If you have 15 seconds and you鈥檙e looking for a laugh, then have I got a recommendation for you. Go watch the Government of sa国际传媒鈥檚 new public service announcement.
The scene opens to reveal a plastic heterosexual couple atop a white, frosted wedding cake. The camera spins gracefully around the couple as Mendelssohn鈥檚 Wedding March plays in the background. 鈥淢any Canadians marry people from other countries,鈥� a man鈥檚 voice informs us, as bored as if he鈥檚 reading from a 鈥淔acts About sa国际传媒鈥� cue card.
Then, without warning, his voice turns harsh and urgent: 鈥淏ut sometimes marriage is a scam to jump the immigration line.鈥� Zounds, the shocking twist! Don鈥檛 be a victim of marriage fraud, we鈥檙e warned. End scene.
From the sepulchral authoritarianism of the narrator鈥檚 voice to the friendly little jingle that closes the ad (and that Government of sa国际传媒 logo that pops up all pleasant-like, as though they weren鈥檛 trying to scare the garters off us a moment ago), the brief ad is so intense that it plays like a parody of PSAs.
Alas, it鈥檚 sincere.
Immigration Minister Jason Kenney鈥檚 crackdown on marriage fraud has been going on since October 2012, but the latest PSAs came out in March, which has been dubbed Fraud Prevention Month. I saw it on the plane back to sa国际传媒, laughed at it, then forgot about it.
It came back to me only when I read Jack Knox鈥檚 column last Friday: 鈥淒uncan woman, 27, faces deportation after clerical error.鈥� The woman in question, Janilee Cadongonan, was born in the Philippines and is a permanent resident of sa国际传媒. She had hoped to marry and sponsor her boyfriend so he could live here as her husband. Some time during the process, she filled out the wrong form. She insists it was a mistake, while the Immigration and Refugee Board believes she did it intentionally.
Or maybe they don鈥檛. To hear their justification (鈥淭he need to maintain the integrity of the immigration system far outweighs any dislocation caused to the appellant, or her family, by the appellant鈥檚 removal from sa国际传媒鈥�) the IRB sounds less interested in determining her guilt (though I guess they don鈥檛 have to 鈥� the mistake was made) than establishing a zero-tolerance precedent on 鈥渕arriage fraud,鈥� regardless of whose lives are affected.
Suddenly, that PSA doesn鈥檛 seem so funny anymore.
This situation drives home to me how important the language we use is, and how it shapes our world. The phrase 鈥渕arriage fraud鈥� conjures up a very specific image. Obviously, marriage fraud exists, but these cases are complicated and individual; the majority do not comply with our popular image of beautiful, dangerous women preying upon lonely, decent, hard-working Canadian men.
The sense of exploitation that this popular rendering of 鈥渕arriage fraud鈥� evokes raises our hackles, and the ad picks up on this. The female cake-topper vanishes into thin air, symbolic of her falseness 鈥� or perhaps of the consequences of deportation. A wedding bell chimes dolefully, lamenting the lonely man鈥檚 fate. Be afraid.
And we are. We鈥檙e afraid of exploitation. We鈥檙e afraid of them (whoever they are) coming here and unfairly benefiting from our tax dollars at work, unjustly consuming our resources. (As though North America鈥檚 consumption of over a quarter of the world鈥檚 resources while hosting less than five per cent of its population isn鈥檛 cosmically unfair.)
Fraud Prevention Month is capitalizing on this fear, and that鈥檚 what permits us to rationalize Cadongonan鈥檚 impending deportation from her home of six and a half years. I鈥檓 blown away when I hear the voices of the lucky take refuge in bureaucratic piousness, as though the phrase 鈥淲ell, those are the rules鈥� protects us from any responsibility to the individual.
It is the accident of birth that allows us to identify as natural-born Canadians, not merit, and we should never allow ourselves to pretend otherwise.
Maybe this woman fudged a rule to get the life she wanted for her boyfriend. Or maybe she filled out the wrong form in a complicated clerical procedure.
I can barely file my taxes.
That PSA made me laugh because it seemed absurd, and it seemed absurd because it wasn鈥檛 dangerous to me or my family. Janilee Cadongonan, who鈥檚 about my age and lives on my Island, doesn鈥檛 have that comfort. I don鈥檛 know her, but I don鈥檛 think she鈥檇 laugh if she saw it.
