Soroush: First and foremost, thank you so much for giving us your time. We basically have just a few questions. One question that I feel is integral/essential is: How did we get here in terms of the family reunification policy? Why was there such a backlog to begin with and why was it not foreseen in the past? Suddenly you bring out this new policy and many people are like “Oh my God, what is this?” but they don’t realize that this has been a problem for a while. How did the problem come into place?

Minister Kenney: There’s been a bigger problem that our Government inherited. When we came to office in 2006 we discovered that there was a total immigration backlog of 850,000 applications submitted, with application fees, in our system. And the reason this happened is because about 10 years ago the previous government brought in the new immigration act which imposed on the government an obligation to accept and process every application that it received. In a world where there is infinite demand to come to Canada but obviously a finite number of people that we can accept, that was a recipe for disaster. So, over the ensuing several years they were accepting about 450,000 immigrant applications a year, on average, but admitting 220,000 new permanent residents per year, on average; which means that they were over-selling the immigration plane to Canada 2 to 1. Let’s say there were 220,000 seats [on a plane], they were selling 440,000 tickets. So, every year there was a huge number of people who didn’t get on the plane and then they just added to that backlog year after year over-selling the plane by accepting a huge surplus of applications over admissions.

Some people think the problem is the incompetence of my department: “Why can’t you just process more; be more efficient?” That’s not the problem. Last year we admitted 280,000 permanent residents; the highest number in Canada since the First World War. Since we came to office we’ve increased immigration levels admitting, on average, 254,000 permanent residents per year. Some people confuse this and say that we’re bringing temporary [residents], no, those are permanent immigrants. That’s the highest sustained level of immigration in Canadian history. It is also the highest per capita level of immigration in the developed world. So the problem isn’t that we are insufficiently generous. The problem isn’t inefficiency in my department. The problem is, as generous as we are, there are still practical limits to how many people we can welcome and integrate. I don’t want a situation where we just increase immigration levels irrationally just to bring in more numbers regardless of the capacity of our economy and our society to integrate people. I want to make sure that the folks who are coming are able to find and keep good jobs or start successful businesses, that they’re able to integrate; that our healthcare system, our schools, our housing, has the capacity to absorb the people who are coming.

Now, we also must be mindful of public opinions. While Canadians are tremendously open to immigration and the diversity that comes with it, they also know that there are practical limits to how many people we can receive. Now, 8 out of 10 Canadians are consistently telling us, in polls and in consultations, that immigrations are already high enough or too high. Only 1 out of 10 Canadians say we should increase levels. So, next year we’re increasing levels a little bit. The operational target this year is 254,000. Next year we’re going up to 260,000, to be honest we’ll probably come up to 265,000. So, 8 out of 10 Canadians are saying “That’s enough. Don’t go above that,” but as long as we continue to receive 4-500,000 applications, guess what? The backlogs will grow and the wait times will get longer.

I’m sorry for the long answer, but you need to understand the broader problem. In the particular parents and grandparents program we’ve been receiving about 40,000 applications a year. But, historically governments, of different parties, have only admitted on average 17,000. Now, that’s still very generous. It’s a higher percentage of immigrations coming as parents and grandparents than to any other country. But, it’s still not nearly high enough to correspond to the demand of 40-50,000 a year. And so what we are trying to do as a government is to bring in the same kind of, frankly, common-sense management tools that every other immigrant receiving country has, so that the number of applications that we have to process roughly corresponds to the number of people that we can admit; so there’s an equilibrium rather than a big imbalance.

So this leads me to the announcement I made last week, the Action Plan for Faster Family Reunification. Oh, one last point. If I do nothing on parents and grandparents program we are headed for a backlog of 350,000 applications with a 20 year wait time by the end of this decade, the year 2020; if I do nothing. It is out of control. The easiest thing to do politically would be to do nothing. Just let that problem fester and say it was the other governments fault and, you know, we’ll get around to it. That would be irresponsible. It is totally unacceptable to tell people to wait 20 years, so we had to announce this thing.

Backlogs are created when applications exceed admissions over time and backlogs are reduced when admissions exceed applications over time. It is a math problem and so that’s what we’re doing. We are going to increase the number of admissions in that program from 15-25,000. That’s a 60% increase, it’s going to the highest level of admissions for parents and grandparents in our history and the share of our total immigration that will be amongst parents and grandparents will go from 6% to 9% as a result of this huge increase. At the same time we’re putting on the 2 year temporary pause. We’ll open up the program for new applications in 2 years, but our hope is that 2 years from now, as a result of these measures, the backlog will be about half as large as it currently is and the wait-times will be about half as long.

In the ensuing two years we will consult with Canadians, including the Persian community, on how we can redesign the parents program to make it sustainable, fast and fair in the future. Let me be clear about this. We are not suggesting that we should stop family reunification or even severely restrict it. What we are suggesting is that the program has to be better managed so we do not bring in way more applications each year than we are able to process and admit. And that’s where we’ll have to make difficult decisions. In the consultations we’ll look at all sorts of options. We’ll be releasing a discussion paper early in the New Year. We will have on-line consultations, town hall meetings round-table discussions, scientific polling, PMs will be involved, parliamentary committee on immigration will be studying this. The question will be: how can we better manage this program to, yes, maintain our tradition of family reunification, but to do so in a sustainable way that reflects our country’s limited resources.

The only way that I could reduce the backlog in the parents program without capping or reducing applications, so, the only way I could do this, through admissions, would be to go from 15,000 to 50,000 or 60,000 admissions a year of parents and grandparents. Now, I suppose, for people whose only concern is bringing their parents here, that might seem like a sensible option, but everyone else would be opposed to it because they know that three quarters of healthcare costs are associated with people after the age of 65. This is not an argument against family reunification. It’s an argument about scarce resources. It already takes people three years to get a family physician, 8 hours to see an emergency physician sometimes. Can you imagine what would happen if all of a sudden I tell the province “I’m sorry, over the course of the next five years we are going to bring in 300,000 additional senior citizens from overseas.” They’ll think I’m absolutely nuts. So, I’m just telling you the truth, which is yes to family reunification, yes to parental sponsorship, but on a sustainable basis.

Mary Jo: Part of the question is, as you mentioned, it is a math issue, but is there an answer to the question of why this problem wasn’t foreseen from the beginning?

Minister Kenney: No, because the previous government should have seen, when they made the legal change in 2001, they should have seen that there would be a perpetual surplus of applications over the ability to admit people. But here’s the problem; you know what I honestly think the answer to the question is? Canadians, we’re notoriously polite. We don’t like saying “no” to anyone and they just didn’t want to say “no.” They just didn’t want to say to some people “I’m sorry, we won’t be able to accept and process your application this year.” It was easier to say “yes” to everyone all the time. And when you say “yes” to everyone all the time you end up with a problem like this. That’s what it was, it was a lack of political courage. I’m sorry, that’s my own view.

Soroush: There’s a famous saying that “when you try to please everyone, you please no one.”

Minister Kenney: Well that’s what’s ended up happening. And so, some people are going to be ticked off at us that we’re saying “you can’t submit your new application for parental sponsorship in the next 2 years.” I say to them: “Let me be honest with you. You submit the application and you’re just going to the back of an 8 year queue.” In a sense, what’s the point? Give us some patience as we try to fix this and in 2 years when we reopen the program based on new criteria you should be able to apply and the wait times will then be 4 years and in the meantime, in principle, your parents will be able to get a visa for an extended visit of up to 2 years on a 10 year multiple entry visa, this new Super Visa, which will also protect the interest of taxpayers by requiring that they obtain private healthcare insurance. In that sense, I think everyone’s better off. People who are currently in the queue will see Mom and Dad quicker, people who are not yet in the queue should be able to reapply in a faster-moving program and people in general should, in principle, be able to get the Super Visa for extended visits. So, I’m hoping that reasonable people will support it.

Mary Jo: I wanted to ask you quickly about the Super Visa. Moving forward, once you potentially have the backlog in order, is the Super Visa going to remain ongoing? Is the intention to actually, at some point, reduce the amount of parents and grandparents immigrating to Canada?

Minister Kenney: I’ll tell you this, I don’t see a time when it’s going to go more than 25,000 that we admit. So, it will probably in the range of 20,000 in the future. So, we do intend to keep the Super Visa available in the future. It starts on December 1st, people must demonstrate that the hosting family here has an adequate income to take care of their parents for the 2 year extended stay, which is defined as the low-income cut-off. It is quite modest; it’s like $17,000 for an individual. Secondly, the parents must be medically admissible. So, they cannot have a serious pre-existing health condition. Thirdly, they must demonstrate when they come to the airport, here, that they have a healthcare policy that covers them for the duration of their stay in Canada. As long as there’s a high degree of compliance, as long as we don’t see a whole bunch of those parents visiting making false refugee claims or overstaying; as long as they respect the rules, we will be able to maintain the program. If there is widespread abuse of the rules, we’ll have to look at it again. Our hope is to keep it in place long term.

Soroush: One main concern that comes up in the bigger picture is the fact that some issues are not mathematical. Family values or psychological factors, for example. With regards to Canada, we have a multicultural society. Some cultures, perhaps, care a lot more about family values and perhaps see this new policy from a very different perspective than others may see it. Has this policy taken this multiculturalism into account that people from different cultures, such as the Iranian culture in which there is a very close relationship between adults and their parents, may have different perspectives on this issue? Has the government taken this issue into consideration that some people will react very differently than others?

Minister Kenney: Yes, absolutely and I think you can see the fact that we have taken into account the huge priority that many new Canadians place on family reunification. You can see the fact that we have taken that into account in our policy. So, this explains why, against public opinion, we’re increasing parental reunification massively to the highest levels ever by going up by 10,000 a year, increase by 60%; because we are very sensitive to that view. If I was just following general public opinion, we would eliminate the program. Most Canadians don’t see the need for it. A lot of older immigrants say: “When I came here I wasn’t able to sponsor my parents, we made it on our own.” A lot of native born Canadians say “Why are we bringing people into our public healthcare system.” We just did a consultation in my ministry and I think 45% of people said we should shut down the parents program, another 30% said we should dramatically reduce the number coming in. I’m doing the opposite. I’m expanding the program. So, this is against my political interests and I’m doing it because I’m sensitive to the cultural value of family reunification. But, again, in the real world there are reasonable limits to our generosity and so I have to find a balance. And the balance for me isn’t going up to 50 or 60000, the balance is the numbers that we have come up with. So, yes is the answer to your question. We have considered it. I am very aware of those concerns.

Soroush: I would like to thank you, once more, for giving us this opportunity to sit down and have a one-on-one interview with you.

Voter’s Guide to Local Elections in BC

Mr. Esmaeilpour: We officially started in January, 2010 and our first milestones were set at a 3-year, a 5-year and a 10-year, plus. We broke down the first phase of the project to a 3-year plan: one of the major tasks in the 3-year plan was to introduce Civic IC in five different cities. The second major task was to establish the City Committees among those cities. And, the third part was getting the community involved in the first civic, provincial, and federal elections.

In all five cities, we had several meetings to introduce Civic IC; its goals, visions and its purpose in the society, also inviting interested people and asking them to participate in civic activities. In UBC- Vancouver, Coquitlam, Burnaby, and West Vancouver we had a number of public meetings in which we talked with people, describing the whole idea of the association to them. Those who were interested joined the association and later elected their City Executive Committee. It took about one year and the most recent City Committee election took place in North Vancouver in February 2011. We saved North Vancouver for last to gain experience from the other cities before moving on to the community with the most Iranian population. After establishing the city committees, we started to get involved with politics. So in summary, the foundation was to establish the City Committees.

Goonagoon: What is the next big milestone?

Mr. Esmaeilpour: The next big milestone, maybe this is not a milestone but a part of a milestone, is to involve the Iranian community in all three levels of the election: municipal, provincial and federal. We broke down this milestone into three deliverable tasks. First we completed the federal election part. We hold five all-candidates meetings in five different cities. Second, We are going to set up five all-candidates meetings for the municipal election. Meanwhile, we have planned to work with some corporate groups. For example, on October 20th there will be an all-candidates meeting in West Vancouver with West Vancouver Citizens for Good Government, at the Key Meek Centre. Also, on November 4th there will be another all-candidates meeting with the Capitol Hill Community Association in Burnaby. Another meeting will be in Vancouver (Downtown) in cooperation with the West End Resident Association. So basically we try to cooperate with some of the Canadian associations in order to gain experience in enhancing our activity levels.

Goonagoon: And the next municipal election is on November 19th, correct?

Mr. Esmaeilpour: Yes.

Goonagoon: It definitely shows that you are motivated to help Iranians and you’re really encouraged to do what you can to help the community. It’s really good to see motivated individuals helping our community, thank you.

Mr. Esmaeilpour: Thank you.

Goonagoon: In order to build a strong community we need people to learn to cooperate with one another. Perhaps in the Iranian community this cooperation is lacking, or maybe not as strong as, for example the Asian Community in Richmond, or some other communities that are always working together. On the Q&A section on your website you say that you’re open to work with any organization and, in my opinion, that’s really good because by doing so you set an example for others to follow. When you work with other organizations it shows that we need to and indeed we can work with one another.

Could you please tell me about your previous cooperation other Iranian organizations. Also, what do you expect from other Iranian organizations? How could they help Iranians get involved with Canadian politics? What can they do and how do you think they could actively help you to get the Iranian community involved?

Mr. Esmaeilpour: Democracy needs practice and working together needs exercising. We have lived many, many years without a democratic environment (in our native country), thus we are not accustomed to living in a democratic manner. I personally, am practicing democracy and exercising my rights within a democracy. Working together definitely needs training like everything else. I was involved with some of the Iranian associations before establishing this association. As a member on the board I was involved with various problems. I found one of the main problems to be not knowing or not being interested to know about democracy. Also, I believe that one of the major problems for the Iranian community is getting involved in Iran’s political issues. We Iranians are currently living here. We go to work/school, and we are somehow involved in the Canadian community. But because of the differences in the political backgrounds (in Iran), in a time where unity is needed, unfortunately we don’t cooperate with one another. If we could eliminate this element, many problems would be solved. That was one of our achievements in Civic IC , which has been addressed in our constitution.

Also, when people don’t abide by democratic rules and don’t honour each other’s rights (for example, when one doesn’t tolerate the other’s idea), problems cannot be solved easily among them. So, what would be the best technique to solve these problems? I think I think the best technique is to bypass these disagreements by getting more involved in the Canadian environment and learning from Canadian values. Here (in Canada) we see that members from different parties (e.g. liberal, conservative, or NDP) all work together in a respectful manner. So if they can do it, why can’t we?

In the last federal election we had all-candidates meetings in which we worked with 5 different Iranian and Canadian associations; 3 Iranian and 2 Canadian: SICAP, TCICS, SUTA, WERA, and CHCHA. We cooperate with each other to set up these meetings. That was a very good practice for working together. Thankfully all of them worked fine; and it was a very impressive experience.

Goonagoon: It’s really good to hear these examples because it encourages people by showing that cooperation is possible.

I have had numerous discussions with Goonagoon’s directors, who are mostly young and have been educated here, at UBC and University of Victoria. In a way, at Goonagoon, we have the perspectives of both cultures. Personally, I have lived half of my life in Iran and a little more than half of my life here so far. At times it seems difficult to discuss Canadian politics with Iranians without getting involved with the Iranian politics inside Iran, and as we know such discussions usually get quite heated. As soon as I found out about your organization and your neutrality, I felt it was very important that more people learn about your organization and, so far, your answers have been very helpful.

It is clear that your association is putting much energy and time into providing the Iranian community in Greater Vancouver with much needed services.

My next questions is: what do you expect from the (Iranian) people? How would you like the Iranian community to respond to you? How would you like them to help you with your attempts and how would you like them to show appreciation with regards to your services? In short, how do you want them to perceive your organization?

Mr. Esmaeilpour: We ask Iranian-Canadians to get more involved in their civic life and gain from present cultures and opportunities in this country. Our association expects people to get involved and participate in our meetings and financially support us. Our last year financial report showed that the donations to our association were three times the membership fees. We are really grateful, but we expect more involvement and commitment. We are open to any questions people might have as we believe that by having people ask these questions we can make clarifications. When we ask people to get involved with the municipal election we don’t mean ‘vote for who’ we say ‘just vote’.

In the last federal election I put 3 different signs for each candidate (Liberal, conservative and NDP parties) in the lawn of my house. In my belief, voting is more important than voting ‘for who.’ Later it got some positive media attention. I think it is mostly important to get involved.

During the process of registering the association we talked to many people. Some were councillors or politicians from different ethnic groups. They helped us greatly. They said “our nations came to Canada almost a hundred years ago, but after 50 years we understood that living in this country and having a legal entity, requires involvement.” They believed that if our community became involved in the society and its activities within 30 years that would be divine. They offered us their help and support. So we try to take shortcuts by learning from their experiences.

Goonagoon: In this way, we can learn from the experiences of other cultures. In a way this helps us to get closer to other cultures as well.

On the one hand, it seems that the Iranian community is often unwilling to get involved with other cultures. Subsequently, they’re not participating in other cultures’ cultural events. They seem to only want to go to Iranian events. In a way, they’re not willing to integrate.

On the other hand, within the Iranian community they’re not willing to get united. If we can’t get united from within, how can we get involved with other cultures and integrate, in order to realize that every culture is a good culture? At times, it seems that the Iranians are very proud and in turn that pride stops them from getting to know the significance and beauty of other cultures and traditions. Our history is rich, without a doubt, however, it seems that our pride in our rich heritage, for some reason, stops us from getting to know other cultures. What do you think about this? How can we change this?

Mr. Esmaeilpour: Firstly I think the source of the problem is the same. The reason why some of us cannot work together is the reason why our organizations cannot work together and our society cannot integrate.

I think practicing democracy and having knowledge about democracy helps people to realize that they are now living in a new and different environment. Canada is recognized as having a human rights-based constitution. We can support our community by bringing this issue to the young generation, educating and inviting them to our association and asking the older generation to get more involved as well. Without appealing to the young people, I think it’s impossible… I think we should work together and educate people to work cooperatively. I don’t like to use the word “united” so I say ‘working together.’ This is what we need to learn and need to practice.

Goonagoon: And we can get involved with other cultures?

Mr. Esmaeilpour: Yes, exactly. One of our meetings next year, for example, will be coordinated with members of the Greek community. The leaders of the Greek community and the Canadian-Greek people who have had a lot of experience are going to describe the Canadian-Greek experience to members of our community. Another workshop that we will be having in January or February 2012 is the “Charter of Rights and Freedom” workshop and the lecturers will be experts in the field. They are from BC Civil Liberties Association. So these are some things we think we can do, and little by little we will build and develop our community social-political infrastructure. Finally these changes can lead to our goals.

Passing through this route, practising democracy is the key element for developing our community.

Goonagoon: Thank you so much.

It was really great to meet you and have this discussion with you. You can consider Goonagoon Magazine your friend and we will try our best to help you in any way that we can. You can know that we, at Goonagoon magazine, have very similar goals as you: to get Iranians to work together and with other cultures and to get the Iranian students and youth involved in the Iranian community. These are our main goals and hopefully together we can work to achieve these goals.

Thank you so much for your time