Trump's Inauguration Has Canada Guessing What's In Store

The inauguration of  Donald Trump as President of the United States in a few days is not only impacting the American political landscape, but has also sparked a cabinet shuffle in Canada. From an immigration point of view, Trump's policy related to "America first" as it is applied to  jobs is a key area of concern, especially regarding professional jobs created through the NAFTA free trade agreement.
Without being in Trump's office or on his transition team, it is difficult to tell exactly what he has in store. Maybe Trump does not intend to abrogate the NAFTA agreement regarding immigration. On the other hand, should Trump decide to make changes, thousands of Mexican and Canadian ex-pats working in professional occupations in the United States and thousands of American professionals working in Mexico and Canada could be impacted.
Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau's cabinet changes in anticipation of Trump's arrival have been quite dramatic.  He has designated Chrystia Freeland as the new Minister of Foreign Affairs to deal with America.  Described by the media as someone with excellent U.S. contacts in view of her former career as a financial journalist who worked in New York, Freeland more recently helped seal Canada's free trade deal with the European Union in her post as the former Minister of International Trade. That success raised her profile and helped secure the foreign affairs portfolio.

Chrystia Freeland, Canada's new Minister of Foreign Affairs, has been assigned the key responsibility of dealing with America following Trump's inauguration as President. Freeland will have to deal with any NAFTA changes and work with other Canadian ministers to set new policies for Canada in the areas of trade, investment, immigration and refugees prompted by Trump's agenda.

The Canadian cabinet shuffle has other noteworthy immigration implications as well. Freeland is being replaced in her previous International Trade portfolio by François-Philippe Champagne. Champagne, described in the media as ambitious and energetic, is tasked with attending to trade deals with other countries, like China and Japan, and also with attracting investment capital to Canada.
In regard to China, the fact that John McCallum, the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship and a senior minister in Trudeau's cabinet, has been tapped to become the new Ambassador to China, signals that Canada wants to improve its stature with that country. Talks to create a new free trade agreement and the recent Canadian federal government approval of the Kinder Morgan pipeline to export Alberta oil through the West coast appear to be steps taken to open a new Canadian economic lifeline to China in case things don't work out so well with Trump's America. Champagne will need to work with McCallum closely for these reasons, but for others as well.

Canada's Immigration, Citizenship and Refugees Minister John McCallum has been appointed Canada's Ambassador to China apparently to strengthen Canada's backup economic strategy of linking to China in case hard times with the U.S. arise.

For one thing, it appears that the Trans Pacific Partnership is in trouble. Champagne will have to work with McCallum on that one. More importantly, however, from an immigration perspective, a recently announced upcoming change in the American EB-5 investor immigration program could impact on Champagne's work.
For many years Chinese investors have made up the vast majority of the immigrants to the United States in the EB-5 program. In recent years some 80 percent of the EB-5 immigrants were Chinese who invested as little as $500,000 U.S. to get permanent residence. The announcement of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service has called for increasing the amount to qualify for investor immigration up to a minimum $ 1.3 million. This is relevant to Champagne's new job because of an opportunity it may create for Canada.
One of Champagne's new tasks is to attract capital investment into the country. In that regard, recently the Conference Board of Canada held a conference on the theme of introducing a new federal investor immigration program in that country.
The fact that the amount required to be eligible to immigrate to the U.S. under the EB-5 program has gone up, when added to the growing backlog of Chinese EB-5 investor immigrants, presents an ideal opportunity for Champagne to work with McCallum and Canada's new immigration minister to create a new federal investor immigration program to compete with the American one. Were Canada to introduce a new investor program at the $ 1 million level for example, it would be highly attractive to Chinese investors because it would be less than what the Americans require, it would not involve waiting in a backlog like the U.S. program does, and it would present the Chinese investors with a chance for them and their families to escape some of the environmental, congestive and general anxiety problems of life in today's China. From Canada's point of view such a program could help to address some major financial issues, such as the Canadian municipal infrastructure deficit
, for example.
Much has been written on this theme already. It is definitely an area for the federal government to explore.
That may not be the direction Canadian immigration policy will take, however, judging by the appointment of the new Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship. Ahmed Hussen is the first Somali-Canadian appointed to Cabinet and he was a former refugee to Canada. The new Minister will likely want to focus on increasing the number of refugees coming to Canada. While there is still room in Canada for more refugees, I have made the point previously that Western policy related to refugees needs to consider the fact that no matter how generous America and Canada may be in terms of allowing new refugees to come here, it will never be enough given the fact that there are 65 million displaced persons in the world today. What is needed is a foreign policy initiative that will serve to help refugees overseas where they are with better living conditions at a cost substantially lower than in North America. If refugees are genuinely a concern for Canada and the U.S., this should be another matter for Hussen and Freeland to look at and for the new Canadian cabinet to work on with America.
In terms of Hussen's new responsibilities and Trump's imminent arrival, Hussen would also do well to help Freeland underline U.S.-Canadian Cooperation as a model to follow in regard to Trump's vision of dealing with the Mexican border.  Hussen will also have to be involved with the  NAFTA issues previously mentioned as well.

Article Source : forbes

Ahmed Hussen: From Somali refugee to Canada's parliament

Ahmed Hussen came to Canada from Somalia as a refugee. Now he's the new minister of immigration.

Along with thousands of compatriots, Ahmed Hussen fled war-ravaged Somalia for a better life in Canada.
Hussen's journey took him from Mogadishu to Toronto and then on to Ottawa's Parliament Hill, where the former Somali refugee was named this week as the country's newest minister of immigration in a reshuffle of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Cabinet.
It was a fast political rise for the rookie politician, and will put Hussen, who arrived in Canada in 1993 as a 16-year-old, in charge of the complex portfolio that oversees who is welcomed into the country.
Friends say the lawyer and social activist will be able to draw from personal experience in his new role.

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Mahamad Accord, who has known Hussen for years through his work with the Canadian Somali Congress, says his friend has not forgotten his modest roots despite walking Canada's corridors of power.
"He didn't change," he says. "The people around him changed."

Accord recalls Hussen offering him help a few years back. The Somali community in the provinces of Ontario and Alberta were struggling to tackle the deaths of dozens of young Somali men due to drug and gun violence.
He says Hussen did not shy away from speaking openly about the problems plaguing the Somali community in Canada, from high rates of poverty and unemployment to gang involvement.
But Hussen was also aware of how the community could be stigmatised, and was always careful in how he spoke and presented himself. Accord says his friend would tell him "we need to change people's perception of us".
"He expects high standards," he says.
Accord admits he was sometimes jealous of the lawyer and social activist's ability to get across a difficult message diplomatically.
It was that ability that struck former Ontario politician George Smitherman when he first met Hussen in 1999. Hussen was then fighting for the interest of Regent Park, a multi-ethnic neighbourhood in downtown Toronto where he had settled with one of his brothers upon his arrival in Canada.
In 2015, he told the Toronto Star that a backlog in refugee applications for permanent residency at the time meant he could not qualify for a student loan. Living in the public housing allowed him to save enough to go to university.

Hussen lobbied to help secure funds to revitalise the crime-ridden housing project, co-founding the Regent Park Community Council.
Some long-time residents had to move out of their homes during the redevelopment and were fearful they would not be able to return; Hussen worked to ensure their interests were protected.
"There was an extraordinary tension because there was distrust and concerns among tenants," recalls Smitherman. "Ahmed had to very carefully but forcefully represent their interests."
Smitherman, who calls the 40-year-old Mr Hussen an "old soul", later helped him land a job working with former Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty.
"He was someone who spoke with a calmness and an informed knowledge and a maturity that defied his circumstances, both as someone who was young and someone who had taken this awesomely courageous step of leaving Africa for Canada."

Mr Hussen swept his Toronto riding in November 2015, though he drew criticism for not living in the disadvantaged riding he was elected to represent.
Speaking last April in the House of Commons, he raised concerns about the recent drowning death of hundreds of migrants from Somalia and the Horn of Africa, saying: "Asylum seekers are not criminals. They are human beings in need of protection and assistance and deserving of our respect".
Smitherman sees Hussen's background as both an asset and a possible disadvantage in the challenging portfolio.
"It sets up for tensions also as expectations are increased," he says.
Following his swearing-in, Mr Hussen, the father of three boys, told media he was "extremely proud of our country's history as a place of asylum, a place that opens its doors and hearts to new immigrants and refugees".
Hussen has always referred to himself as a Canadian first and Somali second, says Accord. In 2015 Mr Hussen told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that he does not want to be labelled a "Somali MP".
"I'm a Canadian. Somali is my heritage and I'm proud of my heritage but I have a lot to contribute to Canada. And I'm a mainstream guy. I'm not limited by my community," he said.
Hussen replaces John McCallum, a veteran politician who is going to become Canada's envoy to China after managing Trudeau government efforts to bring in over 39,000 Syrian refugees in the last 13 months.
"The real message of the new appointment is that the government wishes to profile refuges as a more salient part of our immigration program,' says Jeffrey Reitz, a University of Toronto sociology professor.
"But it does raise the question of the mainstream immigration programme," he says.
The rookie minister will face challenges in the key, and rarely uncontroversial, portfolio.
McCallum recently introduced contentious changes to Canada's popular family reunification programme, replacing a first-come, first-serve process with a lottery system to randomly choose 10,000 people who filled out initial applications to express interest. Critics say that reuniting families should not depend on luck of the draw.
Another recent decision to scrap a rule limiting how long foreign workers can stay in Canada is being targeted by the opposition as potentially harmful to the country's work force in the long run. Immigrant rights groups have been critical of the programme, arguing the workers under the program are vulnerable to abuse by employers.
He will also have to defend a recent Liberal decision to significantly reduce the number of private sponsorship applications for Syrian and Iraqi refugees because of a current backlog.
Canada plans to bring in 300,000 immigrants in 2017, the majority of them economic immigrants.
Article Source : bbc