https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/62030/archive/files/533de07bbae9b9921c5396709f22758d.pdf?Expires=1782345600&Signature=cAVdDvGPoi5pOpgZxEcKy5eIRuRxuM%7Eero4LEaIwQHdLGs%7EarNZ2V1I43Ksh%7EGDDXmB%7Ep%7EjxsE2--xwZ-acyXTK2gajqbJSVSn2-0ZV1drUUgyQaeEfy1a8Ud5bbX7dmbTBP%7EaU%7E5OhUW8kUg9CWeN3FD7b7tcxLa%7E4vutbIyRZ%7E54C9L9PIJ12U2vU7UYQpnv0ZhvkGrEOu9P3kpVTYwCRtJTZwRYGc3vdSPYasf-xdGjs9Tf5THTR0izsVvaH92WReFRHkjg%7Ep-Wn%7ELlbQvmBleDP-J00Fro2oa6ATRh4T3q%7EibUqwlKJWN8yq31D88HNe0frnAuGTw--jmOfhIQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 9e18f5c56061f29ab3c5553c2b967d8a PDF Text Text News The McGill Daily, Monday, October 26, 2009 5 McGill student victim of racial profiling Quebec Superior Court to hear the case Stephanie Law News Writer M Miranda Whist / The McGill Daily Protesters waited for Jason Kenney as he entered an Arts classroom. No One is Illegal protests Kenney at McGill Conservative McGill invites immigration minister to speak Eric Andrew-Gee News Writer J ason Kenney, Canada’s Minister of Citizenship, Immigration, and Multiculturalism, visited the student group Conservative McGill on Friday. The event was held in Room 160 of the Arts Building. As Kenney approached the room, he was stopped by a loud group of protesters from No One is Illegal Montreal. Kenney and his coterie were prevented from moving toward the doors. One of the protesters, Jaggi Singh, asked Kenney about a recent report in the Toronto Star that tells of a 24-yearold Mexican woman named Grise who is believed to have been murdered in June by the same group of drug traffickers she sought refuge from in Canada in 2004 and 2008. Grise was denied refugee status twice, and following her return to Mexico in 2008, she was raped and impregnated. After having a caesarian-section to deliver her child, she was kidnapped and shot through the head. The minister did not respond. When the protesters accused Kenney of pandering to racial biases against Mexicans in his policies, he shot back, sarcastically saying, “I plead guilty: I’m a racist,” and pushed toward the door. The protesters began chanting, “Immigrants in, racists out” and tried to prevent Kenney from entering the room, while being pushed back by a number of Conservative McGill members and McGill Security agents. When Kenney and his aides finally entered, the doors were closed, but protesters continued yelling, “No borders, no nations, stop the deportations,” and “Immigrants in, Kenney out”. Inside, Kenney referred to the activists as “some of Canada’s leading anarchists”, and later as “thugs.” The sounds of protests continued to resonate through the room during most of Kenney’s appearance. When the doors were occasionally opened to let someone out, Kenney was completely drowned out as the pitch of the protest shot up. The protest dissipated after 15 or 20 Montreal police officers were called in. No arrests were made, and Robyn Maynard of No One is Illegal said, “We left on our own free will.” After Kenney’s presentation, the officers could be seen walking in double file out the back doors of the Arts Building. In a speech describing his approach to immigration, Kenney lamented the challenge of finding appropriate jobs for well-qualified immigrants, saying, “Canada has the best qualified taxi drivers in the world.” To combat the endemic underemployment of immigrants, Kenney said the Conservatives have tripled federal funding for vital integration programs. Addressing a question about his refugee policy, Kenney cited the 5,000 Nepalese Hindus claiming refugee status recently admitted to Canada from India, and the 12,000 Iraqi asylum-seekers the Conservatives expect to admit over the next three years. Kenney has expressed concern in the past over Canada’s acceptance rate of refugee claimants, which, at 40 per cent, is twice the rate of any other industrialized country, according to the minister. When asked specifically about his concerns, Kenney attributed the high rate, in part, to “massive flows of false refugee claims,” and “people using the asylum system as a back door to get in [to Canada], to avoid the immigration system.” He mentioned Mexican immigrants as being particularly culpable. Kenney’s ministry imposed visa requirements on migrants from the Czech Republic and Mexico this July. The minister told The Daily it was in an effort to curb what he termed as “bogus” refugee claims. Robyn Maynard saw another motive. “He’s using borderline racial stereotypes to make it difficult to apply for refugee status,” she said, referring specifically to Roma and Mexican migrants. Kenney stressed that the Conservatives have played a constructive role, historically and recently, in immigration policy. He referred to John Diefenbaker, Conservative prime minister from 1957 to 1963, who eliminated racial considerations in immigration decisions. Of his own time in office, Kenney said of the refugee claims process that, “any changes I make will likely add procedural fairness to the asylum system…including a system with a lot of appeals.” Last Tuesday, according to the Toronto Star, the Parliamentary citizenship and immigration committee voted to establish an appeal division to hear the cases of rejected refugee claimants, though the five Conservative representatives on the committee voted against the motion. cGill student Jackie Jones will be heard at the Quebec Superior Court on November 25, after she filed a racial profiling complaint to the Quebec Human Rights Commission (QHRC) in early July, with the help of the Centre for Research-Action on Race Relations (CRARR). Jones, a black woman, was accosted and arrested by five security guards at the Peel metro station in late March of this year. At the time of arrest, Jones was standing at the top of the stairs of the downtown station with a Hispanic male friend. They were asked by two Société de transport de Montréal (STM) security guards to step aside in French. One of the guards became angry when Jones requested they repeat their request in English. “They said ‘move now!’ and it was a bit aggressive. I listened and was going to move on, but I told them that there is no need for the aggression. At this point they asked for my ID and were going to give me a ticket,” Jones said. “When I started to question them about why I was receiving a ticket, one of the guards grabbed my arm and twisted it to my back. They called for three more male security guards, who slammed me onto the ground and handcuffed me,” she added. After a brief discussion with the police who later arrived, and the discovery that Jones was a McGill student, she was released. But Jones felt that she was a victim of racial profiling and asked for help from the CRARR. According to Adrienne Gibson, a civil rights advocate at CRARR – a Montreal-based non-profit public interest organization – this is not an individual incident, but is among many other cases that are related to racial profiling. “We have a number of cases where the police [or metro security guards] target members of the black community, particularly young men and women, but not exclusively. These kinds of incidences happen and it is a systemic problem. It is a larger problem and has serious consequences for communities,” Gibson said. In August, Jones received court papers citing two criminal charges for obstructing the work of civil servants in relation to the incident and was fined $100. Jones advised students who have faced similar situations to share their experiences so that the systemic problem can be resolved. “If there’s anybody who has ever been assaulted in this type of way without any reasoning, if they can share their stories with CRARR, then we can try to attack this situation from a citizen standpoint…and try to see what the source of the problem is,” Jones said. Gibson felt that a solution would not be possible unless other victims also come forward. “We think that the only way to stop this is to get people to come forward and to talk about what’s happening so that we can start coming up with some solutions,” Gibson said. Just a heads up, The Daily will be taking next Thursday off, so the first special issue of the year, Migrants, will be published on November 2. Still interested in getting involved? Contact coordinating@mcgilldaily.com, or stop by our office, Shatner B-24. See you in November! The McGill Daily Editorial Board � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Coverage from The McGill Daily Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data PDF Volume 99 Issue 15 Page Number(s) 5 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource McGill student victim of racial profiling Description An account of the resource A report of a McGill student being heard at the Quebec Superior Court regarding a racial profiling case. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephanie Law Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The McGill Daily Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2009/10/26 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Language A language of the resource English police racism