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The Liberal government is postponingthenext round of its widely criticized family reunificationprogram while it looks into developing a new intake process, according to a statement fromImmigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

The program allows Canadian citizens and permanent residents to apply to bring grandparents and parents to Canada.Critics have called the selection process unfair sinceall of theonline application spots were snapped up in just minutes earlier this year.

In its Monday statement, Immigration Canada said it's delaying the 2020 round as it works on a new intake system.

"This means that the opportunity to express interest in sponsoring a parent or grandparent will not take place on Jan. 1, 2020," reads the statement.

"Further information about the expected launch date and 2020 intake process will be available in the new year. This will give all interested sponsors the same opportunity to submit an interest-to-sponsor form and a fair chance to be invited to apply."

Jamie Liew, an immigration lawyer and professor at the University of Ottawa, said it's upsetting news for families who were hoping to apply this time around.

"It's a significant announcement in the fact it will impact a lot of people who have a lot of hope this time of year," she said.

"It is a significant thing that people who may have missed out on their opportunity last year are waiting for the opportunity this year. And to have that postponed must be disappointing for people who are separated from their families."

A spokesperson for Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino said the departmentwanted to give families aheads up that the application process won't be open inJanuary as it has beenin the last few years.

MathieuGenestsaid the government is "looking at all options" as it reviews the intent-to-sponsor form.

In a follow-up statement to CBC News on Monday night, Immigration Canada said the movewas made in"an effort to provide the best client service possible" and noted it"will begin the intake of new applications as early as possible in 2020."

Earlier this year, the government accepted 27,000 submissions for sponsoring parents or grandparentsand confirmed that more than 100,000 people had attempted to access an online form to express interest.

The online form opened Jan. 28 at noon ET, and closed less than nine minutes later,a processthatleft tens of thousands of people frustrated and furious because they couldn't access the form or fill it out fast enough.

Conservative Immigration Critic Peter Kent said in a statement Monday night, "It's clear that the Liberal'sclumsy and unfairprocessoffamily reunification demands a complete overhaul. First the Liberals instituted a lottery system, leaving family reunification to the 'luck of the draw.' Then, those following the rules were given minutes to submit their forms, and now they are left wondering when they can even apply to see their families again."

Liewsaid any reviewshould look at increasing the intake numbers.

"The system is not meeting the demand. That's the main problem," she said. "There's a greater interest and need to meet the expectations that we promote."

The Liberal government adopted the first-come, first-served online application system this year after scrapping a controversial lottery system for reuniting immigrant families. Thelottery system was contentious, with critics claiming it essentially gambledwith peoples' lives.

Thatprevious lottery process itself replaced another first-in system. Itwas unpopular because it led to long lineupsat the doors of the processing centre overnight and had people paying place-holders in the queue to deliver applications prepared by consultants or lawyers.

In May,CBC reported that the federal government made a secret settlement to quash two lawsuits that claimed the online application processwas flawed and unfair.

To resolve the group litigation, the government awarded at least 70 coveted spots to applicants, allowing them to sponsor their parents' or grandparents'immigration to Canada.

More here:
Parent and grandparent reunification program reopening postponed as Liberals look at new system - CBC.ca

Across the free world, the rise of populism and the decline of open debate has stressed our traditional democratic and societal institutions. New parties and movements are emerging to represent constituencies that have little connection to the political ideologies of the past. In an ongoing series, the National Post asks: What does conservatism mean in Canada today? Is there a set of principles that self-identified conservatives could agree on, and that political parties running on right-of-centre platforms would embrace? Would the countrys historical conservative thinkers recognize the movement as it stands today? To contribute, please send pitches to submissions@nationalpost.com. In todays instalment, Bruce Pardy writes how Canada really needs liberals, not progressives.

Since the federal election, Conservatives have been wringing their hands and gnashing their teeth. They lost to a weak, economically incompetent, scandal-plagued party of virtue-signallers led by a man-child. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the Western world, conservative parties are riding high. So what gives? In Canada, Conservatives dont know who they are or what they stand for. During the campaign they pretended to be both conservative and progressive: to simultaneously believe in traditional values but also in victimhood and identity politics. That made the Conservatives, not the Liberals, the party of hypocrisy no small feat in an election in which the virtue-signaller-in-chief was caught wearing blackface.

In Canada, Conservatives dont know who they are or what they stand for

The answer to the Conservatives troubles is not to choose between conservatism and progressivism but to ditch both. In Canada, social conservatives are political dinosaurs. Andrew Scheer discovered that any whiff of sentiment against gay marriage, for example, was toxic, even when accompanied by an undertaking not to pursue those sentiments in a legislative agenda. Progressivism, on the other hand, is almost universal. All parties who won seats in the House of Commons are progressive and the CPC will never win that contest. But that is the key. Liberals are not liberal but progressive, which is quite a different thing. In fact, Liberals have no idea what a liberal really is. The sweet spot for Conservatives is the space that the Liberals have long vacated. To win, Conservatives must be liberals.

So what is a liberal, really? Libertas is Latin for liberty and Liberal shares the same root (liber). In the political realm, liberalism originally (or classically) denoted holding a philosophy based upon the concept of individual freedom. Hence classical liberalism is a set of beliefs that has at its root a conviction that the purpose of civilized society is to provide for the liberty of the individual. Dont tell me what to do is the liberal mantra. Real liberals believe that people should largely control their own lives that they should be free to say what they think, to have sex with and marry whom they please, to worship as they wish, to buy and sell what they want, to be responsible for themselves and to leave other people alone.

The modern version of liberalism means essentially the opposite. It embraces an expansive welfare state, extensive regulation of individual behaviour and speech, redistribution of wealth, unequal application of the law in pursuit of equality of outcome and myriad other managerial policies. Those who now call themselves Liberals in the political realm are now illiberal in their sensibilities and aspirations. Governments supervise, subsidize and control virtually every aspect of modern life: markets and financial systems, public schools and universities, health care, media, food production, energy production, telecom services, the professions and even speech. Our courts do not believe in equal application of the law. We are eroding the presumption of innocence and other aspects of due process. We have abandoned even the expectation that laws will be written, clear and understandable to all. Instead citizens are subject to the arbitrary discretion of government agencies that pursue their own agendas. Identity politics reign and the surveillance state steadily expands.

Conservatives have shown no serious objection to any of it and indeed have pitched in to make Canada not a liberal country. The CPC has muzzled politically incorrect speech, defended supply management, promoted ideological training for judges, tried to bribe voters with their own money, pushed climate change hysteria (while rejecting the most conservative instrument, the Liberal carbon tax, in favour of statist regulation) and expressed no concern for the erosion of fundamental freedoms. The Conservative election platform was merely a pale version of full-on Liberal illiberalism with an occasional hint of Bible-thumping intolerance. Were they trying to win over imaginary voters who oppose gay marriage but support the coerced use of non-gendered pronouns?

The Conservative election platform was merely a pale version of full-on Liberal illiberalism

Disenfranchised Canadians are fed up with identity politics, authoritarian victimhood and scolding from righteous elites telling them what to think and how to behave. They are liberals in the true sense of the word steady, reasonable, fair-minded, hard-working people who believe in freedom of speech and in the idea that the same rules should apply to everyone. As Yasmine Mohammed, author of Unveiled: How Western Liberals Empower Radical Islam, wrote in the National Post, if Canadian conservatism upheld Western and enlightenment values loudly, unapologetically, and with conviction, then millions of us disillusioned with the Liberal party would proudly mark a big X next to the Conservative representative at the ballot box. Large swaths of Canadians have no political home and are wondering where their country went. Conservatives should help them get it back. Perhaps liberals, not Liberals, are the natural governing party of Canada.

Bruce Pardy is professor of law at Queens University.

Email: pardyb@queensu.ca | Twitter:

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Right Now: The Liberals aren't liberals anymore but the Conservatives can and must be - National Post

Illustrated | NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty Images, Aerial3/iStock, MicrovOne/iStock

December 18, 2019

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I don't know how to put this delicately, so I will just out with it, in the hope of sparing the feelings of as many New York Times columnists as possible: The American people are not all that shot up with impeachment.

It's true that polls show that many of us are broadly in favor of it, whatever that means (though others also show, oddly enough, Trump beating every single one of the roughly 437 Democratic hopefuls). But even those who will blandly affirm their support for the process in a poll were not exactly taking to the streets on Tuesday night.

Impeachment was always going to be like this: one of those pet causes beloved of (mostly wealthy or very young) liberal activists and very serious people in the media. The rest of the country, whatever they think about Donald Trump, have more important things to do than develop detailed and passionate opinions about the contents of the House's nearly 700-page impeachment report. As soon as it became clear that "Trump Ukraine impeachment" was not going to be a story involving Eurasian hookers and coke and urine-related videocassettes, people started tuning it out. Bill Clinton's impeachment also divided the country 20 years ago, but for some reason people seemed to care more about the details.

All of this was, as I say, predictable. So too were the increasingly serious-sounding negative repercussions from impeachment in crucial states like Wisconsin and Michigan. This is the price you pay for a self-aggrandizing cynical strategy long opposed by your own party's leadership.

What I don't understand is why so so many of the president's critics are still pouting. Gee, it's so disappointing that you got exactly what you wanted and roughly half of the American people nominally agree with you about it. What a pity that ordinary working men and women feel like they have better things to do than join the rent-a-protester mobs being put on by various well-endowed SuperPACs to protest what, exactly? This impeachment game has been going on for a long time. Everyone knew what the final score would be.

So why shouldn't Trump's opponents enjoy impeachment for what it's been that is, a massive if mostly symbolic victory? They got under the old lizard's skin. They made it almost impossible for him to pursue infrastructure or any of the other things he campaigned on. They are living rent-free in his head and rarely leave their apartments. The same goes for his supporters. So have some fun. Invite friends over. Tweet your pronouns, thank your local graduate student or journo union, bathe in avocado liqueur, or whatever it is that people slightly to the left of Joe Lieberman are popularly supposed to do in the right-wing imagination. It doesn't matter what the lumpenproletariat think. Just keep dancing on your own.

Liberals will be glad they did six months from now, when they find themselves in the exact same position they did four years ago: trying to prevent the guy who once got paid millions of dollars to pretend to fire Gary Busey on television from being duly elected president of the United States. They thought it would be easy in 2016. They should know better now.

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Wait did liberals actually think they'd remove Trump from office? - The Week

Having established a permanent office on the summit of Hypocrisy Mountain and claiming a counterfeit patent on morality, the counter-progressive Inquisitors are not conducting a sincere examination of evidence, but are, in fact, defending a Globalist oligarchy.

The con in Congress is as glaring as the nose on the face of a baby seal.

Borderless profiteers are blocking every recourse to sanity. The documented perils of Socialism are systematically ignored or outright suppressed because it interferes with the profit margin. Human consumption is our greatest collective peril, the GNP our collective epitaph. Human existence is like a bag of potato chips, devour until the bag (Mother Earth) is empty.

Media consolidation is a form of Fascism that destroys political opposition to the Globalist scheme. Each publication of the NY Times, aka The Anniston Star, presents numerous diatribes against President Trump hoping to exorcise him from public office.

Jesse L. Warmack

Piedmont

Link:
LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Liberals put the 'con' in Congress - Anniston Star

I would not be averse to being described as centre-left, social democratic, liberal and moderate, but I am unable to agree with Vince Cable (The centre-left parties must work together more closely, 17 December) that Labours manifesto was advocating radical socialism.

Proposing to raise the level of public expenditure to around that of Germany or France is hardly revolutionary. Its promise of public ownership and control of railways and public utilities is modest in contrast to the commanding heights of the economy run by governments during the 1970s. Even the offer of free broadband is positively Wilsonian in its faith in the white heat of modern technology. Overall, its range of practical and costed measures to deal with the modern day manifestations of want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness was firmly in the reformist tradition of Beveridge. Its intention to borrow at low interest rates in order to promote (green) industrial growth and full employment was essentially Keynesian.

On the other hand, when in office from 2010 to 2015, the Liberal Democrat party, pursuing its own Orange Book principles, shared responsibility for the imposition of neoliberal economic policies of austerity, in combination with the privatisation and fragmentation of public services.

As Cable was himself the minister who virtually gave away our Royal Mail to hedge funds and City institutions, he really needs to reflect on whether it is actually the Liberal Democrat rather than the Labour leadership that has made the radical departure from social democracy.Simon HinksBrighton

I agree with Vince Cable that excessive zealous Europeanism was a huge error in their campaigning and a grave disappointment.

But for me it started with the crass T-shirts declaiming Bollocks to Brexit worn delightedly by their new tranche of MEPs. I am an ardent remainer and, if that ship has now sailed, this party needs to row back from such divisive messaging. I voted for the Lib Dems in the European elections because they had an unapologetic and stalwart remain stance, but I fear it went horribly wrong with the very idea of revoking article 50 and cancelling Brexit. Added to which, Jo Swinsons arrogant position of who she would or would not do a coalition deal with. Judith A DanielsCobholm, Norfolk

It was probably about time we had the ritual call for a party of nice, civilised people. Up pops Vince Cable, right on schedule. As Liberals know from their fraught experience, there is a crucial distinction between working together and the enfeeblement of a distinctive Liberal party by narrowing its electoral opportunities, and that the first-past-the-post electoral system exacts a high price for any fragmentation of a worthy appeal. Vince Cable acknowledges this truth, but glosses over any renewed campaign to change the system.

The consequences of the recent election are not just unfair to specific political parties but, even more so, they traduce the electors. The Brexiters have repeated incessantly that the 52% to 48% vote at the referendum is a democratic authority for Brexit. How can they now claim that a 43% vote for the Conservatives gives them the authority to force Brexit through?Michael MeadowcroftLeeds

What a silly column by Simon Jenkins (The Lib Dems helped the Tories to victory again. Now they should disband, 16 December). If the Liberal Democrats had not won seats like Twickenham, Richmond Park, Kingston and Bath, who on earth does he think would have won them?

When a long-term Conservative government was defeated in 1997, their defeat was partly brought about by a series of Lib Dem byelection wins and the 28 gains made by the Lib Dems from the Tories in that general election (as well as a result of Labour members choosing someone with greater appeal to the electorate than Jeremy Corbyn).

It is arrogant to assume that if the Liberal Democrats did not exist, all of their voters would prefer Labour irrespective of Labours leader and programme. Who else would have solidly stood in support of our membership of the EU?Lord RennardLiberal Democrat, House of Lords

Simon Jenkins correctly recognises the problem of progressive disunity. Since 1945 regressives have only won a majority of the vote at one general election, yet have led 60% of UK governments in that time. However, his diagnosis represents the kind of domineering tribalism that has prevailed in progressive circles and serves us badly. It rejects the diversity of opinion that exists in Britain and compels the disunity to continue.

With Labour and the Lib Dems conducting leadership elections at the same time, there is an opportunity to lay foundations for a winning progressive realignment ahead of the next election. Two Lib Dem leadership candidates (Daisy Cooper and Layla Moran) already indicate they would steer the Lib Dems in an even more progressive direction (as occurred under Charles Kennedy and Paddy Ashdown). Far from preventing a progressive victory as Jenkins holds, the Lib Dems could make a significant contribution. Of the 30 seats the Lib Dems are currently best placed to gain on a uniform swing, 26 are fights versus the Conservatives. Only two are versus Labour.

Progressive voters are already ahead of the parties, with many hundreds of thousands having voted tactically last Thursday and, in the process, they restrained significantly the size of the Conservatives majority. It is time the progressive parties caught up and stopped discarding the pluralistic and cooperative values we say we uphold.Paul PettingerCouncil member of the Social Liberal Forum

Simon Jenkins suggests that the Lib Dems should disband to give Labour a clear run. Here are the results for Cheltenham: Con 48%, LD 46%, Lab 5%, Monster Raving Loony 1%.

Perhaps Labour and the Loonies should shut up shop? I suppose Labour can celebrate the fact that they didnt come last.Nick ChiplenCheltenham, Gloucestershire

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The Liberal Democrats place in progressive politics - The Guardian