NO MORE EASY RIDE FOR KABADDI CLUBS! Kabaddi Clubs Sucker Punched Kenney For Easy Visas And Now He’s Taking Revenge

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Kenney Cancels Special Visa Privileges For Kabaddi Clubs Following Charges Of Human Smuggling And Criminality!

Realizing that he has been sucker punched by the Kabaddi establishment, who played up to his party’s junior ministers like Tim Uppal and Bal Gosal to get the easy visas – a furious Kenney held a teleconference this week to say that he was cancelling the special Kabaddi visa program due to abuse, including smuggling in people and criminality among Kabaddi players and clubs. Kenney was also questioned that while he was cancelling the program now but many of his party’s Indo-Canadian brigade was bragging about getting the easy visas and being too cozy with the Kabaddi clubs. The Kabaddi clubs had also lobbied the party to get the easy visa streamlined process in place in exchange for support during election time. Are the Kabaddi clubs being protected from criminal charges by the party’s Indo-Canadian brigade?

By R. Paul Dhillon

OTTAWA – After giving Indo-Canadian Kabaddi clubs a free ride in bringing players for their annual summer tournaments – which have for years been an excuse to smuggle in people from India who would pay thousands of dollars to the Clubs as a way to subsidize the expenses of the legitimate players coming to play – Immigration Minister Jason Kenney abruptly cancelled the privilege of streamlining visas after immigration officials revealed that of the 670 so-called players that were given visa last year – nearly a 100 didn’t go back and 27 applied for refugee status.

Realizing that he has been sucker punched by the Kabaddi establishment, who played up to his party’s junior ministers like Tim Uppal and Bal Gosal to get the easy visas – a furious Kenney held a teleconference this week to say that he was cancelling the special Kabaddi visa program due to abuse, including smuggling in people and criminality among Kabaddi players and clubs.

“We were very disappointed with the conduct of many of these individuals who benefited from this streamlined visa program,” Kenney said. “And so I’ve heard from the Punjabi community about this.  I think people are generally quite disturbed with how Canada’s generosity was abused.  We’ve also seen a huge inflation of the number of Kabaddi clubs and federations in Canada, to the point where I think we now have some seven competing federations.  This has further complicated our ability to administer such a program and to ensure that it’s done and the integrity of the system is respected.”

Last year, to avoid unnecessary red tape and delays, his ministry had created a ‘special program’ to ensure that Kabaddi clubs in Canada would be able to ensure that they had quality players participating in this sport.

Kenney was questioned about how Immigration Canada or his ministry determined the legitimacy of the various clubs and the numerous federations and Kenney didn’t really have an answer for that, saying they relied on whatever Kabaddi establishment had at the time.

Many Indo-Canadians associated with the Conservatives including MPs and junior ministers have been helping the Kabaddi clubs. They had also been lobbied by the clubs to get the easy visa streamlined process in place in exchange for support during election time.

Kenney was also questioned that while he was cancelling the program now but many of his party’s Indo-Canadian brigade was bragging about getting the easy visas and being too cozy with the Kabaddi clubs.

There are also accusations that while the minister knows all the offending parties whose players did not go back – he is not letting out the names of those clubs or federations, citing privacy issues (what privacy issues).

Also Kenney has not seriously looked into the financial gains from this so-called smuggling operations by the clubs. And this has led many to accuse some of his Indo-Canadian MP colleagues of protecting the clubs and the people behind them.

Kenney would only say that they are monitoring the situation and looking for hard evidence about the possibly millions of dollars that may have flowed to the clubs

Kenney got further riled when they started receiving complaints from some police jurisdictions about the new arrivals.

With mushrooming kabaddi federations looking to take advantage of the easy visa and begin their own smuggling operations – Kenney moved quickly to announced that kabaddi players wanting to play in Canada will now have to go through regular channels and convince the visa officers that they would go back to their respective countries after the season.

“Following consultations within the community and amongst many of my parliamentary colleagues, including Minister Tim Uppal, Parm Gill, Nina Grewal, Devinder Shory and Minister Bal Gosal, I decided to suspend the streamlined visa program for Kabaddi players this year. So people who want to come and play Kabaddi in Canada are welcome to do so, but they will have to apply for a regular visitor visa through our missions overseas,” Kenney said.

“As you know, in the last couple of years, in an effort to facilitate the participation of Kabaddi players from overseas in the sports clubs and federations in Canada, we created something of a special program and this was designed to ensure that Kabaddi clubs in Canada would be able to ensure that they had quality players participating in this sport, particularly during the summer season in Canada.  And so we had a somewhat streamlined process that allowed clubs and there was being given credentials through federations to nominate players to come to Canada.”

But Kenney said the abuse is evident by a large number of players who have not returned and have since applied for refugee status.

“We found that over 90, rather roughly 100 did not confirm their return to India and Pakistan at the end of this, their authorized period in Canada and we received a number of asylum claims.  I believe over 10 of these players have gone on to make refugee claims, typically in Montreal for some peculiar reason,” he said.

Kenney also said he started to receive complaints from the local police agencies in Peel, Surrey, Calgary and elsewhere about some players apparently being involved in criminality, including allegations of involvement in narcotics, abuse of women in Canada and other problems of criminality.

“So people who want to come and play Kabaddi in Canada are welcome to do so, but they will have to apply for a regular visitor visa through our missions overseas and their application will be considered in the same way as everyone else.  They will get no special consideration or treatment because they’re coming into a Kabaddi club.  They will have to demonstrate like everyone else does, that they have an intention to return at the end of their authorized period, that they have ties back to India or wherever their home country is and they’ll have to get the visa in the same normal process as everyone else,” Kenney said.

Kenney is hoping the Kabaddi federations can get their act together and he said he has asked his Indo-Canadian colleagues to encourage them to try to move towards a more cohesive governance of the sport in Canada.

“I would hope ideally with one credible national federation made up of credible, well governed clubs.  And if that and other integrity measures are taken in the future, we would be open to reconsidering some streamlined process, but for the time being, I anticipate through the course of this year, we’ve suspended this program and we regret the, the many people who abused it, abused it, abused our generosity, but we had to take this measure to protect the integrity of our visa program,” he said.