UNI320Y: Canadian Questions: Issues and Debates

1. UNI320Y: Canadian Questions: Issues and Debates Week 8: Citizenship and Border Control Professor Emily Gilbert http://individual.utoronto.ca/emilygilbert/

2. Citizenship and Border Control • Multiculturalism and Essentialized Identities • Non-Citizens: Deportations and Detentions • Border Control and Security Technologies

3. I: Multiculturalism and Essentialized Identities Multiculturalism (1971; 1988) • Scholars Charles Taylor and Will Kymlicka • Recent emphasis on business links and global competitiveness Yasmeen Abu-Laban • Multiculturalism • as inclusionary discourse around citizenship • as processes whereby minority collectivities might gain recognition, protection and rights

4. Debates over: • ‘Difference blindness’ vs. special recognition and valuing of difference • Cultural identity vs. individual rights • Problems arise with essentialism • Eg “clash of civilizations” of Samuel Huntington • Variation of ‘cold war’ polarization • Cultural essentialism poses challenge to ethics of liberalism and liberal democracy

5. Towards anti-essentialism: • Wouldn’t assume that entire culture or community as one thing • Would take seriously economics, politics, history, different interpretations of history, and genuine grievances

6. Postmulticultural (Burman) • denotes “history of awkward, top-down diversity management” (Burman) • Assumption that culture = ancestral origin • Advocates cultural hybridity

7. Hérouxville Jan 2007: passes rules for immigrants

8. Feb 2007: Premier Charest establishes Commission for Consultation on Accommodation Practices regarding Cultural Differences • Co-chaired by Gérard Bouchard and Charles Taylor Mandate: • to draw up an accurate portrayal of how exactly accommodations are being made; • to conduct a wide-scale inquiry in all regions of the province to find out what Quebecers are really thinking “beyond polls and spontaneous reactions;” • to come up with recommendations on how accommodations can be made that are “respectful of the common values of Quebecers.”

9. II: Non-Citizens: Deportations and Detentions Post 9/11, security, and the “immigrant menace” Bill C-36: Anti-Terrorism Act • Passed in House of Commons 190 – 47 • Received Royal Assent Dec 18, 2001 • “creates measures to identify, prosecute, convict and punish terrorist groups; provides new investigative tools to law enforcement and national security agencies; and ensures that Canadian values of respect and fairness are preserved and the root causes of hatred are addressed through stronger laws against hate crimes and propaganda”http://www.justice.gc.ca/en/news/nr/2001/doc_27787.html

10. Bill C-36 defines a terrorist act as one committed "for a political, religious or ideological purpose, objective or cause." • Towards ethnic and racial profiling? • Oct 24, 2006: Superior Court judge strikes down motive clause – Mohammed Momin Khawaja case • Concerns over investigative powers, eg: 'secret' trials, preemptive detention, electronic surveillance • Creating “an alien from within”? (Macklin)

11. But 5-year sunset clause on provisions that: • Allows police to arrest suspects without warrant and detain them for 3 days without charges if police believe a terrorist act may be committed. • Allows a judge to compel a witness to testify in secret about past associations or perhaps pending acts under penalty of going to jail if the witness doesn't comply. • Feb 27, 2007: House of Commons vote 159 - 124 against renewing the provisions

12. Deportations – Mohamed Cherfi: deported to US in 2004 Detentions – Secret Trial Five: Mohammad Mahjoub (2000-2007), Mahmoud Jaballah (2001-2007), Hassan Almrei (2001-), Adil Charkaoui (2003-2005), Mohamed Harkat (2002-2006)

13. Security certificates: • Signed by Solicitor General, Minister of CIC, and endorsed by Federal Court Judge • All immigration proceedings suspended • Foreign nationals are detained, as may be permanent residents • Federal Court decides whether security certificates are unreasonable • Since 1978: 28 security certificates issued

14. Dec 2004: Federal Court of Appeal rules that security certificates are constitutional • non-citizens and permanent residents can be subjected to a different standard of legal treatment • Feb 2007: Supreme Court strikes down security certificate system as is because violates Charter: 9 – 0 ruling • One year delay to allow Parliament time to write new law

15. No One Is Illegal The No One is Illegal campaign is in full confrontation with Canadian colonial border policies, denouncing and taking action to combat racial profiling of immigrants and refugees, detention and deportation policies, and wage-slave conditions of migrant workers and non-status people.We struggle for the right for our communities to maintain their livelihoods and resist war, occupation and displacement, while building alliances and supporting indigenous sisters and brothers also fighting theft of land and displacement.

16. Place and belonging: nation and city Diasporic city: extra-territorial connections ‘sedimented’ relations multiplicity absence and presence rhythms of mobile and immobilized Henri Lefebvre: differential space

17. III: Border Control and Security Technologies • Securitizing Citizenship post 9/11 • Increased border security and need for documentation • Move towards national ID cards?

18. Permanent Resident Card • introduced with revised IRP Act, Feb 2001, enacted June 2002 • replaces IMM 1000 Record of Landing • Applies to about 1.5 million permanent residents • First ICAO card

19. Laser engraved photo Personal data Optical memory stripe with 1.1 mgb of data Embedded hologram Has capacity to hold biometric data Valid for 5 years

20. States: producing their populations • Fixing identities, creating legible population UN: Write me Down, Make Me Real • Initiative to register all children at birth • Launched by Archbishop Desmond Tutu • Aim: to register the 48 million children whose births go unrecorded each year • Registration affirmed in Article 7 of UN Convention on Rights of Child

21. Biometrics Biosurveillance Biopolitics Creating useful state subjects, responsible immigrants

22. Bordering: outsiders and outsiders-within—(Sunera Thobani) • The other: stock exchange of security: trading on defined enemies (Didier Bigo) • Managing the population: eg mobility rights • Internalization of borders: not just at a fixed territorial line but internalized • Technologies of control (detention) and strategies of exclusion (deportation) (Peter Nyers)