Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Canada the Civilized

Fuck us:
Afghans, who risked their lives working for Canadian soldiers in Kandahar, are getting a raw deal from Canadian immigration officials.

In 2009, Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney announced Afghan interpreters, who gave 12 consecutive months of service to Canadian forces, and whose lives were at risk from the Taliban, would be allowed to immigrate to Canada under a special visa program.

At the time, Kenney suggested Canada would welcome 450 interpreters while estimating that applicants would only have to wait an average six months to a year to obtain a visa.

As of July, only 60 interpreters had been accepted and average application processing times have been well north of two years.

Moreover, two out of every three Afghan translators who have applied under the program have actually had their applications denied.
Thanks for the help, suckers!

14 comments:

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

you live too close to America, you start to act like America.

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

Has anyone up in the Great White North begin agitating for a big fence to wall off their crazed southern neighbor?

Yet?
~

Dr.KennethNoisewater said...

Not cool, Canada. NOT COOL.

mikey said...

Y'know, some large extragovernmental agency would do well to publish a booklet describing the recommended practices for a population living under occupation.

Rule #1 should be "UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES, EVER, WORK WITH, SUPPORT, TAKE MONEY FROM OR GIVE INFORMATION TO THE OCCUPATION FORCES"

Sure, this may result in short term hardship. But the alternative is typically that the resistance kills you. And your family. And your goats.

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

That's pretty piss poor. Oh, Canada, what happened? You've gotten all Yankified.

Substance McGravitas said...

A year or two ago the immigration ministry did a little poll of stakeholders. One of the included items allowed you to rank what you thought needed attention, and included in the list of items was something like "obligations to refugees".

Obligations are funny things, aren't they?

Dragon-King Wangchuck said...

First, this is pretty shameful. Even Harper knob licker Peter Worthington at the Toronto Sun thought that this was a bullshit move. The Toronto Fucking Sun thinks we should be letting moar Afghani interpreters immigrate. This is not a controversial issue, and we are failing spectacularly.

Secondly, for youse Yanks that are commiserating with our sad decline into Modern Western Assholery, we have quite a ways to go before we catch up.

Substance McGravitas said...

Secondly, for youse Yanks

The Canadian is defined by not being American.

The catalogue for that General Idea show had a terrific interview with them in which they talked about being Canadian in New York. You have a terrible secret: you're NOT AMERICAN. One of them said it was worse than being gay.

M. Bouffant said...

we have quite a ways to go before we catch up

Not so fast, Mr. Mom: You're doing well in other areas.

Dragon-King Wangchuck said...

Wait. What? First derivative of Gini over time? Okay, I suppose if you extrapolate that out at .01 Gini over 15 years, we'll catch up to teh US levels of inequality in just under a century. At Gini's of ~0.6, in teh same neighbourhood as Haiti.

There's a shit-ton of things wrnog with Canuckistaniland, but our Gini is pretty frickin' low. Maybe not Scandinavia low anymoar, and we certainly could do moar to help teh needy in this country, but a 0.32 Gini is not something I'm particularly ashamed of.

guitarist manqué said...

Maybe some compromise could be worked out where they open some Tim Hortons in Kabul. Jobs for the collaborators and expansion of benign and filling Canadian culture. Win win!

Mendacious D said...

There's already a Tim's at the base in Kandahar. Obviously.

Dragon-King Wangchuck said...

Unfortunately, only Canucks can be trusted to make Tim Hortons coffee.

Incidentally, just so that we're clear on this:
Tim Hortons does not trust Afghanis to make coffee.

guitarist manqué said...

Rumours of an Afghani Tim Hortons have circulated for months.

Once again I've been left behind by history. Never guessed. I suppose once they've braved the frontiers of Matawaska and Lackawanna then Kandahar would be a doddle.