Sgro goes

Immigration in Canada

Jan 20th 2005 MONTREAL
From The Economist print edition

Of strippers, pizza and the minister

THE immigration portfolio is one of the trickier jobs in Canada's government. One of its perks is one of its problems: the discretionary power to hand out ministerial exemptions to grant otherwise inadmissible foreigners the right to live and work in the country. Some 12,000 of these temporary residence permits (“stay-in-Canada-free cards”, as critics call them) are issued in an average year—guaranteeing a long queue of supplicants wherever the minister turns.

In two cases Judy Sgro, the minister, bestowed—or is alleged to have promised to bestow—such permits on controversial beneficiaries. On January 14th, that cost Ms Sgro her job. She became the first casualty of Paul Martin's Liberal government, which was reduced to minority status in an election last June in which it had promised to clamp down on sleaze.

Ms Sgro had been under fire since November, when it was revealed that she had issued a permit to a Romanian woman who had worked on her election campaign. To the prurient delight of the opposition, the woman was a stripper who had come to Canada in 2003 (along with 552 other Romanian women) under a special programme to fill a shortage of labour in the “exotic-dancing” business.

It then emerged that Ms Sgro's chief of staff had paid a visit to a strip-club operator to discuss his problems in bringing in dancers from the Dominican Republic—shortly after the bar owner had made a generous donation to the Liberal Party. Another member of her staff had links with the Tamil Tigers, a terrorist group.

But what did for Ms Sgro was the publication of an affidavit from Harjit Singh, a restaurant owner due to be deported to India. He claimed that Ms Sgro had promised him a permit if he provided free pizzas and volunteer staff to her office during the election campaign. Ms Sgro vigorously denies this—and Mr Singh is hardly a reliable witness. Shortly after the election, a court ordered him and his family to repay C$900,000 ($750,000) stolen from Canada's largest banks in an elaborate credit-card scam. But the allegations were enough for Mr Martin to fire the minister.

Ms Sgro hinted that party rivals had leaked some of the damaging claims. Her replacement, Joe Volpe, another Toronto MP and formerly the human-resources minister, had long coveted the immigration post. It offers any ambitious politician the chance to use temporary residence permits to build a following among Canada's fast-growing immigrant communities.

Ms Sgro's departure has almost certainly delayed reform. She had promised to streamline procedures for accepting eligible immigrants and deporting bogus refugees. Under the present rules, many well-qualified would-be immigrants head elsewhere. Meanwhile, economic migrants arrive on tourist visas and then promptly claim refugee status. Even if their initial claim is rejected, as about 60% are, it usually takes years before deportation. Mr Singh, for example, came to Canada in 1988. His claims for asylum were rejected. More than 15 years later he was still in the country—and able to bring down a cabinet minister.

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