Retirement Ages Dept: But they weren t, according to The Star. Several western countries Germany, Norway, the United States have already raised their retirement ages. So there was nothing radical or groundbreaking about the reform Stephen Harper announced at a meeting of international decision-makers in Europe last week and most Canadians would be willing to discuss the retirement age, if they were asked. The country s basic pension program, Old Age Security, was launched 60 years ago when the average worker s lifespan was 68.5 years. Today it s 81.4 years. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

Tracie LeBlanc Dept: Thanks for the feed back sic and the quick fix to bring CIC staff, writes Raylene Baker, registrar of Canadian citizenship, to Tracie LeBlanc, acting senior communications adviser for the department s Ontario office, in an email obtained under Access to Information laws by The Canadian Press, according to The Star. Tracie saved the day on this one! Merci mille fois Tracie! Ian Darragh, director of communications for Citizenship and Immigration Canada s Ontario branch, writes in another email to a colleague and two senior Citizenship and Immigration Canada officials including the registrar of Canadian citizenship thanked and congratulated a mid-level bureaucrat for organizing a fake citizenship ceremony broadcast on Sun News Network, internal department emails show. LeBlanc is the bureaucrat who, according to the emails, recruited six of her colleagues to participate in a citizenship reaffirmation ceremony at Sun News Network s Toronto studio last October that purported to show 10 new Canadians finally attaining their citizenship. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

Memorial Park Foundation Dept: Those are the words of Taras Shevchenko, Ukraine s national poet, whose bronze statue has been seen by no one since 2001 when it was stolen from an Oakville park, according to The Star. As the years passed, the statue s owners the few volunteers who run the Taras H. Shevchenko Museum and Memorial Park Foundation on Bloor St. W. had lost hope of ever again seeing the statue, worth an estimated $25,000 and they say it is easier / to have someone to weep with. / Make no mistake: It is a lot easier / To weep when seen by no one. A police investigation led nowhere and a $10,000 no-questions-asked reward went unclaimed. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

Goodman Dept: John Goodman, 48, is facing a civil suit launched by Lili and William Wilson, the parents of a 23-year-old man killed in a car crash in Wellington, Florida in 2010, according to the Palm Beach Post , according to The Star. Last October, Goodman legally made Heather Laruso Hutchins, his girlfriend of about two years, his daughter. The move could give her immediate access to a third of a trust fund set up for his two children because she is over 35 a fund Goodman cannot access himself. The fund is estimated at about $200 million according to the Post and in a legal twist a judge calls border ing on the surreal a millionaire polo club founder in Florida has adopted his 42-year-old girlfriend to allegedly protect his wealth from a wrongful death lawsuit . The lawsuit states Goodman had a blood alcohol level double Florida s legal driving limit at the time of the Feb. 12, 2010 crash that killed Scott Patrick Wilson. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney Dept: Yes, six of the new Canadians attending a reaffirmation ceremony for Citizenship Week in the Sun studios last fall turn out not to have been recently minted citizens after all. As The Canadian Press Jennifer Ditchburn has reported, they were actually federal bureaucrats told to smile and wave the damn flag like they meant it, according to The Star. According to CP, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney s office had asked Sun News to do a soft news segment, at the network s studio, on new citizens taking the oath. It does sound as though the Tories and Sun News are joined at the hip. I have never worked anywhere in journalism where the government phoned and asked you to do anything. Oh yeah, when an 8-year-old designs a Christmas stamp, we ll be there and when Stephen Harper s government wants a happy clap-clap Canadian moment on Sun News, it goes the Full North Korean. The thing looked like a school play with grown-ups. Sad frightened grown-ups. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

Citizenship Ceremony Dept: On Thursday, Sun News fessed up that a citizenship affirmation ceremony it staged in its downtown Toronto studio last October was fraudulent. While viewers were told the 10 people who pronounced the oath were new Canadians, six were actually federal bureaucrats faking it for the cameras. Despite weeks of effort, producers had been unable to scare up 10 real Canadians for the ceremony, according to Globe and Mail. When the story broke, other journalists lit up their Twitter accounts with glee, while many of those at the Sun Media parent chain stayed uncharacteristically silent. On Thursday morning, one of the channel s newsmen who had anchored the faux ceremony accepted an apology from a spokeswoman for the ministry. It would seem that both of us have a little egg on our face, Pat Bolland acknowledged and it turns out that owning Canada is a lot more complicated than wrapping yourself in the flag and mouthing a few stock phrases that even the ad agency for Tim Hortons wouldn t go near. While it had the option of attending an actual citizenship ceremony four were taking place in Toronto alone that would probably have made for boring television. Far better to have a quick hit and get on to the next item. So the Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration had helped them out, with a nudge and a wink. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

Immigration Officials Dept: Clato Mabior has been held in the Headlingley jail for more than a year as immigration officials did the paperwork. But political strife in Sudan contributed to officials keeping him in Canada. Madit Kuet argued for Mabior to be able to remain in Canada. Louise Charette/, according to CBC. None were infected as a result of their contact with him and an HIV-positive refugee convicted of sexual assault will be deported this month from Winnipeg, an immigration court hearing on Friday confirmed. He was was convicted in 2008 of two counts of aggravated sexual assault for failing to disclose to sexual partners that he was HIV positive. He was found guilty of having unprotected sex with six females, including a 12-year-old. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

Beijing Dept: More recently, pandas have been used as part of an effort to court Taiwan, the island Beijing considers a breakaway province. The symbolism of being sent two pandas in 2008 was confusing for some Taiwanese since the bears while wildly popular with tourists are not known for being especially affectionate toward each other. Pandas are considered an endangered species in large part because they re chronically uninterested in mating , according to Globe and Mail. It s a prospect that the Chinese leadership welcomes, one that has made it easy to forget the acrimony of Mr. Harper s early days in office, when he aggravated Beijing by awarding honorary citizenship to the Dalai Lama and boycotting the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Olympic Games. Panda diplomacy has been used to symbolize China s desire for better ties with foreign powers since the seventh century, when the Tang Dynasty sent a pair of the bamboo-munching bears to Japan. The warm-and-fuzzy tactic was revived by the Communist Party leadership in recent decades, most famously when Mao Zedong gifted Richard Nixon with a pair of pandas for the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., after the U.S. President s breakthrough trip to China in 1972. The expected decision to send pandas to Canada comes as ties between Ottawa and Beijing warm rapidly, particularly on the trade front, where Mr. Harper is expected to embrace China as an alternative market for Canadian energy following U.S. President Barack Obama s decision to delay approval for the Keystone XL pipeline that would have shipped Alberta bitumen south. Now it may go west instead via the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline to the West Coast. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

2011 Census Data Dept: The data lands in the middle of a heated national debate over whether Ottawa should make Canadians wait an extra two years for government Old Age Security benefits, a policy change that could spur them to postpone retirement beyond 65, according to Globe and Mail. The Statscan presentation, from late December, 2011, shows the agency expects census data will continue a broad trend that s leaving the Atlantic provinces and Quebec with an above-average proportion of seniors aged 65 and up. Many provinces further west, however, have a lower-than-average share of the retirement-age population and statistics Canada will release the first wave of 2011 census data next Wednesday, highlighting population shifts. But the age and sex component of the census, expected to be released by this spring, will further illuminate the greying of eastern provinces compared with Ontario and others further west. An internal Statscan document, obtained by The , estimates that the share of Canada s working-age population in the 45-64 year group has hit a record high. This suggests that a significant number of mature workers could retire from the labour force in the next 20 years the latest sign of a demographic shift as the population ages. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

Jason Kenney Dept: Documents released under access to information, initially obtained by The Canadian Press, outline how federal workers tried to cope with an order from Kenney's office to arrange a citizenship ceremony in the studios of Sun News, according to CBC. When the officials were unable to find enough real new Canadians who would agree to be featured on the Sun News network broadcast, six workers from the department stood in as new citizens in the ceremony and immigration minister Jason Kenney says he only learned Thursday of a televised citizenship event in October in which federal bureaucrats posed as "new Canadians." The documents show officials initially protested, saying there were several citizenship events planned at other sites that the network could attend, but agreed to arrange for 10 "new Canadians" to take part in a reaffirmation ceremony essentially, to re-take the oath of citizenship before a citizenship judge on-air to help mark Citizenship Week. Participants in a citizenship reaffirmation ceremony appeared in this photo posted on the immigration department's Twitter feed in October. Six federal bureaucrats were drafted to appear as new Canadians for the ceremony on a private TV network. Handout photo/Canadian Press (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.