REGULARIZATION

For the last three years, members of the STATUS Campaign have been working together with other concerned grassroots groups and networks to build the groundwork for a national campaign to push for the regularization of non-status immigrants living in Canada.
For more information: STATUS Coalition and Campaign

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CAMPAIGN AND PRINCIPLES FOR REGULARIZATION
Regularization is an issue of self-determination and justice. While businesses are free to move across borders to find thriving economic conditions, these same agreements deny people the same type of free movement. For the last three years, members of the STATUS Campaign have been working together with other concerned grassroots groups and networks to build the groundwork for a national campaign to push for the regularization of non-status immigrants living in Canada.

MYTHS AND REALITIES ABOUT MIGRANTS
Myths and scapegoating of migrants is often informed by racist stereotpyes or by ideas of entitlement and safe-guarding Canada by a migrant invasion. As Sunera Thobani has phrased it, "What makes it alright for us to buy a t-shirt on the streets of Vancouver for $3, which was made in China, then stand up all outraged as Canadian citizens when the woman who made that t-shirt tries to come here and live with us on a basis of equality?"

DOCUMENT ON REGULARIZATION
The Regularization of Migrants in Canada 1960-2004
Past Polices, Current Perspectives, and Active Campaigns
Nov 2004. Written by members of STATUS Coalition

 

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ILLEGALESE: FLOODGATE DUB

for the Chinese maroons, British Columbia, 1999-2000

 

if you arrive in the belly of a rusting imagination, there are grounds

to outlaw you. but Canada is a remix B-side chorus in the globalization

loop: a sampled track of "back home"-desiring, "old days"-admiring,

democracy-dreaming, racism-reaping homesickness that even medicare

can't cure. there is no "fresh off the boat" or the plane or the hope

of consistency in foreign and foreigner policy or obduracy of floodgate

metaphors and death sentence deportations. the backbeat back-bone

of the chorus that screeches "back home!" is the drum and bass treble

track alliteration of Koma-Koma-Komagatamaru. and the stowaway

that the border refused will be the head stone of the corner.

when the destination is a nation that prides itself and peace-keeping

but is still sleeping on the justice and compassion

implicit in that

 

back home

back home

back home,

 

when jurisdiction cuts the earth to the bone,

the proper diction is the unspoken issue, and the flesh

of the people's colour in the boats in the hull in the belly of a dream

without papers or definition, in quotations, "refugee," a penstroke

from relief. languishing in the languaged exile of illegalese.

 

and if it was heroic for runaway slaves to seep into Canada,

why is it villifiable for Chinese migrants to hide in the belly of a dream

now? and when you want to draw the line or put your foot down

or formulate enough is enough is enough is enough

what colour is enough? what language does it speak?

and isn't that the real issue written between the bordered lines,

the bartered lives in the semantic peanut and shell game?

 

in barricaded comfort, behind arm chair palisades,

wielding remote control diplomacy like a wand,

we cultivate our cathode curtain without détente.

with children lullabyed by Filipino nannies, industry is carving

up the melon of our lotused coast. and "floodgates"

 

they say

have said

and ever shall say

 

but people are not a flood, borders are not God-given,

lives are not dollars, Canada is not the sum of its exclusions.

 

 

- Wayde Compton