Paris: The controversy of the anti-Islam film is yet to settle down but a French magazine sparked another round of protests after publishing a series of provocative cartoons showing a nude Prophet Mohammed. These cartoons have further fanned the flames after a wave of Muslim protests over an anti-Islam film.
More than 30 people have been killed in attacks or violent protests linked to the controversial US-made film “Innocence of Muslims”, including 12 people who died in an attack by a female suicide bomber in Afghanistan on Tuesday.
French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo published cartoons caricaturing the Muslim prophet, including one showing his naked buttocks.
The magazine’s editor, originally a cartoonist who uses the name Charb, said the images would “shock those who will want to be shocked”.
“The freedom of the press, is that a provocation?” he said. “I’m not asking strict Muslims to read Charlie Hebdo, just like I wouldn’t go to a mosque to listen to speeches that go against everything I believe.”
French embassies, consulates, cultural centres and international French schools in some 20 countries will be closed till Friday as a precaution. mu � e �� X� o-bidi-font-family:Arial; color:black’>• Reduces anxiety, depression and stress
• Increases energy, immune function, concentration, weight loss and fitness
• Lowers the risk of diabetes, heart attack and colon cancer
“The South Asian population, like all Canadians, needs more awareness about the importance of getting in touch with nature,” says Jasleen Kaur, from Progressive Intercultural Community Services. “We hope this fun campaign focusing on the Punjabi community will help the message stick.”
Challenge participants will be entered into a contest to win two tickets to hear David Suzuki speak at the PICS 25th Anniversary Celebration on November 2 in Surrey, B.C.
There will also be a nature walk and discussion on the health benefits of going outside every Sunday of the campaign (September 23 and 30, October 7 and 14) at the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Surrey at 1p.m. s (� e �� X� et. The 20,000thperson to get a PR card under CEC program is an Indian, Gaurav Gore.
Nonetheless, in the Canadian economy where people are afraid of getting pink slip whether they are in public or private sector, what is to stop some of these permanent residents from obtaining a Canadian PR card and leaving Canada for booming economies like India, China and Brazil.
Minister Kenney acknowledges that some of these economic migrants may return.
“One of the problems our system has had is too many economic immigrants have returned to their countries of origin after they failed to find jobs in Canada which is why our overall immigration reforms are designed to better connect immigrants to employers and increasingly to rely on job offers from employers as the key factor in selecting economic immigrants..there’s always a chance they might get laid off and have to look elsewhere, but it’s much better from an economic and human point of view to ask someone to stay when he has a good paying job than to bring in someone from abroad who has no job lined up, whose degree will not be recognized by Canadian employers, who has no Canadian work experience..what is better: to have someone earning $70,000 per year or some poor fellow driving a taxi?,” Minister Kenney said.
In the past few years, Minister Kenney has noted several times that more and more economic migrants are moving to economically booming Canadian provinces like Alberta and Saskatchewan.
“The number of primary immigrants going directly to Saskatchewan has quadrupled in the past 6 years and it’s doubled in Alberta. That is in part because of the strong economy but also because of the expansion of our Provincial Nominee program,” said Minister Kenney.
“We now have a proper distribution of immigrants across the country rather than the overwhelming majority going to our three biggest cities. The immigrants going through the program are doing very well economically and so this means better income and opportunity for the immigrants and [it] also helps the overall economy facing skill shortages,” he further added.
As for the much discussed Canada Ontario Immigration Act (COIA) during last year’s Ontario’s elections, Minister Kenney stated that “if the Ontario government wants to sign an agreement with us, we are happy to do so. The ball is in their court.”
He noted that if Ontario government was “serious about the settlement funding,” it would have tripled the settlement funding like his government has. The Minister also said that theOntariogovernment is asking the federal government to send them a cheque for $300 million “without asking them [theOntariogovernment] any questions. We just don’t take that seriously. I think they should put their money where their mouth is.”
Although Minister Kenney has reiterated that his government has increased the number of people in Family Class, many people are sceptical of the government’s motives.
“On average we’ve admitted 65,000 parents and grandparents, spouses and children per year. And that is an addition to the independent economic immigrants. Overall 180,000 immigrants were admitted last year just who were dependants and sponsored family members…So this is the most pro-family immigration government in Canadian history and that is not an opinion but a statistical fact,” said Immigration Minister.
He also said that by the time new sponsorship applications are accepted this year, the backlog to processing parents and grandparental sponsorship applications will be reduced by half to wait times of about four years.
While the Minister has not determined exactly what criteria will be established for parental and grandparental sponsorships, Minister Kenney explicitly expressed that “there will be new criteria because we cannot continue taking 40-50,000 applications.”
Minister Kenney said that unlike Liberals who accepted “applications and fees, and just stockpiling them for a couple of decades,” his government has decided to take the honesty is the best policy route.
He says “..let’s admit those whose families have the best ability to take care of them.” He believes that imposing higher language efficiency is unreasonable for “older people,” however “we have mused about some kind of contribution to healthcare cost, possibly higher minimum income or demonstrating that you’ve met the minimum income requirement for a longer period of time. Perhaps doing whatAustraliadoes in requiring that you get priority processing if the majority of your children are living inCanadaas opposed to one child.”
Minister Kenney noted that the “limited criteria for the sponsorship of parents in the future will be offset by the Super Visa which is a huge success,” with processing time of seven weeks only.
Since the Conservative government has made changes to citizenship test, some settlement agencies like Afghan Women’s Organization have noted that immigrants are having hard time passing the citizenship test.
In response to the question about citizenship test, Minister Kenney responded “we do monitor that [citizenship tests] very closely and when we see that a particular question is getting an inordinately high failure rate, we go back and revise it. Periodically, about twice a year, we are revising the questions. On the flip side of this, when we have a question series that has been in place for several months, we find that the consultants learn what the questions are and put together kits to sell to the applicants, so they memorize and answer..we find that the initial pass rate is over 80%; the problem with the old system is that it had a 98% pass rate and many immigrants told me the questions were insulting because they were meant for schoolchildren.”
In the Fall session of Parliament, Harper government is introducing an 800 page legislation. Are some of the immigration reforms part of this legislation?
“Well we already have Bill C 43, the Fast Removal of Foreign Criminals Act that we hope to pass this Fall..but most of the changes we’ve made and are making will be on the operational side, implementing legislation that has already been passed,” stated Minister Kenney.
