Angry in the Great White North

a heat-seeking missile in the Conservative arsenal

The report on Judy Sgro is out, and the main stream media is reporting that Judy Sgro is essentially absolved:

The federal Ethics Commissioner has found no evidence that former immigration minister Judy Sgro violated the federal cabinet's code of conduct.

But commissioner Bernard Shapiro – in a report titled ”Many Shades of Grey” and released after an investigation that took seven months and cost $170,000 – appeared to give no more than a qualified thumbs-up to Ms. Sgro.

"Many Shades of Grey" -- cute. The cover is actually a bunch of grey boxes.

But what has been missed, or ignored, is an interesting thing on page 19. Apparently, during the last election campaign, Temporary Residence Permits are handed out to Liberal MPs to give to their constituents almost exclusively, suggesting that TRPs had become a means to buy votes.

In the final analysis, the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, through their Department of Justice counsel, provided my Office with a list of persons who were granted ministerial Temporary Residence Permits (TRPs) during the period from May 25 to June 28, 2004. From this list, 128 individuals were granted TRPs by the Minister during the 2004 federal election campaign. When this list was compared with lists obtained from the Minister's office under subpoena and as referred to in allegation "G", we were able to identify 94 specific files. Of these, 43 were authorized by the Minister during the last week of the federal election campaign. In 76 cases, a specific MP is listed as supporting the application. Of these, two were supported by a Conservative MP, while the remaining 74 were identified with Liberal MPs. Of these 74 cases, 24 were identified directly with Minister Sgro, 19 of which were approved between June 23, 2004 and June 25, 2004.

Breaking this down:

• 128 permits issued during the 5 weeks of the 2004 federal campaign


• 43, or 33%, were issued in the final week of the campaign


• 76, or 59%, of the TRPs were supported by an MP
• of these 76 TRPs , 24, or 31%, were supported by Judy Sgro herself


• 19, or 80%, of Judy Sgro's TRPs were issued in the last 24 hours of the campaign


• another 50, or 66%, of the MP-supported TRPs issued during the election went to Liberal MPs


• only 2, or 3%, of the MP-supported TRPs issued during the election went to Conservative MPs

It beggars the imagination to suggest that there was no conflict of interest in the handing out of TRPs. It seems clear that during the election campaign, Temporary Residency Permits were used by the Liberal Party to curry favour among voters ("Vote for me, I got your uncle Ahmed a TRP!")

In all fairness, it has to be said that Liberals do represent more Toronto ridings, and most immigrants live in Toronto [but one reader points out that there are plenty of immigrants everywhere]. But the skew seems so total, so overwhelming, and when combined with the flurry of TRP activity in the last days and last hours of the tightly fought campaign, the conclusion that Canada's immigration system is being used as yet another means to purchase votes is the only reasonable one that can be reached.

[And a closing note. How reliable will Canada be viewed by the Americans as a partner in the security of North America when this sort of thing is happening in our Immigration Ministry?]