Immigrant ID-card program under fire

By KIM LUNMAN
From Saturday's Globe and Mail

(Ottawa) Canada's strict new security policy for landed immigrants that has
left 48 permanent residents stranded overseas in the past three days
because they don't have permanent-resident cards is a bureaucratic mess,
critics said Friday.

"This is absolute folly", said Winnipeg MP Pat Martin, the NDP's
Citizenship and Immigration critic. "There should be an immediate
moratorium and amnesty for a six-month period until such time as this
bureaucratic mess can be straightened out".

Immigration officials and airline representatives played down any perceived
problems yesterday with the federal government's new PR card. Since the
Dec. 31 deadline passed, people around the globe have been turned away from
flights to Canada for not having the card. They were referred to Canadian
consulates for temporary travel documents and forced to rebook.

Citizenship and Immigration spokeswoman Maria Iadinardi said 12 people
attempting to fly to Canada were not allowed to board planes Friday because
they did not have a PR card or temporary travel documents. Ms. Iadinardi
could not provide any more details about the passengers. We don't have all
the information on the particulars of the cases because the cases are
reviewed on a case-by-case basis, she said.

Many airlines have been very helpful in rebooking these passengers with the
proper documentation. And we're going to continue to facilitate the
re-entry to Canada of those legitimate permanent residents, she said. We
always have contingency plans in place...to ensure that everything goes the
way it should.

The cards were announced in 2002 as part of new security measures in
reaction to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States.

"The department of Citizenship and Immigration couldn't organize a
peanut stand. Clearly the system is not primed and ready to go", said
Victor Wong, executive director of the Vancouver Association of Chinese
Canadians. "You have to ask yourself what kind of security device is
this?" Mr. Wong said. "We're concerned from a human-rights
perspective".


--- GoldED/W32 3.0.1