Hamilton Is Now Canada’s Second Sanctuary City

On Tuesday of this week, I wrote an article pertaining to a recommendation that the city of Hamilton becoming a sanctuary city. I did make one mistake in that article, so before I get into the details of what has happened since Tuesday. I want to make a correction.

At the time it was my understanding that undocumented immigrants would be able to apply for Ontario work and/or Ontario Disability plans. This is not the case, those agencies are provincially regulated and run. So no changes will be made in that area. I apologize for the incorrect comment.

On Wednesday February 12 2014, Hamilton city council voted to adapt the sanctuary city recommendations. Making Hamilton, Canada’s second official sanctuary city.

Paul Johnson acting on behalf of city councilor Sam Murella has sent me the report given to the city. Which I have uploaded here. CES14003 - Access to Services for Undocumented Individuals

Paul also wrote: “The step taken by the City in this report is to ensure that all Hamiltonians can approach the City about services without fear. Lots of Municipal services do not require documentation (i.e. if you are a homeowner your garbage will be collected). We heard from some of the focus group participants that there may be fear in even approaching the City to enquire about services.”

Many have the belief that this move is going to help immigrants who are in need. Citing that the term undocumented immigrants means “a person who has not been granted permission to stay in the country, or has overstayed their visa”. The actual term for it is illegal immigrants.

If people who are here because they have not been granted permission to stay, or have overstayed the allowed time. It is only common sense that they would not want to inquire about government services. Imagine a person with a warrant for his/her arrest walking into a police station to inquire about some of their services. It would not be a logical action.

Many Hamiltonians are wondering how this will effect them, their communities, and the city.

As Paul used for an example, city service such as garbage collection, public health, fire, recreation, transit, and police services. Will now be accessible by the undocumented immigrants. I am going to use a pro and con list to detail the effects.

Pro’s
- The people in the city who are undocumented immigrants, will be able to get needed health care.
- undocumented immigrants will not have to live in as much fear
- and as the city has pointed out, Hamilton gets the appearance of a “welcoming city”

Con’s
- All of the listed city services are payed for through municipal tax dollars. Expanded use of them without more financial contributions will add an extra burden, when those services are already spread extremely thin. (undocumented immigrants cannot pay taxes. The argument has been made that they do pay sales taxes, unfortunately those taxes go to the provincial and federal governments)
- The city of Hamilton has a severe poverty problem, as highlighted in the Code Red program. In areas of the city families are entering second and third generation impoverishment. Would it not make sense to “take care of our own backyard, before we try to take care of others?”
- The policy will encourage more undocumented immigrants from the area to migrate to our city, furthering the strain on services.
- An argument has been made about jobs, we are having a very difficult time employing Canadian citizens, allowing undocumented workers to gain employment is only going to make that worse.

Who is behind the report?
Well as the old saying goes, follow the money. A majority of the NGO’s involved in the report, receive funding from governments to help refugees and immigrants. The list includes: Wesley Urban Ministries newcomers services, Refugee Health Center, YMCA and YWCA settlement support, Interval House Diverse Communities System, and to no surprise three NGO’s who wish to remain Anonymous.

Everyone of those organization will receive increases to budgets, with increased work loads. Where does that increase come from? Our taxes of course!

Possible Motivations?

The Canadian socialist movement has been gaining a lot of strength in recent years. A mostly unknown tactic to bring down capitalism is the Cloward–Piven strategy. Here is a brief history of it from America.

Cloward and Piven’s article is focused on forcing the Democratic Party, which in 1966 controlled the presidency and both houses of the United States Congress, to take federal action to help the poor. They stated that full enrollment of those eligible for welfare “would produce bureaucratic disruption in welfare agencies and fiscal disruption in local and state governments” that would “deepen existing divisions among elements in the big-city Democratic coalition: the remaining white middle class, the working-class ethnic groups and the growing minority poor. To avoid a further weakening of that historic coalition, a national Democratic administration would be constrained to advance a federal solution to poverty that would override local welfare failures, local class and racial conflicts and local revenue dilemmas.”[3] They wrote:
“ The ultimate objective of this strategy—to wipe out poverty by establishing a guaranteed annual income—will be questioned by some. Because the ideal of individual social and economic mobility has deep roots, even activists seem reluctant to call for national programs to eliminate poverty by the outright redistribution of income.[3] ”

Michael Reisch and Janice Andrews wrote that Cloward and Piven “proposed to create a crisis in the current welfare system – by exploiting the gap between welfare law and practice – that would ultimately bring about its collapse and replace it with a system of guaranteed annual income. They hoped to accomplish this end by informing the poor of their rights to welfare assistance, encouraging them to apply for benefits and, in effect, overloading an already overburdened bureaucracy.”
Source

I am in no way suggesting that Hamilton becoming a sanctuary city is by itself the Cloward–Piven strategy. But when coupled with the recent calls for a living wage, a decimated industry sector, increasing taxes to cover the city plans, and much more. We could possibly be looking at one part of the strategy.

With all that is being said, and debated there is one last important note I want to make. This is not a race based argument! I have seen city councilors bringing race into the debate, I have seen media outlets and comments online do the same. All that does is take a logical debate and turn it into an emotional one.

I have personally been accused of soft race bait, bigotry, and being part of a anti immigration far right fascist agenda for my opinion on this issue. Yet the reality is that my mother is a first generation immigrant who came here legally. She herself does not agree with the sanctuary city idea. Immigrants do not only mean non white. Immigrants from countries all over the world come to Canada. From a vast variety cultures and races. They are welcomed with open arms, when coming here legally. (by myself and those I surround myself with).

Not agreeing with a move that will hurt the city I live in, does not have anything to do with race and has everything to do with preserving what is left of our city. Lets stick to the facts and leave the emotional responses at the door!