roma minority that has endured a history of discrimination in Europe, were genuine refugees facing persecution and fearing for their safety.

Alykhan said the Canadian government, which has provoked anger and threats of retaliation by Prague and the EU as a result of the Czech visa decision, is looking for alternatives in the case of Hungary. “We’re working with (senior government officials) to see if there are others ways to resolve this issue — whether crackdowns on organized crime networks encouraging unfounded asylum claims, or addressing the issue of unregistered immigration consultants misleading people into coming to Canada and making asylum claims.”

So just who are these Hungarians seeking asylum? Turns out, once again, it’s the Roma. Unlike the Ottawa Citizen, Dose carried a fuller account from the same Canwest News reproter. Let me quote part of what the Ottawa Citizen deliberately chose to omit.

“Under current international law standards Hungarian Roma should not qualify as political refugees, even though Hungary should be much more stringent in providing protection to its minorities,” he said in an e-mail Wednesday. “Such claims can legitimately be dismissed by Canadian authorities.” But he said the re-imposition of a visa requirement would be both “unfriendly” and would do nothing to get Budapest to meet its domestic and international legal obligations to protect the Roma from discrimination and far-right violence, which is on the upswing. (Andras Paps quoted)

Now you can argue to the cows come home whether this omission clearly identifying the Roma refugee claimants from Hungary as the ‘spike’ from the upsurge in claims is legitimate or not; but what you cannot argue away is – how a Canadian daily newspaper just provided cover to the Stephen Harper’s Conservative government’s ‘none is too many’ policy towards the Roma.