This is what happens when your media is all-liberal, all-the-time (hi Canada!) and papers from other countries, thinking your media is maybe, you know, “fair and balanced”, follow your media’s lead.
Press Trust of India
Posted online: Saturday, June 11, 2005 at 1607 hours ISTToronto, June 11: An Indian-origin conservative lawmaker in Canada is at the centre of a controversy over his citizenship with an allegation surfacing that he faked as a businessman to gain entry into the country.
Gurmant Grewal, who came to Canada in 1991 from Liberia, obtained his citizenship by pretending that he was a business entrepreneur, alleged Gurwinder Dhillon, a former business partner of the MP who claimed to have participated in the scheme.Grewal, who is already facing charges of attempting to cross over to the liberal side in exchange for a cabinet post, bought shares of a small carpet company from Dhillon in the city of Vancouver for $40,000, only to sell them back the next day.
Dhillon alleged that the lawmaker bought the shares just to fulfil his obligation as an investor immigrant when he moved to Canada from Liberia, The Globe And Mail reported.
Canadian citizenship and immigration rules in 1991 required prospective entrepreneurial immigrants to manage a business that would be set up within two years, provide employment opportunities to at least one Canadian.
The allegation could spell trouble for Grewal as the country’s Citizenship and Immigration Department has made it clear that it takes such charges very seriously.
“In general terms, where there are allegations that somebody has obtained their citizenship, or in fact their permanent residence on the basis of misinterpretation or fraud, that’s something we take very seriously,” Department Spokesman Greg Scott was quoted as saying in the report.
However, a Conservative spokeswoman rubbished the allegation, saying it was old and unfounded.
But you see, here’s the thing:
[…] officials at Citizenship and Immigration said Thursday there’s no record of any Canadian being stripped of citizenship or permanent resident status due to failure to meet investor criteria, because statistics are not compiled that way.
Since 1977, only 50 Canadians have been stripped of their citizenship after investigations showed they had gained it in an improper fashion.
Department spokesman Greg Scott also said that prior to changes in the law in 2002, there was no specific investment dollar threshold that entrepreneurs had to meet.
[Conservative MP Jason] Kenney is accusing [Liberal Immigration minister Joe] Volpe of issuing thinly veiled threats of booting Grewal out of Canada as retribution for a messy failed defection that involved Grewal, his MP wife Nina, and senior members of Prime Minister Paul Martin’s government.
[…] “Does threatening to deport a member of Parliament whom the Liberals have failed to buy not reflect more the politics of a banana republic than a modern democracy like Canada?” Kenney charged Thursday.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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