05) CANADA'S IMMIGRATION GUANTANAMO

 

People's Voice Editorial

 

     On Sept. 18, over 180 immigration detainees in Lindsay, Ontario's Central East Correctional Centre began protests against their detention conditions. The detainees were recently moved from other prisons in the Greater Toronto Area, further from families and legal support. Some began a hunger strike which has since ended, but other actions continue.

 

     Their demands are simple: better access to medical care, social workers and legal services, cheaper phone calls, better food, an end to constant lockdowns, transfers nearer to families and resources. Some are designated as "high security" based on flimsy grounds, such as an arrest that has not led to conviction. Some have been in jail for over seven years because Canada has no limit on how long someone can be held prior to deportation.

 

     Here are some further facts, from the group No One Is Illegal. Between 2004 and 2011, 82,000 people were locked up in immigration detention in Canada, plus at least another 25,000 since then. In 2012, 289 of these detainees were children, some under the age of ten. About one-third of immigration detainees are held in maximum security provincial prisons, some unable to leave their cells for 18 hours a day. It costs taxpayers over $50,000 annually to hold such prisoners. Immigration detention centres are a $50 million business, run in partnership with private companies like G4S, Garda and Corbel Management. In Toronto alone, G4S and Corbel were paid $19 million between 2004 and 2008.

 

     In the last ten years, the number of people without full status (refugee claimants, temporary workers, etc.) has increased by 60% but permanent residency visas have stayed constant. Refugee acceptance rates are less then 25%. Migrants denied full status have to live without papers, services, justice or dignity, in daily fear of detention. Those arrested are locked up in brutish conditions awaiting forced deportations.

 

     There is nothing humane about this racist system - Canada's own shameful mass Guantanamo must be ended now!

 

(The above article is from the October 1-15, 2013, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)