Note: I did not win anything.
Sure, I was playing penny-poker along with a number of others with no skin in the game. But anyone paying attention would readily notice I was always hedging my bets, a lot of likely this or somewhat likely that, not so likely this or probably that, and more than a few merely feasible possibilities.
But one thing I made a very concerted effort to do was not make definitive predictions of something that could not be known.
And I was serious about recognizing what was at stake for those who did have something at stake. When I was serious, it was about helping those with actual skin in the game have a sense of what was happening and how they might best prepare to navigate their way forward.
I tried to balance the penny-poker with due consideration for sincere discussion about what was coming, what could be expected, as best we could sort out from very limited sources of reliable information.
In contrast, those of us offering reasonable caution were repeatedly dismissed as "paranoid". Sure, gratuitous shots like that are noticed and not exactly appreciated.
Those of us who cautioned we did not really know when this would happen, but that it could easily happen before July 1st, were repeatedly countered by certain, now known to be false assurances it would not happen before July.
I hope no one was caught napping because of this and misses the opportunity to get a qualified application submitted by Wednesday.
Regarding the amount of notice, just two business days notice (Monday and Tuesday) before the deadline to get an application actually delivered to CIC by Wednesday, in order to apply under the now old law, obviously I was not surprised (even though I had guessed there would be a little more notice than that) how minimal the notice was, I do want to say two things about this:
-- it was predictable because this is indeed precisely how the Harper government almost always operates, and
-- it really is an unacceptable manner of governing
There was no good reason for not informing the public sooner. Reasons, sure, but not anywhere near good enough to abuse Canadians this way.
Many thousands of PRs were watching this. They have real lives, often very complicated lives. They have ill parents abroad. They have children struggling to adapt to Canadian schools. They face difficult employment choices. But the path to citizenship is important to many of them, and they deserved to have the opportunity to plan their lives in 2015 knowing what was at stake, when this would happen.
Regardless what opinion one has about this law, in support of it or opposed to it, what should be of great concern is the manner in which the Tories have run this government, minimal transparency, minimal notice, minimal public involvement, minimal consultations, all adding up to minimally democratic. Time for the bully to go. Time for some change.
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