A Bit More Detail

This post at The Economist‘s Game Theory blog, wondering why the NHL continues to invest in failing Sunbelt teams despite economic and sporting rationales to the contrary, is worth reading.

Although this year marks an unusual low, Canada has been in decline since the 1990s, when teams were lured to America by the promise of bigger audiences and a more lucrative television market. To the dismay of Canadians, it has been almost 20 years since one of their teams won the Stanley Cup (the Montreal Canadiens in 1993). Yet hockey has failed to capture the public imagination in America in the same way as baseball, basketball and American football, or to attract the support it enjoys in Canada. With Canada’s economy now in better shape than America’s, a few teams may be considering a move in the other direction.

The Phoenix Coyotes are the most likely to uproot themselves. Although the Coyotes have advanced to the conference finals in the Stanley Cup playoffs, turning in their best performance since making Arizona their home in 1996, they have been struggling financially. After declaring bankruptcy in 2009, they were taken over by the NHL. This year, they are expected to report annual operating losses of about $30m, despite receiving $25m in aid from Glendale, the suburban Phoenix community that owns their rink. Quebecois hope the Coyotes’ recent travails will persuade them to relocate to Quebec City, where Quebecor, the province’s largest media company, says it will support the construction of a C$400m ($400m) arena. Since losing the Quebec Nordiques to Denver, Colorado in 1995, locals have been desperate to acquire a new NHL side.

Even so, Gary Bettman, the NHL commissioner, wants to keep the team in Phoenix and may finally have found a buyer pledging to do so for another ten years. Although the NHL has denied those rumours, its resistance to a move north of the border would not come as a surprise. For a start, Glendale might object to any deal that would let the Coyotes depart Phoenix and leave the community with an empty arena. The NHL may also be unwilling to sell the team at the price suggested by prospective buyers, having sunk a lot of money into the Coyotes since 2009. Ultimately, the NHL may still believe that Phoenix is potentially a more profitable market than smaller Canadian cities. Mr Bettman was also the main force behind the strategy to relocate to America in the first place. He may think a retreat is tantamount to an embarrassing admission of a mistake.

Nevertheless, the NHL’s continuing enthusiasm for the Sun Belt is hard to fathom. Even before the sub-prime mortgage mess demolished the economies of many southern cities, hockey had struggled to win over the region’s sports fans. Back in the 1990s, the Canadian dollar was worth just 72–73 American cents, and its value had fallen to 63–64 cents by 2001–2, making it impossible for Canadian teams to match salaries paid in American dollars. But the loonie is now worth the same as the greenback. Bringing teams back to Canada would strengthen the league and make economic sense.

The latest incarnation of the Winnipeg Jets already provides some encouragement. Having moved from Atlanta last summer, the Jets just missed this season’s playoffs. But they won 37 games over the course of the season, three more than their seasonal average over their last four years in Atlanta, and were much better defensively, conceding 246 goals compared to the Atlanta average of 270. Could the difference have been down to the level of support they received at the MTS Centre in Winnipeg, compared with attendance at Atlanta’s Philips Arena? Within minutes of tickets going on sale, the Jets had sold out for the season. Average attendance per game in Atlanta was just 73% of seating capacity (although this still meant 13,469 fans per game, compared with 15,004 for each sold-out game in Winnipeg).

I think that the NHL only has a limited amount of time. A January 2011 History and Futility post I made argued that, slowly, as a result of ffactors including the high cost of equipment, the emergence of other sports, and immigration from hockey-lacking countries, the sport of hockey is on a slow decline in Canada. There’s still a huge fan base–Quebec City is still trying to echo Winnipeg’s achievement in getting its NHL team back–but will it last indefinitely? I fear not.

One of the Andrews I know on Facebook linked to Canadian science journalist Bob McDonald‘s post describing why the Canadian and Québec science writers’ organizations received a press freedom award. He’s right to note that we really shouldn’t be proud of the reasons why.

Posted in its entirety, due to its importance.

This past week, the Canadian Science Writers Association, and its Quebec equivalent, received the Press Freedom Award from the Canadian Committee for World Press Freedom and Canadian Commission for UNESCO for their efforts to stop the muzzling of Canadian federal scientists. The award was given on May 3, World Press Freedom Day.

The award is given to a Canadian person or group who has defended or advanced the cause of freedom of expression. The science writers collectively wrote an open letter to the prime minister last February, asking to free federal scientists from restrictions imposed on them when speaking to the press about their own work, especially those in environmental science.

This type of award is usually given to reporters working in countries where oppressive governments or dictatorships attempt to control the press and threaten the lives of journalists pursuing the truth. It’s not the type of issue we normally associate with Canada.

Every year, another organization, Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, honours journalists, usually from a war-torn or oppressed country, who have risked their lives just doing their job – seeking the truth and informing the public. The huge gala evening, which I have had the privilege to witness, is attended by hundreds of journalists in all media from across the country who support our international colleagues.

The event is a highly emotional one, as we listen to the tragic and heroic stories of journalists who have had their families threatened, been shot at or even killed by governments that do not want the media’s message to be heard.

Hearing about the difficulties journalists in other countries face underlines how privileged we are in Canada to uphold the principles of journalistic integrity.

But this award to the Canadian Science Writers Association is a sign that the tip of that oppressive iceberg is showing here.

Of course, no science writers are being threatened, but there have been numerous incidents where journalists, including us at Quirks & Quarks, have requested interviews with federal scientists about their own work and have either been refused or delayed access until after our deadlines by government media relations.

The scientific perspective on the world is an important one because science is the pursuit of truth. Most of the universe is still unknown to us, whether it be the dynamics of our atmosphere and how it interacts with the oceans, land and life, or the dark matter hidden between the stars.

We know that human activity has had a negative impact on our planet and we need to make some hard decisions about ways to reduce that impact without destroying the economy or our way of life. Those decisions need the scientific point of view. Science is the voice of reason that is often overshadowed by political, social or economic priorities.

This is not to say that science has all the answers, nor should decisions be made for purely scientific reasons. But that perspective needs to be part of the mix, and for that reason, the scientists need to be heard.

So, congratulations to the Canadian Science Writers Association for the award – but it’s really a bit of a sad day for Canada.

Tumblr’s lostmuskrat linked to Winslow Wheeler’s Foreign Policy article about the existential failings of the F-35. The cause of significant pricetag-related issues in Canada, it’s all the more problematic for the country that’s actually building it.

How bad is it? A review of the F-35′s cost, schedule, and performance — three essential measures of any Pentagon program — shows the problems are fundamental and still growing.

First, with regard to cost — a particularly important factor in what politicians keep saying is an austere defense budget environment — the F-35 is simply unaffordable. Although the plane was originally billed as a low-cost solution, major cost increases have plagued the program throughout the last decade. Last year, Pentagon leadership told Congress the acquisition price had increased another 16 percent, from $328.3 billion to $379.4 billion for the 2,457 aircraft to be bought. Not to worry, however — they pledged to finally reverse the growth.

The result? This February, the price increased another 4 percent to $395.7 billion and then even further in April. Don’t expect the cost overruns to end there: The test program is only 20 percent complete, the Government Accountability Office has reported, and the toughest tests are yet to come. Overall, the program’s cost has grown 75 percent from its original 2001 estimate of $226.5 billion — and that was for a larger buy of 2,866 aircraft.

[. . .]

A final note on expense: The F-35 will actually cost multiples of the $395.7 billion cited above. That is the current estimate only to acquire it, not the full life-cycle cost to operate it. The current appraisal for operations and support is $1.1 trillion — making for a grand total of $1.5 trillion, or more than the annual GDP of Spain. And that estimate is wildly optimistic: It assumes the F-35 will only be 42 percent more expensive to operate than an F-16, but the F-35 is much more complex. The only other “fifth generation” aircraft, the F-22 from the same manufacturer, is in some respects less complex than the F-35, but in 2010, it cost 300 percent more to operate per hour than the F-16. To be very conservative, expect the F-35 to be twice the operating and support cost of the F-16.

[. . .]

The F-35 isn’t only expensive — it’s way behind schedule. The first plan was to have an initial batch of F-35s available for combat in 2010. Then first deployment was to be 2012. More recently, the military services have said the deployment date is “to be determined.” A new target date of 2019 has been informally suggested in testimony — almost 10 years late.

If the F-35′s performance were spectacular, it might be worth the cost and wait. But it is not. Even if the aircraft lived up to its original specifications — and it will not — it would be a huge disappointment. The reason it is such a mediocrity also explains why it is unaffordable and, for years to come, unobtainable.

[. . .]

The design was born in the late 1980s in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Pentagon agency that has earned an undeserved reputation for astute innovation. It emerged as a proposal for a very short takeoff and vertical-landing aircraft (known as “STOVL”) that would also be supersonic. This required an airframe design that — simultaneously — wanted to be short, even stumpy, and single-engine (STOVL), and also sleek, long, and with lots of excess power, usually with twin engines.

President Bill Clinton’s Pentagon bogged down the already compromised design concept further by adding the requirement that it should be a multirole aircraft — both an air-to-air fighter and a bomber. This required more difficult tradeoffs between agility and low weight, and the characteristics of an airframe optimized to carry heavy loads. Clinton-era officials also layered on “stealth,” imposing additional aerodynamic shape requirements and maintenance-intensive skin coatings to reduce radar reflections. They also added two separate weapons bays, which increase permanent weight and drag, to hide onboard missiles and bombs from radars. On top of all that, they made it multiservice, requiring still more tradeoffs to accommodate more differing, but exacting, needs of the Air Force, Marine Corps, and Navy.

The CBC’s reposting of this Canadian Press report on the changing political balance deserves to be reposted. The past decade’s ascent of the NDP from third-place national opposition party (fourth if you include the regionally-concentrated Bloc Québécois) to Official Opposition making inroads in Conservative areas is a fascinating story.

(The NDP’s ascent has strongly negative implications for the Liberal Party, especially if the apparent shift of voters from the Liberal Party to the NDP is sustained.)

The Canadian Press Harris Decima survey indicates that the NDP have 34 per cent of popular support, compared to 30 per cent for the Conservatives.

With a margin of error of 2.2 percentage points, support for the two parties could be equally split.

Still, the poll indicates that the New Democrats have become competitive in traditional Tory areas.

Among rural Canadians, the poll suggests the New Democrats have 31 per cent support, compared to 35 per cent for the Tories.

The NDP appear to have the support of 36 per cent of urban and suburban men, a number that has risen steadily since February.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives are seeing their support in that demographic appear to hover around 29 per cent, down from close to 40 per cent four months ago.

As well, the New Democrats appear to have supplanted the Liberals as the natural party among women, said Allan Gregg, chairman of Harris Decima.

“Remember this is a party that a decade ago, half the electorate said they would “never” vote for,” he said.

Librarian and blogger Michael Steeleworthy has made a stirring post regarding the strongly negative consequences of Canadian federal government budget cuts on the libraries of Canada: jobs lost, serviced dropped, the works.

These budget cuts are a knock-out punch to how public information is accessed and used across the country. The cuts not only affect the library community and possibly your civil-service-friend who lives down the road. They will affect the manner in which our society is able to find and use public information.  If public data is no longer collected (see StatCan), preserved (see LAC, NADP, CCA), disseminated and used (see PDS/DSP and cuts at departmental libraries), then does the information even exist in the first place? There will be less government and public information, fewer means to access this information, and fewer opportunities to do so.

Take a moment and recall the freedom you have been afforded to speak freely in this nation.  The utility of that freedom is dependent on your ability to access the information you use to learn, to criticize, to praise, or to condemn.  If knowledge is power, then a public whose national information centres and access points are ill-funded is a weakling. Libraries and archives provide Canadians with direct access to key government information, and for that very reason, they should be funded to the hilt.

This is where I get to my point: We are now facing a situation in Canada where government information has suddenly become far more difficult to collect, to access, and to use. The funding cuts that Canada’s libraries and archives face is an affront to the proper functioning of a contemporary democratic society. These cuts will impede the country’s ability to access public and government information, which will make it difficult for Canadians to criticize government practices, past and present.

I mentioned on Twitter that these cuts show us that the work of librarians and archivists are crucial to the nation’s interest. We are not mere record keepers, and neither do we spend our days merely dusting cobwebs off of old books. We are the people who maintain collections of public information, and we are the people who provide and nurture access to information. Many of us see ourselves as guardians of the public’s right to access information.  If we take on that guardianship, then we must defend and protect these collections and access points. I’m not talking about a Monday-to-Friday, 9-to-5 job. I’m talking about advocacy, which doesn’t have an on/off switch. Either you do it or you don’t.

Spread the word, as he suggests.

I made a brief post in 2008 referring to the phenomenon of modern immigration by Canadian Francophones to Florida, a migration driven not by economic incentives but rather by the attractiveness of Florida’s tropical climate. (The similar contemporary migration to Maine, also driven by tourism, is less noteworthy inasmuch as Maine has been a destination for Francophone immigration since the late 19th century.) An extensive post at New Geography by UQAM’s Rémy Tremblay describes the community’s development and questionable future in detail.

It is hard to pinpoint the origin of the word “Floribec” but it appears to have been adopted in the 1970s by Quebec residents wintering in Florida and made official in a study by Louis Dupont in the 1980s. According to him, French Canadians began immigrating to Florida in the 1930s. This immigration came in the wake of spending by the United States government, which, in an effort to resolve the 1929 economic crisis, undertook to build a network of canals through the marshland in southeast Florida and, notably, to open the Intercoastal Waterway, a navigable canal hundreds of kilometres long. At the same time, the government was also attempting to develop the infrastructure for tourism. Thousands of Americans travelled to the “Sunshine State” to work on this vast construction site. Among them were Franco-Americans from New England, some accompanied by their French-Canadian cousins. Once the construction work was completed, rather than going home, many of the French-Canadian workers took up permanent residence in the Miami region, particularly in Surfside, on the Atlantic coast, and in North Miami. After the Second World War, there were 67,000 French-Canadian and Franco-American families living in the State of Florida. These new permanent residents of Surfside and North Miami and of Sunny Isles generally found work in the tourist industry because Florida, especially Miami, was the holiday destination of a growing number of wealthy French-Canadians. This initial wave of Quebecois mass migration to Florida began at the end of the war and continued until 1960.

The period from 1960 to 1970 saw a second wave of French-Canadian, mainly Quebecois, migration to the Miami region, with the appearance of a new type of immigrant: the investor. Two of the factors contributing to increased immigration were the liberating effect of the Quiet Revolution and the growth of wealth in Quebec. The fact that these two phenomena occurred simultaneously appears to have encouraged the people of Quebec to look beyond their borders. Expo 67 and a number of other Quebec cultural events made the rest of the world more aware of the province and, as well, the people of Quebec used this period of cultural vitality to increase their travel to foreign destinations.

At the same time, the tourist industry was experiencing rapid development in Florida with the arrival of the major airlines, the construction of the United States freeway system, and the north-south shift of economic and political power, which sparked phenomenal growth in the cities of the Sun Belt, including Miami. Miami Beach and its suburbs of Surfside and Sunny Isles became the favourite seaside destinations of the Quebecois. Recognizing the opportunity the situation presented, the Floribecois set up businesses in the area to cater mainly to Quebecois tourists, building French-language motels, restaurants, bars, convenience stores, and various other services to meet their needs.

From the 1970s onward, most businesses were established in Surfside and Sunny Isles, especially along Collins Avenue, whose location less than a kilometre from the beach offered increased customer traffic. The favourite tourist destination of the Quebecois was now affordable and there was no longer any language barrier. During this period, the Thunderbird, Suez, Waikiki and Colonial hotels were familiar to any Quebecois who travelled regularly to Florida, and even to those who were merely thinking of going there. Cultural life was vibrant because of the continued presence of such artists as Gilles Latulippe and other popular Quebec comedians and singers, who performed to sold-out audiences in the most popular hotels. The localization of these cultural activities in the gathering places of Quebecois tourists would serve to establish the physical boundaries of Floribec as a transnational tourist community.

[. . .]

Floribec constitutes an interesting chapter in the history of modern Quebec and it represents an intriguing and unique pocket of French-speaking America. This transnational community came into being as a result of people patronizing numerous businesses and other community-building venues situated in a relatively small geographical area on the Atlantic coast. These sites played an essential role as centres of community life for French-speakers who were living in or visiting the greater Miami area. Today, certain community practices formerly associated with Floribec can still be found; however, they are dispersed over a much wider area and signs of any Quebecois presence in the Florida landscape are increasingly difficult to discern.

• Centauri Dreams’ Paul Gilster raises the possibility of bringing an asteroid into lunar orbit, for scientific and space-settlement purposes both.
• Daniel Drezner is pleasantly surprised that the situation of Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng hasn’t led to anything like a breakdown of Sino-American relations.
• Eastern Approaches notes the Polish holiday of “Flag Day” on the 2nd of May, commemorating the substantial Polish participation in the conquest of Berlin in 1945.
• Far Outliers’ Joel discusses the Canary Islands and the role they played in the emerging imperium, both vis-a-vis Portugal and the later imperial strategies of unified Spain.
• Geocurrents describes the Sino-Soviet border disputes in eastern Siberia in 1969 that killed hundreds of people, nearly led to a Sino-Soviet war, and played a critical role in deciding the future of the world.
• Language Hat starts a discussion about the depressing plight of non-Russian languages inside Russia that quickly expands to include discussions of Turkish immigrants in Russia, the situation of Gaelic in Ireland, and Canada’s own language situation.
• Laywers, Guns and Money reviews a book describing how environmentalism in the Colorado ski resort of Aspen helps to legitimate anti-immigrant sentiment.
• At NewAPPSBlog, Mohan Matthen makes the contrarian argument–compelling, but I think ultimately incorrect–that a “Oui” outcome in the 1995 Québec referendum would have been good for Québec and rump Canada both.
• Yorkshire Ranter Alexander Harrowell discusses the consequences of Bo Xilai’s wiretapping of other officials in China, in the context of ubiquitous state surveillance generally.

Marginal Revolution’s Alex Tabarrok let me know that friendly if distant Canadian-Honduran relations have just become more intense: Canada is now exercising something like sovereignty over a community in Honduras, as economist Paul Romer and Honduras politician Octavio Sanchez wrote in The Globe and Mail.

Many people from around the world would like access to the security and opportunity that Canadian governance makes possible. According to Gallup, the number of adults worldwide who would move permanently to Canada if given the chance is about 45 million. Although Canada can’t accommodate everyone who’d like to move here, it can help to bring stronger governance to many new places that could accept millions of new residents. The RED in Honduras is the place to start.

[. . .]

Canadians are increasingly aware of the limits of traditional aid but remain committed to the principle that supporting international development is not only in Canada’s national interest but is the right thing to do. Recent trade agreements with Peru, Colombia, Panama and Honduras demonstrate that Latin America remains high on Canada’s development agenda.

The RED offers a new way to think about development assistance, one that, like trade, relies on mutually beneficial exchange rather than charity. It’s an effort to build on the success of existing special zones based around the export-processing maquila industry. These zones have expanded employment in areas such as garments and textiles, with substantial investment from Canadian firms such as Gildan, but they haven’t brought the improved legal protections needed to attract higher-skilled jobs. By setting up the rule of law, the RED can open up new opportunities for Canadian firms to expand manufacturing operations and invest in urban infrastructure.

By participating in RED governance, Canada can make the new city a more attractive place for would-be residents and investors. It can help immediately by appointing a representative to a commission that has the power to ensure that RED leadership remains transparent and accountable. It also can assist by training police officers.

The courts in the RED will be independent from those in the rest of Honduras. The Mauritian Supreme Court has agreed in principle to serve as a court of final appeal for the RED, but Canada can play a strong complementary role. Because the RED can appoint judges from foreign jurisdictions, Canadian justices could hear RED cases from Canada and help train local jurists.

Oversight, policing and jurisprudence are just a few of the ways in which Canada can help. Effective public involvement will also be required in education, health care, environmental management and tax administration. Such co-operation can be based on a fee-for-service arrangement in which the RED pays Canada using gains in the value of the land in the new reform zone.

Wikipedia’s Spanish-language Región especial de desarrollo, “special development region”, goes into more detail, translated into English below.

“Special development region” is the official name of an administrative division urban Honduras (colloquially called model city) subject to the national government and provided a high level of autonomy with a separate political and judicial system, and under an economic system theory based on free market capitalism. [The project involves the creation of several cities in these regions with the hope of attracting investment and creating jobs in those areas. Each region has its representative special executive or governor and will have its own laws (or constitutional status), people must voluntarily enter into this system. The Law of Special Development Regions articulates the relationship between the constitutional status of each region special and the sovereignty of Honduras.

These special areas are the application of so-called charter cities or towns have as a reference model and the experience of China’s special administrative regions (mainly the case of Hong Kong and how it served as a model city as special economic zones Shenzhen) and other countries of East Asia and Southeast Asia such as South Korea and Singapore.

The constitutional provisions that establish special development regions were raised in late 2010 and early 2011 during the government of President Porfirio Lobo, who gave official backing to economic development proposals of American economist Paul Romer who promotes the benefits of creating charter cities or towns in territories uninhabited model, with clear and stable rules (legal certainty) and open doors to capital and immigration.

I don’t know what to think of this. It’s the first time I’ve heard anything about Canada’s involvement in this concept anywhere. The Canadian government hasn’t replied, so far as I’ve heard, but this might be the sort of idea the Conservative government would go for.

People, what say you?

Julie Sedivy’s analysis at Language Log of the language used in the recent Alberta provincial election, talking about the ways in which Albertan identity was used by the Wildrose Party to exclude the Progressive Conservatives and the incumbent premier Alison Redford from being properly Albertan, is fascinating.

The central narrative of the Wildrose Party was this: The PC Party had once been the natural governing party of Alberta, representing its core values of conservatism and individualism. But their long years in power had caused them to become arrogant and lose their political/moral compass, abandoning the principles of fiscal restraint, an unfettered market, and individual liberties. The Wildrose Party offered a chance to sweep out the cobwebs and realign Alberta leadership with the true spirit of Alberta.

The Wildrose’s efforts to stake a claim to the historical ideology of the PC Party were matched with an all-out campaign to appropriate the language of consensus for itself. There’s a long tradition in Alberta politics in which successful parties have hitched their wagons to an Albertan identity that is typically portrayed as cohesive, unique within Canada, and often in opposition to the rest of the country. Political language in Alberta is shot through with references to “Alberta values”. And it was clearly the goal of the Wildrose Party to become linked in the minds of voters with these self-evident “Alberta values”.

[. . .]

What was striking was the sheer frequency with which the Wildrose campaign bandied about the words Alberta and Albertans, as in “What Albertans want…” or “We’re putting Albertans first.” This occurred far more often than in any of the other parties’ campaigns. In fact, the further left you moved on the political spectrum, the less often the words seemed to appear. Where, for instance, the Wildrose’s Danielle Smith might talk about policies that would benefit Albertans and Alberta families, the leader of the left-wing New Democrats was more likely to talk about “ordinary folks” and “regular families”. This suggests the words were being used not in their denotational sense (that is, for the purpose of referring to people who live in Alberta) so much as in their connotational sense (for the purpose of setting off the usual mental vibrations that are triggered upon hearing the word Alberta).

Most interesting is Redivy’s prediction, based on a class experiment, that the adjectival qualities associated with being stereotypically “Albertan”–”‘self-reliant, conservative, cowboys, hard-working, maverick, entrepreneurial, oilpatch’ and so on”–may soon stop being relevant. Is Albertan exceptionalism thus doomed?

Remember how I asked last night what Conrad Black’s fate would be, bereft of Canadian citizenship but wanting entry?

Right.

It was never that up in the air, and to be sure there is a valid humanitarian case to be made for allowing his entry. I just find it more than a bit ironic that he wants to be Canadian again after condemning Canadian citizenship as a prize that might be attractive to desperate Haitians and Romanians but was otherwise lacking.

Former media mogul Conrad Black has been given permission to return to Canada after his release from a Florida jail, which could happen as early as Friday.

The federal government has cleared the way for Black’s return by granting him a one-year temporary resident permit which is valid from May 2012 to May 2013, according to a source.

[. . .]

The authorization of a temporary permit is the first step in Black’s quest to return to Canada long-term — but he will have to pass through a series of immigration hurdles to become a Canadian citizen again.

In 2001, the Montreal-born Black gave up his Canadian citizenship to accept a peerage in Britain’s House of Lords. He did this because then-prime minister Jean Chretien would not allow him to accept the title as a Canadian citizen.

[. . .]

Black has made it clear he wants to return to Canada, but his criminal conviction and lack of Canadian citizenship pose problems.

Black’s ultimate goal is to once again become a citizen. But he can only be considered for citizenship after he has successfully attained permanent residency status and has lived in the country for at least one year. Experts have questioned how easy it will be for Black to get permanent residency status, given his criminal conviction.

[. . .]

On Parliament Hill Tuesday, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney would not say whether Black had been granted the permit. But he did answer questions about the case in general.

He said that foreign nationals are eligible to apply for temporary resident permits to come to Canada. He said he couldn’t comment on Black’s case in the absence of Black’s explicit permission without violating the Citizenship Act.

“It’s the only legal answer I can give,” Kenney told reporters. “If anyone of you can obtain a waiver from the privacy act from Mr. Black, we’d be happy to release all the details of any application, how it was considered and according to what criteria.”

[. . .]

Every year, officials from the Citizenship and Immigration department approve more than 10,000 temporary resident permits for foreign nationals, he said, and “a very large number” of those permits help to overcome inadmissibility for foreign nationals with criminal records if federal officials determine it’s a non-violent offence, the individual poses a low risk to reoffend and does not pose a risk to Canadian society.

Federal officials also will consider such other criteria as whether the person has long-standing ties to the country, family connections, and humanitarian and compassionate considerations, Kenney added.