XPost: can.politics, bc.politics, ont.politics   
   XPost: ab.politics   
   From: ConsRCons@govt.cda   
      
   Times Colonist - August 22, 2013   
      
      
   Don’t let ‘birth tourists’ scam the system   
      
      
   A decade ago, novelist Yann Martel referred to Canada as “the greatest   
   hotel on Earth.” However he personally meant that phrase, it has been   
   widely embraced as a criticism of Canadian immigration policies that   
   allow many foreigners to enjoy the benefits of this country without   
   sharing in the duties and obligations of citizenship.   
      
   In other words, you can check in, enjoy the facilities, and then check   
   out without paying the bill.   
      
   The latest kerfuffle about “birth tourists” suggests the hotel metaphor   
   should be extended to Canada’s hospitals. According to a recent report   
   by Postmedia’s Stewart Bell, dozens of pregnant Nigerian women, supplied   
   with forged and stolen passports, have arrived in Canada in the past   
   year with the sole purpose of delivering their babies on Canadian soil   
   and, thereby, ensuring they have citizenship.   
      
   The Canadian Border Security Agency has, it appears, been reluctant to   
   speculate on why so many expectant Africans were visiting Canada, merely   
   observing that the numbers were “reminiscent” of other attempts to   
   exploit birthright laws.   
      
   No kidding. Pregnant Chinese women have been flocking to the West Coast   
   for years, staying in so-called birth homes until their child needs to   
   be delivered, and then returning to China assured that if/when things go   
   bad in that country, their children will have Canadian citizenship.   
   Korea, Haiti and French-speaking North Africa are also sources of birth   
   tourism.   
      
   The Conservatives, normally loath to upset ethnic communities (all those   
   potential votes, you know), recognize the problem. The government   
   announced last year that it was considering changing citizenship rules.   
      
   “We don’t want to encourage birth tourism or passport babies,” said   
   former immigration minister Jason Kenney “This is, in many cases, being   
   used to exploit Canada’s generosity.”   
      
   In 2004, Ireland held a referendum that approved revoking nationality   
   laws that had guaranteed automatic citizenship on the basis of   
   territorial birth. The decision prompted other European countries to   
   change their citizenship laws so that now, no single nation in Europe   
   grants unrestricted territorial birthright citizenship.   
      
   “The global trend is moving away from automatic birthright citizenship,”   
   says Jon Feere, a researcher with the Center for Immigration Studies. Of   
   all the developed countries, only Canada and the U.S. maintain this   
   practice. In the U.S., there are about 40,000 births year involving   
   birth-tourist parents.   
      
   Politicians won’t do anything. Conservative, Liberal or New Democrat,   
   they don’t want to risk the ethnic/immigrant vote.   
      
   This is irresponsible as well as undemocratic. To have citizenship is to   
   possess, at least ideally, equality with all other citizens in terms of   
   rights and responsibilities.  More deeply, to be a citizen is to be part   
   of a larger project that spans generations; you are attached, however   
   unreflectively, to those who have gone before and those who are to come.   
      
   But citizenship also inevitably has an “exclusionary” dimension. No   
   nation can afford, economically, culturally or politically, to let   
   everyone be a member. Thus, membership has value. However, if there are   
   no obligations attached to citizenship, if, as in this case, you can   
   enjoy the stay and depart without payment, this value is debased and,   
   arguably, the sense of belonging others derive from their membership is   
   diluted.   
      
   To raise such issues is to risk accusations of intolerance and racism,   
   those all-purpose putdowns designed to prevent debate. But perhaps   
   name-calling is worth the risk. Birth tourism breeds “chain migration” —   
   children born of non-citizen mothers can when they reach adulthood   
   sponsor an overseas spouse and unmarried children of his or her own,   
   along with parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters.   
      
   This imposes a “significant” long-term burden on taxpayers, says Martin   
   Collacott of the Ottawa-based Centre for Immigration Policy Reform.   
   “When they are old enough, these birth citizenship children will be able   
   to sponsor their parents as immigrants to Canada, and the latter will   
   cost taxpayers as much as $300,000 each in terms of their entitlements.”   
      
   Medical professionals are the most vocal on this issue. Doctors and   
   hospital administrators have repeatedly complained that Canada is widely   
   regarded as a great hospital. Hospitals, they say, receive too many   
   women without legal immigration status who show up to give birth and   
   then skip out before they pay the bills. Birth tourists scam the system,   
   consuming resources for which others have paid.   
      
   As Shelley Ross, president of the B.C. Medical Association, puts it: “To   
   come in and use the system to your advantage and never give anything in   
   return is not right.”   
      
   No kidding.   
      
      
      
   - -  Robert Sibley is a writer with the Ottawa Citizen editorial board.   
      
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