Many Canadians wonder: Is it safe to travel to U.S.?
TRUMP’S ORDER SOWS FEAR AMONG IMMIGRANT COMMUNITIES
Uncertainty gnawed at Mehran Shirazi on Sunday. The PhD engineering student at Simon Fraser University had hoped to visit his brother in New York this year, but those plans have been scuttled for now after the U.S. imposed temporary travel restrictions on people from seven Muslimmajority countries, including Iran, where Shirazi is from.
Shirazi, who is a permanent resident of Canada and holds only an Iranian passport, isn’t sure whether he’d make it across the border.
“It’s a little sad that people are punished because of the place they were born,” he said.
Shirazi’s comments reflect the mass confusion and outrage sowed this weekend by a sweeping immigration order by U.S. President Donald Trump that barred citizens from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen from entering the country for 90 days.
Even after the Trudeau government gave its assurance that Canadian passport holders, including dual citizens, as well as permanent Canadian residents, were exempt from the travel ban, the question still lingered for many who had trips planned: is it safe to travel?
Toronto’s Mehrdad Hariri, CEO of the Canadian Science Policy Centre, has a Canadian passport but is still unsure whether he will attend a conference in Boston in two weeks.
Hariri, a dual citizen of Canada and Iran, said he worries U.S. customs officers could still give him a rough time because of where he was born, just like what happened in the months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
“I missed flights, they questioned me for hours,” he said. “We don’t know how the policy is being implemented at the gates at the airports. … I am still very cautious.”
Members of the Iranian-Canadian community said they had heard anecdotal reports of people facing extensive questioning at U.S. airports but those reports could not be verified.
Toronto immigration lawyer Lorne Waldman said Sunday he would advise people like Hariri to wait a couple days before travelling to the U.S. if they can.
“I would urge them to proceed with caution and perhaps to wait a day or two so that the instructions reach the local level,” he said. “It is clear that the whole issuance of the executive order was poorly handled by the U.S. administration, who had obviously not thought through all of the consequences.”
Meanwhile, the leaders of over 150 Canadian tech firms and tech incubators issued a public letter calling on the Trudeau government to make special accommodations — in the form of temporary-residency visas — for any individuals denied entry into the U.S.
“Canadian tech companies understand the power of inclusion and diversity of thought, and that talent and skill know no borders. … By embracing diversity, we can drive innovation to benefit the world,” read the letter signed by executives from companies including Shopify, Wealthsimple, and OMERS Ventures.
Aaron Brindle, a Google Canada spokesman, said in an email more than 100 Google employees were affected by the ban, though he wouldn’t say exactly how.
“Our engineers work on global teams building products that are used by billions of people … Of course we’re concerned about the impact of this order and any proposals that could impose restrictions on Googlers and their families. We’ll continue to make our views on these issues known to leaders in Washington and elsewhere,” he said.
But the differentiation should not have come in the form of a tweet from a prime minister trying to build bridges with the new president.
Justin Trudeau’s “welcome to Canada” tweet on Saturday made headlines around the world — the BBC, New York Times and Al-Jazeera all portrayed the Prime Minister in the vanguard of opposition to Trump’s policy.
This will have played well domestically — opposition to Trump crosses party lines but there remains a virulent strain of anti-Americanism on the progressive left that last found voice in Liberal ads suggesting a Stephen Harper victory in 2006 would put a smile on George W. Bush’s face.
But while the tweet may have helped boost Trudeau’s political fortunes, it was not in the national interest. This is not Love Actually and Trudeau is not Hugh Grant, publicly berating a U.S. president for bullying his allies.
Canada’s most important bilateral relationship is with the U.S. and getting on with the Americans has been one of the most important obligations of any prime minister.
The Trudeau government avoided being targeted with protectionist measures like a border adjustment tax by working constructively with an incoming administration on which it disagreed on just about everything. Instead the Liberals focused on areas of commonality and muted their grievances.
At least we think we have avoided discriminatory measures. Who knows how a figure as mercurial and vindictive as Trump might respond once he reads the headlines in his beloved New York Times?
It would have been more diplomatic to have a member of the Trudeau cabinet, such as Somalia-born immigration minister Ahmed Hussen, say that Canada remains open to refugees and immigrants. (Hussen did say Sunday that Canada will issue temporary residency permits to anyone stranded in this country because of the ban. And he defended Trudeau’s tweet, saying it was a “very important re-stating of the long-standing tradition” of welcoming those seeking protection.)
This would have been a disciplined and discreet way of expressing Canada’s displeasure at the new policy, without tweaking Trump’s warped ego. The President lives in a world of absolutes, where, if you’re not with him, you hate America.
Thus far, Trudeau has been remarkably successful, considering their differences, at getting along with the new president.
The world needs that relationship to flourish. During some future crisis, Trudeau’s role as interlocutor — someone whose word carries weight in Washington — may prove crucial. We have already seen the Chinese reach out to the Canadian prime minister as someone who can talk to Trump.
But that role is in jeopardy, if the restraint that has characterized the relationship is abandoned. The tweet was a calculated attempt to bolster sliding domestic support by upbraiding an unpopular president. It was a mistake.