Canadian Immigration Minister Denies Toronto Mayor’s Gangster-Exile Option

The Canadian Immigration Minister, Jason Kenney, denied any possibility of realizing the proposal by Toronto’s Mayor Rob Ford to exile gangsters involved in the gun-crimes from the city, this Thursday.

Kenney said that people can’t be told where and where not to live by the Canadian government. “And if someone is a Canadian citizen, and they are convicted of a crime, there is nothing we can do to deport them,” he said.

The Immigration Minister made these statements on a local radio station on Friday; the same station that hosted Mayor Ford’s interview on Thursday evening.

He said that if a Canadian citizen has committed a crime, they will serve time in prison. After they are released and are beyond parole, the Charter of Rights allows them freedom of mobility.

Mayor Ford had announced, this Wednesday, that in retaliation to the Scarborough shooting; he is going to meet with the Prime Minister Stephen Harper. He said he intends to discuss a proposal to exile convicted gangsters from the city of Toronto using provisions from the immigration law of the country. But, when later asked about what exactly he meant from this or how was he planning to do this, Ford could not clarify his statement and responded by only saying that he just doesn’t want to see the convicted gangsters in Toronto.

The next day, Ford unexpectedly went on a local radio station to clarify his statements that they were not particularly meant to wall immigrants. He said he wants the gangsters out of the city, immigrant or citizen it doesn’t matter.

When the provisions of the Charter of Rights were pointed out by a co-host on the show, Ford was unable to facilitate them with a rational response. He even appreciated the co-host’s knowledge of the provisions and admitted that he was not more familiar with them than the host was.

Kenney said that he did agree with the Mayor on increasing measures to deport those gangsters that are not citizens.

Mayor Ford also intends on meeting with Premier Dalton McGuinty this Monday, to discuss the issue with him and request an increase in funding for the Toronto Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy team, a force that particularly targets crime concentrated areas.

On a visit to a Boys and Girls club in Scarborough, the Premier McGuinty regarded the Mayor’s views on community grants to be unfortunate and short-sighted. McGuinty said that just by increasing the police funds will not solve the problem. He said that the real task was to find and eliminate the cause of such actions, and by going directly at the young generation this could be stopped. He said community programs attack the root of the problem and not merely the face of it. He also repeated his appeal to nationally ban all handguns.

Meanwhile, Ford also met with community leaders to discuss the issue with them and to sort out a mutual solution for it. Margaret Parsons, the African Canadian Legal Clinic executive director, said that the meeting was definitive. She said that the meeting focused on ways to responsibly handle the situation. “He is the Mayor for every single Torontonian,” she said,”and we have to feel that he is approaching issues in a very responsible way.”

Tags: Canada, Canada immigration, Charter of Rights, Citizenship and Immigration Canada, Immigration, Jason Kenney, Mayor Rob Ford, Premier Dalton McGuinty, Prime Minister Stephen Harper