When listening (really listening), is all it takes.

Posted by Joanna Smith, Ottawa Bureau

UPDATE: A spokeswoman for Citizenship and Immigration Canada said the department is still investigating, but so far it looks like the Canadian Embassy in Paris (which processes medical examination results for the region including Ghana and Nigeria), had technical difficulties uploading the results.

"We’re still investigating what happened, but so far it appears to be an isolated incident, which originated as a technical problem with uploading the medical results in the computer system," spokeswoman Nancy Caron said in an interview Monday (June 6) after once again apologizing for the errors. "So now the mission in Accra is working with the mission in Paris, which handles the medical examinations for the region, to determine the cause of the issue and prevent it from happening again.”

Caron would not comment on why Ekpunobi received the questionnaire about drinking problems.

"It is (a) very personal health question and I would really feel uncomfortable to do that," said Caron, although the couple in question believe the questionnaire was also sent in error.

***

It's always nice for a journalist to hear when a story she was covering ends well for everyone involved.

Two weeks ago I started looking into the case of a Nigerian couple who have been kept apart since they were married in September 2009 because the federal government made a series of costly mistakes while processing their visa application.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada apologized for the errors after my inquiries prompted officials to take a closer look at the case.

On Monday I got a call from the husband, Gideon Christian, who was giddy with the good news that his wife, Isabella Chinelo Ekpunobi, had finally received her visa to join him in Canada when she arrived at the High Commission in Accra, Ghana.

"I am so happy," he said over and over again as he laughed into the telephone.

Ekpunobi is going to hand in her resignation from her job as an in-house lawyer at the Nigerian Television Authority and then join her husband in Ottawa, where he is doing his doctoral studies in law -- something he had seriously thought about abandoning this summer so he could return to Nigeria to get on with his marriage.

The couple hopes to be reunited on Canada Day.

Gideon thanked me personally for helping them out, which something that is always strange for a journalist to hear. I didn't really do anything to help them. I just asked a bunch of questions and wrote down the answers in a way that made for an interesting story.

But really, sometimes that is all the help someone needs when they are up against a faceless bureaucracy that notes their concerns but doesn't really listen or take a step back to notice that something is terribly wrong.

The backlog of unresolved immigration cases is huge. There are an unknown number of stories like the one I told about Gideon and Isabella and yes, it does seem unfair that their case gets resolved so quickly (if nearly 21 months instead of the eight they were told it would take can be considered "quick") just because a reporter starts nosing around.

It would be impossible for every would-be immigrant to Canada to plead their case to the media in this way (and many who do see no quick results anyway). The staff in the office of Liberal MP Mauril Belanger (Ottawa-Vanier) had been making calls on this particular case for months with little progress, even though emails went through the office of Immigration Minister Jason Kenney.

But maybe if government officials (both in Ottawa and embassies around the world) tried a little harder to treat case numbers as individual people who deserve to be listened to and given a serious answer when they ask a serious question (such as: "Why are we being asked for medical tests three different times when your own file notes the first request was sent in error?") there would be more stories that end well.

 

Well, well, look what the mail brought in.

-posted by Tonda MacCharles, Ottawa bureau

Just one week after the Supreme Court of Canada ruled against broader access to documents held in federal ministers' offices, but warned (somewhat futilely I imagine) the government against burying documents in the "black hole" of ministerial offices, I got a letter in the mail.

It's from Jaye Jarvis, the Canadian Heritage department's access to information coordinator in response to a request I made in 2008.

Yes, you read that right. 2008.

That would be nearly three years ago.

I requested "all records related to the 'independent analysis' referred to by Prime Minister Stephen Harper at a Sept. 29, 2008 news conference that he said supported the decision to cut arts program funding."

Perhaps you remember that policy move prior to the campaign? Harper had cut funding for about seven different programs that critics said made it more difficult for Canadian musicians, composers, artists and filmmakers to compete in the international marketplace.

It dogged Harper during the 2008 campaign, especially in Quebec, and eventually prompted the infamous dismissal of artists as whingers. Let's jog our memories with the actual 2008 quote.

"I think when ordinary working people come home, turn on the TV and see a gala of a bunch of people at, you know, a rich gala all subsidized by taxpayers claiming their subsidies aren't high enough, when they know those subsidies have actually gone up – I'm not sure that's something that resonates with ordinary people," Harper said in Saskatoon.

My request for the analysis that supported the decision, that the PM publicly relied upon in a news conference to justify the cuts, has been flatly turned down.

Not even a redacted version of any document has been released.

Just a one-page letter with a one-line explanation from the ATI coordinator which says the information has been denied on the basis it is considered a cabinet confidence under two different exclusions (I guess I get to take my pick?)

The first one Jarvis cites is that the purpose of the information sought was to "brief ministers" in relation to matters that "are before, or are proposed to be brought before" cabinet or are "the subject of communications or discussions" between ministers relating to the formulation of government policy.

The second one is a sweeping exclusion that would appear to bar everything under the sun.

Ok, well, perhaps I exaggerate. Judge for yourself.

It's a section of the act that withholds records that have information about information contained in other records under a class of records that might refer to memoranda, discussion papers, background explanations, analyses of problems or policy options, agenda of cabinet or minutes or records that reflect the communications or discussions between ministers, or which are used to brief ministers, or draft legislation.

Officially, my request may have fallen under the section (e) in that list which is "records the purpose of which is to brief minister of the Crown in relation to matters that are before or are proposed to be brought before (cabinet) or that are the subject of communications or discussions" previously referred to.

Eye-glazing, isn't it.

I think it's meant to be.

In any event, here we are two election campaigns later, under a majority Harper government, and we are no closer to knowing the policy basis for decisions long ago taken.

Well, at least now, the government has the Supreme Court ruling on its side.

 

Turner Valley Votes

Posted by Tonda MacCharles, Ottawa bureau

TURNER VALLEY, AB— No matter where she travels in the world as the prime minister’s wife, Laureen Harper signs the guestbook at palaces and global summits as the girl from Turner Valley.

So I thought I’d wander to her hometown, 63 km southwest of Calgary, to see how the election is playing out.

Not that there’s any doubt the riding of Macleod held by Conservative Ted Menzies would change hands. I just wanted to see place, and see if people here were engaged in this campaign. I expected more signs, more enthusiasm, more interest, perhaps.

What I found was much indifference, if not cynicism about politicians and broken promises, and disgust with negative campaigning.

Apart from one small wind-blown Liberal sign falling over off a ranch driveway just outside town, the only signs in Turner Valley I saw were the ones on the public square. They included three leftover provincial campaign signs and have nothing to do with this election, two small Conservative Menzies signs, one generic Green Party sign, and the biggest one, the NDP’s.

“I guess everyone’s tired of elections every couple of years,” said one woman.

Another 29-year-old woman who said her name was Kim but didn’t want to give her last name didn’t believe her vote would make a difference one way or the other. She’s voted before, but has given up on any notion that politicians deliver.

“If that was true then the things people care about would be looked after,” she said, citing jobs, minimum wages, and poverty as her main concerns. She said she throws every party’s pamphlets in the recycling box: “Ridiculous, every bit of it is ridiculous.”

Nobody has seen any candidates come through town to door-knock.

Gaylon Lunn, a firefighter who commutes from Turner Valley to work in Calgary, is dismayed at the negative tone of what he’s heard, though he doesn’t peg the blame on the Conservatives or any other party in particular.

“It’s hard to believe anything they all say because they’ve all been running that attack stuff. Their platforms are just a bunch of lies. They all promise something they can’t deliver.”

When it comes down to voting, many here appear to be set to make a calculation based on what they believe to be Alberta’s and the economy’s best interests.

On that, Lunn suggests that the Conservative government was faced with “circumstances” it couldn’t control – a global economic downturn – but he’s not convinced that its claims of job creation and economic stimulus were met. He’d like an independent office to do third-party verification on claims that parties have met their “benchmarks.”

He won’t say how he’s voting. But he will vote, he vows.

So will Anne Howell, despite the fact she says she hasn’t paid a whole lot of attention.

Standing outside Hi Ho Gas and Grocery in a chill spring wind, she says she is taking over her late husband’s company that sells “environmentally-friendly” material to stabilize roads in northern Alberta that see a lot of heavy truck traffic. That’s her main preoccupation these days. Economic issues are her focus.

“We do a lot of business in the tar sands,” she said. “And I’m a little worried about the NDP.”
Jack Layton’s vows to hike corporate taxes, end subsidies for “big oil” companies, and bring in a greenhouse gas emissions cap-and-trade program are going to hurt her province and all of Canada, she believes.

“The oil companies always get a bad rap, and yet we all drive our vehicles to get from point A to point B. There shouldn’t be that animosity towards a province doing well in the tar sands.”

None mention the town’s personal connection to the Conservatives or the Harpers, although several I spoke to knew Laureen’s family. I’m directed to the Longview Jerky Shop, about 18 km from Turner Valley, as one of Laureen’s favorites.

It’s quiet on a late Saturday afternoon.

Though he hasn’t paid much attention to the campaign either, the owner’s son, Alex Kirk, 18, says he’ll vote for Stephen Harper, the only voter I’ve met to cite the personal connection with this area.

The Conservative leader came to the shop last year with Laureen and Alex is proud to have met him. He says Harper will probably get his vote: “I got a picture with him, it’s on my Facebook page. He’s a nice guy.”

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