As residents flee Hong Kong, some want Canada to do more to bring them here | 24CA News
As Hong Kong experiences its largest emigration wave in a long time, many residents trying to go away are calling on the Canadian authorities to develop the eligibility for particular immigration packages.
“The Hong Kong we grew up in, that we used to know, is not the same anymore,” mentioned a former resident who moved to Canada by means of one among its packages.
“We just no longer feel safe.”
24CA News just isn’t figuring out her attributable to her considerations for the security of her household, who’re nonetheless in Hong Kong.
As a results of China’s tightening grip because it reverted again to Beijing’s management in 1997, many Hong Kongers say they’ve felt their security and livelihoods threatened, points which have been exacerbated by the imposition of strict COVID-19 insurance policies as the remainder of the world loosened restrictions. As residents go away for different nations, and as Canada welcomes hundreds, some residents are hoping Ottawa can do extra for many who want to go away.
In 2019, huge anti-government demonstrations paralyzed Hong Kong, sparked by a invoice that may have allowed individuals to be extradited from Hong Kong to mainland China. That led Beijing to crack down, passing a nationwide safety legislation in 2020 making it simpler to prosecute protesters.
Dennis Kwok, a former politician in Hong Kong who’s at the moment a analysis fellow at Harvard University, says China has damaged its pledge to the area.
“The key promise to the Hong Kong people … is that their way of life will remain unchanged … and that they would be able to govern their own affairs through a democratic system of government,” he mentioned.
“Both of those promises have been fundamentally and overtly breached.”
Exodus from Hong Kong
Municipal statistics present the outflow of residents since 2019 marks the largest inhabitants decline because it started holding data 60 years in the past. Roughly 110,000 residents have left within the first half of 2022 alone.
Thousands have come to Canada, together with British Columbia.
The 2021 census exhibits a 6.1 per cent improve of Hong Kong-born individuals in Vancouver’s census metropolitan space previously 5 years, bringing the overall inhabitants to greater than 76,000. It had beforehand been falling for many years.
The improve of 4,395 accounts for 90 per cent of the Canada-wide improve of Hong Kongers since 2016, when the earlier census was performed.
For Daviv Lai, a father of two, leaving Hong Kong for Canada was a straightforward determination.
“Nowadays in Hong Kong, it’s not the best place for my kids to grow up. It will become worse,” he informed 24CA News.
Lai got here to Canada underneath a particular program provided by the Canadian authorities that allowed him first to get a work allow legitimate for as much as three years, with a quick monitor to everlasting residency by means of one among two streams. However, it requires candidates to have graduated from a post-secondary establishment within the final 5 years.
In 2020, Lai received his bachelor’s diploma in electrical engineering after finishing a long-distance diploma on the University of Sunderland.
But says a lot of his associates who need to go away do not qualify
“They have [a] low chance because of the policy and criteria.”
Path to everlasting residency
Hong Kong residents are capable of apply for everlasting residency in Canada underneath one among two streams. One is for college kids who’ve graduated from a Canadian post-secondary establishment within the final three years. The different applies to individuals who have graduated from a post-secondary establishment within the final 5 years and have a 12 months of labor expertise in Canada.
“There is an argument to expanding these programs to catch more of those mid-career professionals,” mentioned Kyle Hyndman, a Vancouver immigration lawyer.
“If they don’t come here, they’re going to go somewhere else.”
Twenty-five years after the handover of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to China, the rising repression of rights and freedoms have prompted over 100,000 individuals to depart Hong Kong for locations just like the U.Ok., Australia and Canada.
Kwok says these residents can contribute quite a bit to Canadian society.
“They bring with them a lot of resources, skills and education,” he mentioned. “It’s a win-win situation.”
In a press release, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada informed 24CA News Hong Kong residents also can apply to present immigration packages.
“Individuals who are at risk of persecution … may also be eligible under Canada’s existing resettlement programs,” it mentioned.
