So, You've Reviewed All Those Cases Minister Kenney?

So, Mexicans and Czech citizens will need visas to travel to Canada now.

Why? Because Mr. Kenney has himself worked into a lather because he feels that there are too many refugee claimants coming from those two countries:

Ottawa placed the restrictions on citizens of Mexico and the Czech Republic to counter a rising number of travellers who claimed refugee status in Canada rather than return home.

In the first three months of 2009, 3,648 Mexicans and 653 Czechs claimed refugee status after arriving in Canada – many of the Czechs are said to be from that country's Roma minority.

Okay. Your point, Mr. Kenney is what? You can prove that all of these claimants are not legitimate refugee claimants? Or do you just think that they aren't?

Or ... is this just more Conservative mendacity coming to the fore, and instead of solving the real problems, you just want to punish those that you consider to be the source?

Jason Kenney has since said that we need to "reform" our refugee system:

“When we raise with our partners in foreign countries the issue of false asylum claims, or large flows like we've seen from Mexico and Czech Republic, they turn the discussion back on us, and say, ‘Your system is inviting this kind of abuse. And you need to fix your system,' ” Mr. Kenney said.

He wouldn't say what he has in mind to speed up the system, but noted Britain's 2004 changes as an “interesting reference point.”

Britain fast-tracked asylum claims from countries considered generally safe, to discourage false claimants from those countries by deciding their cases quickly, and sending home those rejected.

Uh huh. Sounds like more of the Conservative "get tough on crime" BS. Punitive measures taken against people on the assumption of wrongdoing instead of actually engaging due process and making sure that things are resourced in a way that the system can deal with the demands.

This business of "it's the fault of our system" is smoke and mirrors - it's an attempt by the minister to deflect attention away from the egregious and unnecessary travel restrictions which have tones that only neo-nazis and skinheads would approve of.

If there are real problems with the immigration system, Mr. Kenney and the rest of the HarperClones should start enumerating how they intend to address these issues, instead of taking precipitous and punitive actions against other nations.

Mr. Kenney is musing about adopting some approaches that Tony Blair attempted in Britain in 2004 ... but he's avoiding committing to any sensible dialogue of what he intends to do. Once again, we have the HarperCon$ doing meaningless grandstanding without presenting any kind of meaningful policy that Canadians can discuss.

Harper is eroding Canadian democracy and values one issue at a time - and in a manner that is uniquely destructive to Canada.