Canada Blocks Citizenship for Russian Conviction for Criticizing Ukrainian War | Hacker News Reader

Canada Blocks Citizenship for Russian Conviction for Criticizing Ukrainian War

jonathanturley.org

37 pointsatticora15 comments

Read the actual CBC article before this hysterical blog post.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/maria-kartasheva-russi...

This is just your average case of bureaucratic process, where they flag on technical truths (that the kind of conviction has similarities to any existing law in Canada, no matter how tenuous), and then the applicant explains the situation and it gets resolved.

Yes, it sucks that it caused such a situation in this obvious case, and it's stressful as hell, but the whole point of the explanation part is to keep edge cases from falling through the cracks.

Pathetic that this ragebait has ended up on HN. I am Canadian. There is no sweeping authoritarianism here.

The fact that Canada criminalizes speech is sweeping authoritarianism, especially since it aggressively enforces anti-speech codes when the speech pertains to criticism of government policy.

Even the CBC article posted above states that the burden is on the persecuted individual "to prove to immigration officials here [in Canada] that it isn't a crime in Canada to criticize the Russian army."

This is not the only example.

The fact that some countries don’t give free speech (no matter how reckless, dangerous or untrue) the religious status that America does doesn’t make them authoritarian.

The American constitution says: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The Canadian one says: peace, order, and good government. Different strokes for different folks - you do you.

If only there were a word for governments that prioritize "order" over "liberty"...

That’s a lazy critique. It’s a Commonwealth thing. If you really believe all Commonwealth countries are authoritarian, there’s not much I can say here that would convince you otherwise.

Anyways, I don’t deny there are pluses and minuses. The situation of the person in this article (if the facts are as reported) is unfortunate, and I’d hope that the ministry would intervene if push really came to shove.

Not-run-by-Trump?

Imagine living in a country where the concept of liberty is so strong that calling for insurrection over the democratic process is fine.

> The American constitution says: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Does it? We may be reading different constitutions.

This is deeply disturbing on all levels. Canada needs to get it together... I sometimes have the morbid thought to wonder just how much of a totalitarian Soviet satellite the U.S. will tolerate on its borders before taking action.

The more i learn about canada to more i rejoice i decided not to move there. It has such good pr outside but it’s such different in person. Imagine sharing your disapproval of russia’s - or any other country’s war actions - in ukraine only to end up in trouble in a country that claims to support ukraine. Truly frightening what that person must be going through knowing what expects her if she returns to russia, and worse, truly frightening once you realise that a country meant to provide safety is actually equally disrespectful of free speech.

Seems like the criterion should be the same as that for extradition.

That implies that Canada would never deport/extradite somebody for spreading "misinformation". I'm 100% sure they would.

All that actually happened was ircc asked that she explain the criminal conviction.

She’ll explain, it’ll be approved, and everything will be fine in a matter of months.

It’s stupid but will be fine.

As the article notes, the Canadian government has strong penalties for "misinformation" and even expressly true information likely to cause social unrest. So why would they want someone likely to at some point turn their desire to speak truth to power in the direction of some issue the Canadian government wants her to shut up about.

It's not incompetence or Kafkaesque, it's at some level a real concern to them.

As someone who also lives in a Commonwealth country, it's not surprising they ended up at this point.

I think this is a terrible injustice, but can still see why, when a guest is poking at a very large angry bear from inside of your house, you might not want her to stay.

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