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Karygiannis vs. Immigration Department

Thursday seems to be the day for Liberals to pick fights at Parliamentary Committees.

This kerfuffle features Jim Karygiannis... the Liberal MP and longtime activist on all-things-immigration. (And fair enough that he is: according to the 2006 census 68% of his Scarborough-Agincourt constituents are immigrants.)

Karygiannis was questioning aggressively two senior Immigration Department officials -- Assistant Deputy Minister Claudette Deschênes and Heidi Smith, the Director of Permanent Resident Policy and Programs -- who appeared as witnesses before the House of Commons Citizenship and Immigration Committee.

Listen to what happened, and decide for yourself if Karygiannis was out of line. (The contentious bit comes at about the 2:00 in this excerpt -- we cut it a bit long for context.)

His exact words were these:

"What happened in Kingston, Jamaica? ... I'll tell you what happened. They're black and you don't want them in."

That set off a chorus of condemnation... and a point of order by Conservative MP Terence Young who called Karygiannis's behaviour embarrassing.

Karygiannis apologized for his choice of words (said he should have used the word 'African'), but not his point.

UPDATE: The first person to Twitter to all and sundry (well, his approved followers) that Karygiannis had thus spoken was Alykhan Velshi -- Immigration Minister Jason Kenney's spokesman. By the end of the day, the Minister himself had sent a letter to the Chair of the House Immigration Committee, Conservative David Tilson, to register his disapproval, and issue somewhat of a threat. The full text of his letter is pasted below -- as circulated by Velshi to selected media early Thursday evening:

Dear Chairman Tilson,

Earlier today, during a meeting of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, Liberal MP Jim Karygiannis accused a longtime public servant in my ministry of wanting to stop the immigration of black people.

While questioning Claudette Deschenes, ADM (Operations) in Citizenship and Immigration Canada, about why processing times vary across different visa offices abroad, Mr. Karygiannis said:

"What happened in Kingston, Jamaica? I'll tell you what happened. They're black and you don't want to let them in."

This is slander. And it is an unconscionable attack on the integrity of the dedicated members of our professional public service.

Immigration officials in Canada's missions abroad work very hard-often under trying circumstances-to process immigration applications. However, very often situations beyond our control arise that make processing immigration applications in a particular country more difficult.

When officials in my ministry appear before the Standing Committee to answer questions from committee members on the policies and operations of the Department, they are entitled to be treated with respect. There is no excuse for committee members to harass, abuse, or defame public servants.

If Mr. Karygiannis continues his pattern of abusing officials from my ministry when they appear before the Standing Committee, I will direct them not to appear before the committee in the future.

I urge you and committee members to censure Mr. Karygiannis for his unacceptable conduct, and to ensure appropriate respect for Canada's public servants.

Yours sincerely,

The Honourable Jason Kenney, PC, MP

Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism