Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - February 24, 2014, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE A11 Winnipeg Free Press Monday, February 24, 2014 A 9 POLL �� TODAY'S QUESTION How do you rate Canada's Olympic performance? �� Vote online at winnipegfreepress. com �� PREVIOUS QUESTION How do you plan to enjoy Sunday's Olympic gold- medal men's hockey game? Enjoy? I'll be a nervous wreck 26% TOTAL RESPONSES 4,119 Winnipeg Free Press est 1872 / Winnipeg Tribune est 1890 VOL 142 NO 104 2014 Winnipeg Free Press, a division of FP Canadian Newspapers Limited Partnership. Published seven days a week at 1355 Mountain Avenue, Winnipeg, Manitoba R2X 3B6, PH: 204- 697- 7000 BOB COX / Publisher PAUL SAMYN / Editor WFP JULIE CARL / Deputy Editor SCAN TO VOTE ON TODAY'S QUESTION T HE Harper government's proposed changes to Canada's citizenship act represent the biggest overhaul of citizenship law in decades. While some of the proposals need to be changed, in all they improve current citizenship laws. The biggest change that will affect anyone applying for Canadian citizenship is the proposal to increase the time that person must live in Canada before applying. Currently, prospective Canadians must have lived in Canada for three out of four years immediately before applying. The proposed changes would require them to live here four of the previous six years. In addition, they would require prospective Canadians to file Canadian income taxes and declare an intention to reside in Canada. Finally, a provision that has allowed certain individuals to claim residency in Canada without being physically present is being eliminated. For the most part, these changes are good. The longer an individual lives, works or studies in Canada, the greater connection that person will have to our country. Requiring prospective Canadians to be physically present in Canada for four out of six years and to file Canadian income taxes is not onerous, given what is granted to them - citizenship. Citizenship bestows rights and protections many foreign nationals do not have. As Canadian citizens, they can vote and seek elected office, so it is important they participate in Canadian life before they become citizens. The one concern is the declaration of intent to stay in Canada. While there is nothing wrong with wanting Canadians to live in Canada, there are many Canadians who contribute to Canada on the world stage. Canada has long recognized the importance of Canadian businesspeople, entertainers, athletes and workers overseas. We should not require them to live in Canada if their ability to contribute to our country can be best served abroad. Also positive is the crackdown on citizenship fraud. The proposal to increase the potential fines and jail time for individuals obtaining citizenship through fraud is important. While care should be taken to ensure inadvertent, accidental or minor misrepresentations do not result in refusals of citizenship applications, individuals acting in a clearly fraudulent manner should suffer the consequences. New provisions that would allow for the revocation and refusal of citizenship if a person has been convicted of treason, terrorism and spying are also welcome. As treason and spying are offences against Canada's interests, the proposal to allow citizenship to be revoked for these offences is reasonable. Since terrorism is not only an offence against Canadians but people in other parts of the world, having a process to strip away citizenship from these types of criminals is reasonable. Having said that, it is important that individuals be convicted of these crimes in a Canadian court before their citizenship is taken away. Citizenship should not be revoked for minor offences. As long as the individual has first been presumed innocent, has had an opportunity to defend themselves and is then found guilty of treason, spying or terrorism beyond a reasonable doubt, revoking Canadian citizenship is reasonable. The proposed change that would allow citizenship to be revoked or refused for a terrorism conviction outside of Canada is cause for concern. Should Canada revoke citizenship for an individual convicted of terrorism in Syria, Iran or North Korea? Should Canada revoke citizenship for an individual convicted of terrorism in the U. S., U. K. or Japan? As it is impossible to ensure an individual is provided with all the protections of Canadian law, including the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, unless that person is tried in Canada, citizenship revocation for a terrorism conviction should only occur if that person is convicted in Canada. R. Reis Pagtakhan is a Winnipeg immigration lawyer. REIS PAGTAKHAN Most changes to Canada's citizenship act make sense B ANG! That's how the Cuban Revolution began. Fidel Castro's " permanent revolution" is now on the verge of going out with a whimper. As importantly, America's historic lapse on Cuban soil is also about to disappear. American polls show new support for normalizing relations with Cuba. Leading U. S. politicians such as Florida's Charlie Crist and major media now advocate for change in the adversarial halfcentury policy that pits the United States against the tiny island nation. U. S. President Barack Obama's recent handshake with Cuban President Raul Castro became a thawing gesture felt around the world. The inevitability of normalized relations is just a question of timing. Will it come prior to the 2016 presidential elections? Or will it just take the passing of 87- year- old Fidel Castro, now more reclusive in his twilight? Regardless of how or when, the certain end of the formalized estrangement between these two nations will be a death blow to the greatest ongoing justification for Castro's revolution. If the end of the Cold War is any indication, normalization will lead to an initial euphoria of increased family reunification. Families and businesses will try to reclaim lost property nationalized after the revolution. Thorough diplomatic negotiations, however, can pre- empt long legal battles. Early euphoria will give way to practical reality, and Cuba will face a painful transition, regardless of the post- Castro regime type - whether an elected democracy or, undesirably, a military dictatorship - and many will suffer through the changes. The country already has a hard time sustaining its medical care and education systems. Whatever social equality currently exists is based on shared scarcity and privation. Fortunately, normalizing relations and ending the long embargo, which the Cubans refer to as " the blockade," will flood the Havana markets with necessary food and other goods. At first, some goods may be subsidized to soften the initial blow. But subsidies always come to an end, as the regime is well aware. In 1996, I was a journalism fellow reporting in Cuba during the " special period" characterized by food shortage and sacrifice. Back then, Cuba's strategic partner and financial backer, the Soviet Union, had collapsed, and its Russian successor state did not renew the deal to send subsidized fuel in exchange for sugar. Keeping American triumphalism at bay after normalization - as presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush did at the end of the Cold War - will be necessary to allow average Cuban citizens, many of them living at the poverty level, to maintain their dignity and national pride. It will be a delicate dance to both encourage and support change, but also to prevent backsliding and profitable exploitation of a country unsophisticated in modern financial and investment structures and swindles, as in post- Berlin Wall Eastern Europe. Property restitution and family reunification are simple issues, however, when compared to the need to release Cuba's remaining political prisoners, including American aid worker Alan Gross. Holding political prisoners in the remaining Cuban gulag who have dared to speak out against the leadership or the party or collectivism's failure to provide basic nutrition and needs, repressing religion or targeting pro- market forces that are not in the service of the ruling elite - this has to end and the remaining prisoners, including Gross, need to be given back their freedom and their voices. When it comes to prisoners in Cuba, America also has to reckon with Guantanamo Bay. Gitmo is beyond an embarrassment. U. S. President Barack Obama recommitted himself during this year's state of the union address to closing down Guantanamo prison. The time has come to shut down this dark chapter in America's extrajudicial history and bury the remnants of the debate over torture. The symmetry and symbolism of such actions can bring Cuba back into a human rights- respecting community of nations and turn America's open wound into a scar that can eventually fade. Markos Kounalakis is a research fellow at Central European University. He is currently a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution. - The Sacramento Bee By Markos Kounalakis Course of Cuban normalization is inevitable, predictable W ASHINGTON - The old dude in the black Escalade with West Virginia plates who is blasting his horn behind you is the son of the son of the son of the greatest robber baron who ever lived. " You need to understand - I'm pretty hardline on this," he is explaining to a squirming roundtable of lesser lords and geniuses, most of whom are half his age. " If it were up to me, cellphones in cars would be illegal." Of all the things that have been up to the man who is speaking, being born with a surname synonymous with rapacious wealth and world- changing philanthropy was not one of them. Now, nearing the age of 77, John D. Rockefeller IV - known universally as " Jay" - is about to retire after 30 years in the United States Senate, leaving no one from his celebrated lineage serving in elective office in any of the 50 states. " I drive myself to work in my good GM car," Rockefeller says. " When the light turns green, if I see someone in front of me looking down, I honk my horn until it stops." Depending on which website you believe, the net worth of the senior senator from West Virginia is either $ 86 million ( getnetworth. com), $ 120 million ( celebritynetworth. com), or exactly $ 101,290,514 ( ballotpedia. com). ( Whatever the correct figure is, he may be the last man in the Senate who wears suspenders.) But this is a pittance compared to the treasure amassed by his great- grandfather John the First before the Supreme Court trust- busted Standard Oil in 1911, or by his 98- year- old uncle, David, the Manhattan banker, or by his late uncle, Nelson, governor of the State of New York and vicepresident of the U. S. A. As a final crusade before he leaves the stage, Jay Rockefeller, a Democrat from a state where Barack Obama lost all 55 counties in 2012, has chosen distracted driving and the toll of death and disability it takes each year on this country's youngest and most inattentive motorists. At a moment it is estimated that 3,000 teenaged U. S. drivers are killed annually in road accidents while texting, he convenes a session of his committee on commerce, science, and technology, invites ( all male) senior executives from Google, Samsung, Toyota, General Motors, Verizon, AT& T, Sprint and Apple to gather around him, and then tears into them in a spirited harangue that leaves the technophiles stammering. " If any of you think you're creating a social good," he snarls, " I'd like to hear from you." The man from GM tries to parry this by saying the automakers are simply giving the consumer what he wants, and what he wants in 2014 is broadband more than horsepower. " I understand the profit motive," Jay Rockefeller responds. " Thank God, I had a forebear who understood it a lot better than I do. " Some of my relatives say ' Jay, get with it.' It's easy to use cultural evolution as excuses. I find that to be capitalistic and entrepreneurial, but it is a depressing development in American society. I think it's wrong. I think it's wrong." In the middle of the hearing, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, a southern Democrat who is in grave peril of losing his seat this year, enters the committee room, sits down, immediately takes his smartphone from his breast pocket and checks his inbox. " Why is it that you all can't sit down and work together?" Sen. Rockefeller resumes. " What's so important about kids driving along and making Facebook updates? It's not how many people have died. It's how many people have almost died. " I'd go up there and make a bill - I would not get any co- sponsors, you'd make sure of that - and make all of this illegal. Why does there have to be 200, 300 buttons?" I'm in a front- row seat in the ornate chamber, watching the old lion so secure in his power and privilege, and wondering what I would have made of my life had I been born a Rockefeller or a Kennedy or a Mellon or a Ford, rather than the son of a stationer whose own patriarch had shortened his name from the ungainly Abelowitz. In a recent autobiography entitled Being A Rockefeller, Becoming Myself , we get a glimpse behind the oilcloth curtains from the senator's cousin, Eileen. " John D. Rockefeller was my great- grandfather," she writes. " For years, my siblings and I tried to keep this a secret because his name created such a buzz... This preconception of my family as akin to royalty contributed to my sense of isolation and loneliness. I live with anxiety and gratitude, just like the generations of Rockefellers before me." Before me in the Senate Office Building is but one strand of one of this country's most consequential clans. " One of the most remarkable things of my lifetime," he is saying, " is the ignorance of people who should understand." Allen Abel is a Brooklyn- born Canadian journalist based in Washington, D. C. Last Rockefeller's final crusade ALLEN ABEL JEFF GENTNER / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILES The long shadow of the family name will follow John D. Rockefeller IV into retirement. T HE good news is the Harper government wants to hear from Canadians about new laws governing prostitution. The bad news is if messaging from Justice Minister Peter MacKay is any indication, the government has already made up its mind. The consultation, in the form of a town hall on the Justice Canada website ( justice. gc. ca), is the result of a Supreme Court of Canada decision last December that struck down laws against soliciting, living on the avails of prostitution and keeping a brothel. The simplified rationale for the court's decision concerns the security of sex- trade workers. The court ruled that because so many aspects of the sex trade are illegal, the right of workers to a safe working environment was being violated. You can argue the validity of that rationale. You can argue for a certain direction - a more liberal approach or a more draconian one. But you can't legitimately argue the previous legislative regime was effective in terms of protecting workers, or in terms of reducing or even eliminating the sex trade. Canada's prostitution laws, like its marijuana laws, are outdated, outmoded and obsolete. They don't recognize changes in the sex trade involving the Internet. They didn't mitigate the risk faced by workers. They did nothing to encourage workers in a constructive way to get into a different line of work. And they certainly didn't adequately address the increasingly violent links between the sex trade, drugs, human trafficking and other criminal activity. So now we effectively have no laws on the matter. Police across Canada have dramatically reduced the laying of prostitution- related charges, rightfully considering the area a legal vacuum. Where does all this leave us? Although it is technically asking for public input, the government's position is clear. It remains opposed in a puritanical, ideological way to the sex trade. While it's fine for people to be morally and ethically outraged by prostitution and the toll it takes on vulnerable women, particularly addiction victims and native women, moral outrage doesn't typically translate into effective public policy. At the heart of any new legislative framework should be the central objective of helping sextrade workers, the majority of whom do what they do under some sort of duress. We don't need new laws that put workers at equal or greater risk than the last ineffective legal framework. We don't need laws that drive workers underground or discourage them from getting health care or other forms of support. Prostitution isn't called the oldest profession for nothing. It's not going away. The best we can do is implement a legal framework that mitigates harm and does as much as possible to protect and help the real victims - sex workers - and their families. - The Canadian Press Open mind on sex- trade law needed The Hamilton Spectator Cheering on Team Canada at my local pub 8% Predawn patriotic pyjama party 24% Watching later - no spoilers! 11% Blissfully ignorant Sunday snooze 30% OTHER OPINION A_ 11_ Feb- 24- 14_ FP_ 01. indd A11 2/ 23/ 14 5: 07: 41 PM ;