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Ottawa feared political abuse of entry permits for athletes
By Michael Den Tandt and Maria Jimenez
The Globe and Mail
Mar. 10, 2005
An immigration provision that allowed Sikh athletic clubs to obtain permits to bring Indian athletes into Canada was temporarily shut down by the federal government in 2003 after concerns that the permits were being misused by Liberal MPs for political ends, The Globe and Mail has learned.
Then-immigration minister Denis Coderre stopped granting temporary resident permits (TRPs) to Indian players of kabaddi, a Punjabi sport that combines elements of wrestling and rugby, in the spring of 2003 after two MPs on opposing sides of the Liberal leadership race accused each other of abusing the permits, according to sources.
After hearing the complaints, Mr. Coderre became concerned that access to TRPs — highly prized in the Indo-Canadian community because standard immigration screening makes entry into Canada by Indian nationals difficult — had become politicized, sources say.
Mr. Coderre did not comment except to say: “Those permits are not for the purposes of a member of Parliament. Their purpose is as an extraordinary measure, to bring some sensitivity to the system.”
In the spring of 2003, the RCMP also investigated allegations that Liberal MP Gurbax Malhi had requested favours and financial support for Paul Martin's 2003 leadership campaign in exchange for helping Indian nationals get TRPs.
The allegations, which were never proved, stemmed from complaints from several Indo-Canadian businessmen to Brampton-area MP Colleen Beaumier. She referred the matter to Mr. Coderre and the Prime Minister's Office. Alex Himmelfarb, Clerk of the Privy Council, then contacted the RCMP. Sources said Mr. Malhi then made counterclaims of his own about Ms. Beaumier to Mr. Coderre. The dispute prompted him to cut off access to TRPs by kabaddi clubs.
Concerns about kabaddi clubs overstaying their visas were also a factor in the decision to cut off access, sources said.
Mr. Malhi denies making any counterclaims about Ms. Beaumier and said he understood Mr. Coderre cancelled the program for political reasons. He recalled telling Mr. Coderre that his only concern was that all requests regarding kabaddi teams and players be treated equally and fairly.
The RCMP carried out several interviews but did not talk to Mr. Malhi or lay any charges. Yesterday, RCMP deputy commissioner Pierre Lange said the Mounties received a complaint in 2003, investigated and closed the matter last year. Sources told The Globe and Mail that complainants refused to co-operate with police. Some requested police protection, apparently fearful of becoming involved.
Mr. Malhi, who represents the riding of Bramalea-Gore-Malton and is a former parliamentary secretary to Immigration Minister Joe Volpe, firmly denies asking kabaddi clubs in the Brampton area to donate to the Martin campaign or to provide him with political favours in exchange for help bringing their players to Canada for the annual tournament.
“Anybody can say anything; that's not true, I'm telling you,” he said in an interview. “If people want to donate to anyone I cannot stop it and I can't tell them not to donate the money. It has nothing to do with immigration. . . . [It is] people helping people, everybody helping everybody, this is the way the system works here, this is how the party system works here.”
Scott Reid, a spokesman for Mr. Martin, said yesterday that no one on the Martin leadership team was aware of the RCMP investigation, but declined to say whether they knew of the dispute between Ms. Beaumier and Mr. Malhi. He added, however, that “there's certainly awareness that there's controversy over the issue of bringing in kabaddi players.”
In 2004, after Mr. Coderre was replaced by Judy Sgro as immigration minister, the kabaddi clubs were able once again to obtain TRPs for their overseas players, according to Randhir Singh, who manages Young Sports Club, one of six clubs in the Brampton area.
Kabaddi, a popular sport in India, is also played by many Indo-Canadians who organize annual tournaments in the Greater Toronto Area and in Vancouver that attract as many as 3,000 spectators. The Canadian Sikh community's devotion to the traditional Punjabi sport is as intense as Canadians' love of hockey, and the rivalry among the clubs is legendary.
However, kabaddi has also been used in the past as a guise to smuggle Indian nationals into Britain and other countries. And for this reason, Canadian immigration officers overseas may deny Indian kabaddi players visas if they have concerns they are not genuine visitors or will stay illegally in Canada after their visas expire, according to André Labelle, spokesman for Citizenship and Immigration Canada.
Mindful of this controversy, Mr. Singh says the kabaddi clubs try and ensure that their Indian players return home after their visas expire. Every year, he and other kabaddi clubs approach Mr. Malhi and other Liberal MPs for ministerial permits so that the players can come and play in the summer tournament.
Mr. Singh said he is also happy to offer Mr. Malhi and other MPs political support, and to assist him during his re-election campaign, in order to maintain their relationship.
“It's a relationship thing,” said Mr. Singh, who in 2003 was also head of the Ontario Federation of Sports, an umbrella group of Indo-Canadian athletic clubs.
“They just give us a call. [They say] I need that here, I need 15 people, 15 volunteers . . . 15 people go to Mr. Malhi and 15 people go to [Liberal MP] Ruby Dhalla. So they don't need to call every [club] member. They just call one person.
“When they had a fundraiser for Paul Martin [in 2003], they would call us and say they were having it and can you help,” he said. While the club did not buy tickets, five individual members purchased tickets worth $125 apiece.
In 2003, non-Canadian players for Young Sports Club didn't receive ministerial permits, but their Indian players were able to enter Canada on multi-entry visas.
Mr. Malhi was a significant fundraiser for the Martin leadership campaign in 2003; however, he denies requesting donations from kabaddi clubs: “I didn't ask any sports clubs to contribute to the Martin campaign. Individuals, yes; they donated money because he was the finest minister and a lot of people had respect for him.”
Kim Nossal, head of the political science department at Queen's University, said it's normal for MPs to help constituents, who then offer their political support.
A case becomes problematic when people perceive “something fishy, something wrong. . . . That fishy smell is highly elastic and unpredictable.”
Ministerial permits have been a source of controversy in Ottawa since last fall, when it emerged that Ms. Sgro had granted a work permit to a Romanian stripper who had volunteered on her election campaign.
Ms. Sgro resigned in January of this year after failed refugee claimant Harjit Singh claimed that she had personally promised to help him with his immigration problems in exchange for free pizza and help on her campaign. Ms. Sgro is suing Mr. Singh for libel and has denied ever meeting the Brampton pizza parlour owner, who was deported last month to India.
Mr. Malhi said he receives hundreds of requests a year for immigration assistance.
He isn't the only MP who requests permits for overseas kabaddi players. Several other Brampton-area MPs also help to bring the players in, and view this as a legitimate service for their constituents. Ms. Beaumier, who represents Brampton West, says there is no quid pro quo. Gary Carr, Liberal MP for Halton, and Navdeep Bains, Liberal MP for Mississauga-Brampton South, concur.
“If kabaddi players could get these visas from missions overseas the way other professional players are treated, then we wouldn't need to get ministerial permits,” Ms. Beaumier said.
In India, kabaddi has been used as a cover to smuggle people into North America and Britain. It is such a common ruse that it even has a name: kabootar baazi, or “helping people land overseas on a genuine visa obtained by pretending to be an athlete.”
In a September, 2003, article in India Today, journalist Ramesh Vinayak wrote that this migrant smuggling ruse has been a cash cow for corrupt police officers in the Punjab where sports clubs and “international” tournaments are mushrooming. “The most sought after countries are the U.S., the U.K. and Canada,” he writes. Five young girls were transported to Britain in 2003 under the pretense of being members of a cricket club.
Kabaddi clubs in Canada say they try to ensure their overseas players leave when their visas expire, but there are still occasional irregularities. In 2001, for example, a kabaddi player in the Brampton area for the summer defrauded three teams of $63,000, then fled the country.
Ms. Beaumier confirmed that in 2003 several Indo-Canadian Brampton-area businessmen complained to her about Mr. Malhi's use of temporary resident permits. The allegation, which was never substantiated, was that Mr. Malhi had pressured Indo-Canadians and kabaddi sponsors and supporters to contribute cash to the Martin leadership campaign.
The complaint was conveyed to Mr. Coderre and Percy Downe, prime minister Jean Chrétien's chief of staff.
In the following weeks, RCMP officers interviewed Ms. Beaumier and several Indo-Canadian businessmen. However, the Indo-Canadians declined to co-operate with police.
In the playing season of 2003, after Mr. Coderre cut off kabaddi clubs' access to the permits, only two clubs managed to get permits for non-Canadian players, according to Mr. Singh. The Metro Punjabi Sports Club and the Ontario Khalsa Darbar Sports Club received five permits for Indian players that year, he said.
No other clubs received permits. “They were furious,” said a source familiar with the situation.
In 2004, the six clubs received 16 permits altogether, Mr. Singh said.
As head of the Ontario Federation of Sports in 2003, Mr. Singh investigated the allegations of misuse of temporary resident permits. He held a meeting with six kabaddi clubs, and they all denied they were being pressured to donate money to the Martin campaign. “I thought it was a made-up story,” he said.
Mr. Singh suggested that one of the complainants who supported John Manley's leadership bid spread the story out of spite. When contacted by telephone, the person denied ever complaining about Mr. Malhi.
MPs from the Liberal as well as opposition parties told The Globe that access to ministerial permits has become deeply politicized in the past several years, as long backlogs in the immigration process have made them increasingly valuable to immigrant groups.
Although the Immigration Department does not publish riding-by-riding data on permit issuance, Liberal MPs typically get better access to ministerial discretion than opposition members, and cabinet ministers get the best access of all, many MPs allege. Said one veteran Liberal backbencher, who wished to remain anonymous: “If you don't get along with the minister, do you get done in? Yeah. One suffers from that.”
After the complaints surfaced and access to the permits was shut down for 2003, Mr. Volpe, then still only a Toronto MP, did his best to mollify the Sikh community, Mr. Singh recalls. He promised to do what he could to get the permits flowing again, he said.
Mr. Volpe came through last year, Mr. Singh says: “He said, ‘I spoke to Judy [Sgro], we will arrange a visa for them.' ” This year, with Mr. Volpe as immigration minister, Mr. Singh said, he's optimistic that getting permits for kabaddi players will be no problem.
Mr. Volpe, for his part, denied in an interview this week that he'd ever acted as an intermediary for the kabaddi clubs.
He added, “I speak to a lot of people in the community, and I know there have been some complaints about people not getting in.”
He said he had no knowledge of any complaints about misuse of residency permits, or of the RCMP investigation, or of any exchanges of immigration help for political favours. “There's never a quid pro quo. Period.”
The clubs plan to begin lobbying their MPs for permits in April, several weeks in advance of the summer kabaddi season.
© Globe and Mail 2005
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