Hong Kong: Southern China

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney Dept: Mr. Sun was among several dozen protesters who gathered outside Hong Kong s Exchange Square on Friday, shouting slogans and delivering two letters of protest to diplomats who came down from their 14th-floor offices to meet them. A few of the demonstrators pitched tents on the sidewalk and said they planned to stay there all weekend, according to Globe and Mail. Anger at the changes is high in Hong Kong and southern China. Many people there have family ties to Canada, which accepted a flood of immigrants from Hong Kong before 1997, when the former British colony rejoined China. Of the 284,000 applicants worldwide who would be bumped out of line by the changes, about 12,000 are from mainland China or Hong Kong. The government has set aside $130-million to refund application fees and says applicants are free to try again under the new criteria and but instead of the life in Canada that he dreamed of, Mr. Sun was set to spend the upcoming weekend sleeping on the pavement outside the Hong Kong skyscraper that houses the Canadian consulate. Furious at a change in immigration law that cancels applications filed before 2008 in an effort to reduce backlog, the 43-year-old says he will go without food until Monday in a desperate effort to get the attention of Immigration Minister Jason Kenney. The new policy is a heavy blow for us. So many years of waiting, so much time invested, so many years of hoping. If they told us earlier, we d have made other plans, he said, speaking by mobile phone as he prepared to bed down for the night outside the consulate, the same place where he filed for the visa in 2006. This hunger strike is my way of communicating my helplessness and sadness. It s resistance by physical means. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.