Working site on citizenship and multiculturalism issues.
2017/05/23 Leave a comment
Interesting discussion regarding young refugees and the degree to which settlement and related services are adequately meeting their needs:
Tandis que l’organisme Dans la rue constate un nombre grandissant de jeunes nouveaux arrivants en situation précaire, les autorités se font rassurantes quant à l’intégration des immigrants, réfugiés et sans-papiers au
2017/05/19 Leave a comment
Good evidence-based analysis but would have been helpful to have the pre-changes data as well:
Five years after Ottawa rolled out controversial reforms to build a “faster and fairer” asylum system, also meant to boot out failed refugees quickly, the verdict is in.
Despite the highly-touted changes made by the former Conservative government in 2012, the revamped refugee system has failed to hear claims within tight statutory processing timelines or get rid of the backlog, reports a new study released by the Canadian Association for Refugee and Forced Migration Studies.
“The aim of the Balanced Refugee Reform Act and the Protecting Canada’s Immigration System Act was to make the system faster, fairer and more cost effective,” said Ryerson University criminology professor Idil Atak, who co-wrote the review with colleague Graham Hudson at Ryerson and University of Ottawa professor Delphine Nakache.
“But the new system is not faster. It is not fairer. It is not more cost-effective.”
To restore the asylum system’s “integrity,” then Immigration Minister Jason Kenney introduced substantive changes to the process, including truncated timelines in asylum claims’ processing. Those who claim asylum at a port of entry are given 15 days, not the 28 days that applied prior to that, to submit the form setting out the basis of their claim.
For most claimants, refugee hearings are supposed to be held no later than 60 days after the claim is referred to the Immigration and Refugee Board, while those from the government-designated list of “safe” countries will be heard as quickly as within 30 days.
The government did respond to advocates’ demands by establishing a tribunal to hear appeals by applicants whose claims have been rejected.
However, it also introduced a one-year bar to prevent failed refugees from having a pre-removal risk assessment or applying permanent residence under humanitarian considerations to delay deportation.
The researchers examined the system’s performance against its policy goals. They did this based on government data from the refugee board, immigration department, border service officials and the RCMP, and on 47 interviews with officials from those agencies and others.
Despite the drop in the volume of asylum claims by half over the course of one year, from 20,427 in 2012 to 10,322 in 2013, only 55 per cent of the safe-country claims met the 30-day target, compared to seven out of 10 claims from non-safe countries.
According to the refugee board, 30 per cent of asylum hearings had to be rescheduled in 2015, mostly due to lack of time. One-third of the appeals at the refugee appeals tribunal also failed to deliver a decision within the 90-day limit; on average, appeals cases were finalized 44 days beyond the target.
“The administration’s priority was to schedule the initial (refugee) hearings for new asylum applications,” said the 50-page study. “As a result, secondary intake of claims, i.e. claims returned by the appeals tribunal or Federal court, remained unresolved for a period of time.”
There were more than 5,000 so-called “legacy cases,” which were filed before the new system came into effect in 2012, that were languishing in the system as of 2016, said Atak, adding that the refugee backlog has already reached the number that applied before the 2012 reform.
With a spike in the number of irregular land-border crossings via the United States, Canada this year has already received a total of 12,040 claims up to the end of April.
If the trend continues, it could reach 36,000 cases in 2017.
Refugee advocates have called on the government to do away with the two-tier system based on where claimants come from and the unrealistic timelines for hearings and appeals.
Mario Dion, the refugee board chair, has called on the Liberal government both for more resources and to ease the restrictive process.
The Tories established the one-year bar to pre-removal risk assessments and humanitarian consideration for failed refugees because of the target to kick them out of Canada within one year.
However, the study found only one-third of failed claimants were removed from Canada within 12 months due to many obstacles.
These include lack of co-operation by the home country, inability to locate the individuals and the person’s fitness to travel.
The reforms did not come cheap, said the study; the Tory government allocated a total of $324 million on implementation over five years.
The removal costs almost doubled to $43 million after the reforms, while the number of people deported from Canada dropped from 13,869 in 2012 to 7,852 in 2014, according to the latest data available to the researchers.
Source: Former Tory government’s refugee reforms get failing grade | Toronto Star
2017/05/17 Leave a comment
Interesting. An overhaul beyond the original campaign promise of an expert panel to determine which countries should be considered as safe would be complex by itself, not to mention the politics involved:
A Liberal election promise to overhaul the way asylum claims are handled has been postponed indefinitely despite rising numbers of people seeking refuge in Canada putting the system at risk, The Canadian Press has learned.
One of the options on the table, multiple sources have told The Canadian Press, is rejigging the historic Immigration and Refugee Board, and giving some of its authority over to the Immigration Department itself.
But those advocating for the government to do something before backlogs threaten the integrity of the system say they are running up against a Liberal government seeming to have lost interest in spending any more money or political capital to help asylum seekers.
The starting point is the designated country of origins system, which determines how fast asylum claims are heard based on where they are from – a system that should, in theory, help weed out unfounded claims faster.Internal evaluations have shown that hasn’t quite worked, and the system has drawn the ire of refugee advocates for creating a two-tier approach that includes unworkable timelines for hearing cases and their appeals. Elements of the program have already been struck down by the Federal Court.
The Liberals had been on the cusp of doing away with it, going even farther than their original promise to use an expert panel to determine which countries belonged on that list.
But a planned January roll-out was postponed after the election of U.S. President Donald Trump and the subsequent Liberal cabinet shuffle that saw a replacement of the federal immigration minister.
Then in March, as the issue of illegal border crossers dominated global headlines and Question Period, plans to repeal the designated-country-of-origin scheme were scrapped again, sources said.
They haven’t been rescheduled, even as the IRB itself has been among those saying the system needs to go as a way to ease the pressure.
“It would simplify our life from a case management point of view,” chairperson Mario Dion said in an interview with The Canadian Press in March.
“I don’t have a political view.”
The Liberals do, observers said.
When they came into power and moved to make good on a promise to resettle 25,000 Syrians, the government believed it had broad public support for refugees, said immigration lawyer and refugee advocate Lorne Waldman.
Things have changed.
“The concern at the centre is that support has dissipated significantly because of a series of factors, the most important one being the emergence of Donald Trump,” he said.
“And I think the concern is amplified by the Conservative leadership race where you have many of the candidates taking a very anti-immigrant posturing in their campaign.”
Source: Liberals postpone indefinitely overhaul of asylum claim system – Macleans.ca
2017/05/15 Leave a comment
In the context of the push to meet the target and deadline, understandable oversight:
Le gouvernement fédéral n’a pas tenu compte de l’impact de la réinstallation des réfugiés syriens sur les communautés francophones en situation minoritaire, reproche le Commissariat aux langues officielles (CLO).
La commissaire par intérim, Ghislaine Saikaley, conclut que le ministère de l’Immigration, des réfugiés et de la citoyenneté (MIRC) a contrevenu à certaines de ses obligations en matière de bilinguisme en réinstallant au pays ces milliers de migrants qui ont fui la guerre civile.
Car tout au long du processus, le ministère «n’a jamais cherché à connaître» les besoins des communautés francophones en situation minoritaire, tranche la commissaire dans un rapport d’enquête préliminaire de 12 pages obtenu par La Presse canadienne.
Or, en vertu de la Loi sur les langues officielles, qui a un statut quasi-constitutionnel, le fédéral «a l’obligation de prendre des mesures positives de façon proactive» afin d’appuyer ces communautés et d’agir de façon à ne pas nuire à leur «développement» et leur «épanouissement», est-il écrit.
Des communautés francophones en situation minoritaire ont bien tenté d’ouvrir leurs portes à certains de ces réfugiés syriens parrainés par le gouvernement, et dont «approximativement 95 % ne parlaient ni français ni anglais à leur arrivée au Canada».
Mais ce fut en vain. «Sur les 39 propositions reçues à l’hiver 2016, huit ont été soumises par des organismes d’établissement francophones, mais aucune de celles-ci n’a été retenue», a noté la commissaire Saikaley.
Pour le porte-parole du Nouveau Parti démocratique (NPD) en matière de langues officielles, François Choquette, «c’est une occasion manquée, une occasion ratée». Car c’est par l’immigration que passe – à tout le moins en partie – la survie des communautés francophones minoritaires.
Même son de cloche du côté de la présidente de la Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne (FCFA), Sylviane Lanthier, qui rappelle que le gouvernement fédéral a souvent raté la cible de 4,4 % en matière d’immigration francophone hors Québec.
«Les communautés ont peu bénéficié de l’immigration, a-t-elle souligné en entrevue téléphonique. C’est important que le gouvernement fédéral maximise les effets positifs potentiels de l’accueil des réfugiés dans nos communautés.»
Car la vitalité de ces milieux «repose beaucoup, et de plus en plus, sur l’accueil et l’intégration des nouveaux arrivants, y compris des réfugiés qui se réinstallent au Canada», a fait valoir Mme Lanthier.
Les représentants du MIRC ont bien plaidé auprès du CLO qu’il y avait urgence d’agir en raison de la promesse du gouvernement libéral d’accueillir 25 000 réfugiés en l’espace de deux mois et demi, mais cet argument n’a pas convaincu le chien de garde du bilinguisme au pays.
«À cet égard, je tiens à souligner que les mécanismes pour tenir compte des besoins des (communautés linguistiques minoritaires) auraient déjà dû être en place au moment où l’initiative de réinstallation des réfugiés syriens a été annoncée», est-il écrit dans le rapport du CLO.
2017/05/08 Leave a comment
Not surprising given the overall emphasis of controlling and managing the number of in Canada claims:
Ottawa is being accused of preventing Roma travellers from boarding Canada-bound flights and denying them the possibility of seeking asylum here.
Since the end of last year, advocates and lawyers say a slew of Roma passengers from Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia — all currently visa-exempted countries — have reported being stopped from boarding flights to Canada via transit points in England, Poland, Belgium and Germany.
The federal government denies that it is to blame. Ottawa says that while it provides assistance and advice to airlines, it’s ultimately up to the airlines themselves to decide who boards flights to Canada, and that all travellers coming to the country are subjected to scrutiny and can be denied entry.
Airlines found to have carried an improperly documented foreign national to Canada will be fined up to $3,200 per passenger and are liable for additional removal and medical costs, according to the government’s manual on the obligations of transporters.
“Ninety per cent of these travellers have valid plane tickets, the electronic travel authorization (eTA) issued by Canada and an invitation letter from their friends and relatives in Canada,” said Toronto settlement worker Paul St. Clair, who has helped many in the community write up their invitations.
“The interdiction is happening everywhere. I have had 50 Roma families in Toronto coming to us in the last six months, asking me what to do about it, how they can help their relatives come to visit.”
While advocates including St. Clair agree that many Roma, who were once known as Gypsies, may intend to come to Canada for asylum, they say Canada cannot stop legitimate refugees from travelling and accessing its asylum system if they have the proper documentation to visit the country and solid grounds to support their need for Canada’s protection.
Last year, asylum-seekers from three major source countries of Roma refugees in Canada all had acceptance rates over 50 per cent — Slovakia, 74.6 per cent; Hungary, 66.9 per cent; and the Czech Republic, 56.5 per cent, according to data from the Immigration and Refugee Board. The overall acceptance rate for refugees to Canada was 63 per cent.
“We had people already on the plane being taken off the plane and some were stopped at checkpoints. They are told Canada doesn’t want them,” said Toronto immigration lawyer George Kubes, who said he is aware of some 30 such cases in the past month from his former Roma clients in Toronto.
“They may end up filing a refugee claim here, but if they are real refugees, they have every right to make the claim when they get here.”
The accusation against Canadian border officials is not new. The Canadian Romani Alliance has complained about Roma travellers being denied since Canada lifted visa requirements against Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia, after which asylum claims soared.
Last week, Ottawa took its first step to ease the travel requirements for Romanians and Bulgarians. Both countries have large Roma populations.
Visitors from those two countries are now only required to obtain an electronic travel authorization online, instead of a visa, if they have held a Canadian visitor visa in the past decade or currently hold a valid United States visa. The visa requirement against them will be fully removed Dec. 1.
Gina Csanyi-Robah of the Canadian Romani Alliance said the problem of Roma travellers being prevented from coming to Canada seemed to have improved after media reports in 2015 highlighted the issue.
She wondered if the renewed reports from Roma travellers have anything to do with the planned removal of the visa requirement for Bulgaria and Romania.
“Screening passengers is one big way to stop refugees from coming,” said Csanyi-Roba. “If they won’t need a visa to come to Canada, I won’t be surprised many Roma will try to find safety here given the persecution they face in those countries. It is going to be a challenge in terms of how the Canadian government is going to address the situation.”
Source: Roma say they’re being barred from flights to Canada | Toronto Star
2017/04/29 Leave a comment
Useful article on how the system works:
Migrants who applied for asylum in the United States but then fled north, fearing they would be swept up in President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, may have miscalculated in viewing Canada as a safe haven.
That is because their time in the United States could count against them when they apply for asylum in Canada, according to a Reuters review of Canadian federal court rulings on asylum seekers and interviews with refugee lawyers.
In 2016, 160 asylum cases came to the federal courts after being rejected by refugee tribunals. Of those, 33 had been rejected in part because the applicants had spent time in the United States, the Reuters review found.
Lawyers said there could be many more such cases among the thousands of applicants who were rejected by the tribunals in the same period but did not appeal to the federal courts.
The 2016 court rulings underscore the potentially precarious legal situation now facing many of the nearly 2,000 people who have crossed illegally into Canada since January.
Most of those border crossers had been living legally in the United States, including people awaiting the outcome of U.S. asylum applications, according to Canadian and U.S. government officials and Reuters interviews with dozens of migrants.Trump’s tough talk on illegal immigration, however, spurred them northward to Canada, whose government they viewed as more welcoming to migrants. There, they have begun applying for asylum, citing continued fears of persecution or violence in their homelands, including Somalia and Eritrea.
But Canadian refugee tribunals are wary of “asylum-shopping” and look askance at people coming from one of the world’s richest countries to file claims, the refugee lawyers said.
“Abandoning a claim in the United States or coming to Canada after a negative decision in the United States, or failing to claim and remaining in the States for a long period of time — those are all big negatives. Big, big negatives,” said Toronto-based legal aid lawyer Anthony Navaneelan, who is representing applicants who came to Canada from the United States in recent months.
The Canadian government has not given a precise figure on how many of the border crossers were asylum seekers in the United States.
But it appears their fears may have been misplaced. Trump’s attorney general, Jeff Sessions, has said that anyone in the United States illegally is subject to deportation, but there is no evidence that asylum seekers with pending cases are considered illegal under the new administration.
‘Lack of seriousness’
The asylum seekers will make their cases before Canada’s refugee tribunals, which rejected 5,000 cases last year.
The tribunals’ decisions are not made public, so the reasons are not known. An Immigration and Refugee Board spokeswoman confirmed, however, that an applicant’s time in the United States can be a factor in a tribunal’s decision.
Rejected applicants can appeal to Canada’s federal courts, whose rulings are published. The federal courts upheld 19 of the 33 tribunal rejections they heard last year and recommended fresh tribunal hearings for the other 14 cases.The judges believed those claimants had a good explanation for having been in the United States first. The outcomes of the new tribunal hearings are not known.
The federal court handles only a small portion of all applications rejected by the refugee tribunals. But overall, applicants who have spent time in the United States have a higher chance of being rejected, said multiple immigration lawyers, including two former refugee tribunal counsel, interviewed by Reuters.
Source: Asylum seekers fleeing U.S. may find cold comfort in Canada’s courts – Manitoba – CBC News
2017/04/25 Leave a comment
Leave it to others to comment, particularly those with experience in dealing with the IRB.
Like all GiC appointments, there is a strong political element (and has always been).
The delay in appointments appears to be characteristic of the government, partially due to its commitment to increased diversity in appointments, but one that affects the timeliness of decision-making.
The in-depth study, 2016 Refugee Claim Data and IRB Member Recognition Rates | Canadian Council for Refugees, shows a variation in acceptance rates among members, as happens to a certain extent in all such processes:
A slew of seasoned decision-makers tasked with hearing refugee and immigration appeals have either left or will depart from their job in what some call the Liberals’ “housecleaning” of Conservative appointees.
In light of what some critics call inadequate funding and a growing backlog stemming from the recent spike in asylum-seekers crossing into Canada via the United States, the loss of the adjudicators on the immigration and refugee appeals tribunals is expected to toss the system into disarray.
“Our concern is the government is continuing to have a governor-in-council appointment process that is political and discretionary instead of going for a transparent process to appoint the most suitable candidates who are competent, judicious, fair-minded and efficient,” said Raoul Boulakia of the Refugee Lawyers’ Association of Ontario.
“The efficiency and quality of the decisions could be compromised if the people who are brought in do not have the expertise and are not judicious.”
The Immigration and Refugee Board, which oversees both appeals tribunals, said 14 appointees have left their job since last August and another 39 will have their appointments expire by the end of this year. The board confirmed a total of 42 people applied for reappointments to the tribunals, but would not say how many have been successful.
Currently, 23 of the 58 positions at the refugee appeals tribunal are unfilled while the immigration appeals division has six vacancies out of the full complement of 44 appointments.
Like the court system, the refugee and immigration appeals tribunals require adjudicators to have stronger knowledge and experience with the administration of the law in order to review decisions by lower-level refugee judges or immigration officials, who are civil servants.
While failed refugee claimants — and sometimes the immigration minister — can appeal to the refugee tribunal any questionable decisions made by asylum judges, rejected immigration applicants in sponsorships or those facing removal orders can take their cases to the immigration appeals tribunal.
As of the end of December, the immigration appeals tribunal had a backlog of 10,206 cases and a processing time of 20.4 months (compared to 17 months in 2013), while the refugee appeals division had 1,938 cases in the inventory with the average processing time at 124 days (compared to 65 days in 2013), said the refugee board.
Under the old system by the former Conservative government, existing adjudicators seeking reappointment to the tribunals would have all their previous decisions evaluated in terms of quality and quantity before being recommended by the board chair based on their track records.
However, last summer, the Liberal government, which ran an election campaign on transparency and bipartisanship, rolled out a new process for those already sitting on the tribunals by requiring them to reapply for their appointment and pass an online test.
They are then interviewed by a hiring committee made up of the refugee board chair and one representative each from the Prime Minister’s Office, Privy Council Office and the Immigration Department. The composition of the committee opens the door for partisan selection, Boulakia said.
The Privy Council said the government’s new approach to governor-in-council appointments supports “open, transparent and merit-based appointments.”
“All candidates seeking appointment to a GIC position with the Immigration and Refugee Board, be they incumbents or new candidates, are subject to a rigorous selection process developed for the position, which includes inputs and insights from the independent bodies, including the chair of the refugee board,” said Mistu Mukherjee, a spokesperson for the PCO.
“The results of these assessments, made against public and merit-based criteria, are provided to the minister. The minister makes appointment recommendation from this list of highly-qualified candidates.”
Adjudicators who took the test said the questions had nothing to do with immigration and refugee laws and complained they had no way to review the exam or find out why they might have failed.
“The process is partisan and not based on merits. They are cleaning out anyone who was appointed by the previous government, whether they are really affiliated with the Conservatives or not,” complained one adjudicator, who underwent the process and asked not to be identified for fear of repercussion.
“This is complex, technical work. It takes a long time for new members to learn the stuff. This purge means people’s (immigration) status is going to be uncertain for longer. It is going to further affect people’s ability to bring their family members to Canada. This is going to have a huge impact in people’s lives.”
Although it is a common practice for a new government to fill board and tribunal appointments with their party supporters, another affected adjudicator said the test is “flawed” and the process is “rigged.”
“What happens is you feel you are shackled to a political party with your job security resting on the whim of that party. But you are not supposed to get involved in any politics. It is just so wrong when you are not assessed by your performance and good judgment but by who you know,” said the source, whose appointment was not renewed.
“Our political leader has said to refugees, ‘Come to Canada and we will welcome you.’ It’s like an open invitation, but some people who come here are not really who they say they are. With more refugees coming, everybody will be appealing and rushing to the appeals tribunals when they are turned down. This is all about cleaning house.”
Refugee board spokesperson Anna Pape said it is not a requirement for appointees to have experience in refugee and immigration matters and “(complete) training” is provided to all new decision-makers, regardless of their education or experience.
Source: Liberals accused of ‘housecleaning’ of Tory appointees at refugee board | Toronto Star
2017/04/04 Leave a comment
While I think he overstates the case and is unduly alarmist, there is more than a kernel of truth in ensuring that any messaging that contrasts US to Canadian policies needs to be carefully calibrated to reduce expectations:
Are you one of the millions of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. afraid of being deported? Come to Canada! An asylum-seeker worried your refugee claim will be denied in America? Welcome to Canada! Paid a paltry wage in Mexico? Head on up to Canada!
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau began broadcasting this heart-warming message in late January as a not-so-subtle subtweet about President Donald Trump’s travel ban.
“To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength #WelcomeToCanada” he tweeted on Jan. 28, followed by a picture of him greeting a refugee family.
The two tweets garnered over a million likes and half-a-million retweets, creating millions of misleading impressions about Canada as a sanctuary for all the world’s displaced. Anyone with the smallest bit of knowledge about the immigration process understands that Canada’s doors are anything but wide open, but Trudeau isn’t just blatantly spreading falsehoods by sending that message — he’s actually enticing people to uproot their lives, throwing another wrench into an already chaotic immigration system, all based on disingenuous messaging.
Armed with the fallacious belief that Canada will absolutely offer them residency, many asylum-seekers will gamble all their money and risk their lives trying to make the dangerous journey to Canada. Indeed, we’ve seen how quickly would-be immigrants will flood the borders if they believe their chances of staying have improved.
The Liberals’ elimination of the visa requirement for Mexican travellers at the end of last year, for example, has led to a 1,000 per cent increase in Mexican refugee claims this year. We know based on data from before the visa restriction, however, that only a fraction of those applicants will be allowed to stay, meaning that many Mexicans will spend thousands coming to Canada with only a slim chance of actually gaining residency.
Nevertheless, Trudeau’s rhetoric will surely resonate among asylum-seekers currently in the U.S. who are considering entering Canada illegally in order to bypass the Safe Third Country Agreement. Already, in the first two months of 2017, Canadian police intercepted 1,134 asylum-seekers crossing the border illegally, which is half of all of last year’s total.
If we’re seeing these sorts of numbers in the dead of winter — and Trump has only begun his crackdown on illegal immigrants currently residing in America — surely we will see even greater numbers as the weather gets warmer, especially as Trudeau continues to peddle the notion that refugees can find a home in Canada.But of course, many refugees will not find a home in Canada, even if they are granted temporary asylum. According to data supplied by the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, out of the 15,196 in-country refugee applicants processed in 2016, a total of 4,970 were rejected for various reasons, such as applicants not being considered in enough danger in their home country — and that was only after hundreds of other applications had already been terminated because the applicants had criminal records, abandoned claims, etc.
2017/03/28 Leave a comment
Good long and nuanced read on the challenges of one Syrian family and their Canadian sponsors:
One year after Canada embraced Syrian refugees like no other country, a reckoning was underway.
Ordinary Canadians had essentially adopted thousands of Syrian families, donating a year of their time and money to guide them into new lives just as many other countries shunned them. Some citizens already considered the project a humanitarian triumph; others believed the Syrians would end up isolated and adrift, stuck on welfare or worse. As 2016 turned to 2017 and the yearlong commitments began to expire, the question of how the newcomers would fare acquired a national nickname: Month 13, when the Syrians would try to stand on their own.
On a frozen January afternoon, Liz Stark, a no-nonsense retired teacher, bustled into a modest apartment on the east side of this city, unusually anxious. She and her friends had poured themselves into resettling Mouhamad and Wissam al-Hajj, a former farmer and his wife, and their four children, becoming so close that they referred to one another as substitute grandparents, parents and children.
But the improvised family had a deadline. In two weeks, the sponsorship agreement would end. The Canadians would stop paying for rent and other basics. They would no longer manage the newcomers’ bank account and budget. Ms. Stark was adding Mr. Hajj’s name to the apartment lease, the first step in removing her own.
“The honeymoon is over,” she said later.
That afternoon, her mind was on forms, checks and her to-do list. But she knew that her little group of grandmothers, retirees and book club friends was swimming against a global surge of skepticism, even hatred, toward immigrants and refugees. The president of the superpower to the south was moving to block Syrians and cut back its refugee program. Desperate migrants were crossing into Canada on foot. Stay-out-of-our-country sentiment was reshaping Europe’s political map. In a few days, an anti-Muslim gunman would slaughter worshipers at a Quebec City mosque.
Ms. Stark and her group were betting that much of the world was wrong — that with enough support, poor Muslims from rural Syria could adapt, belong and eventually prosper and contribute in Canada. Against that backdrop, every meeting, decision and bit of progress felt heightened: Would the family succeed?
Ms. Stark’s most crucial task that day was ushering the Syrian couple to a budget tutorial. Banks were new to them. So were A.T.M. cards. Because the sponsors paid their rent and often accompanied them to make withdrawals, the couple had little sense of how to manage money in a bank account.
Some of Canada’s new Syrian refugees had university degrees, professional skills, fledgling businesses already up and running. But the Hajjes could not read or write, even in Arabic. After a year of grinding English study, Mr. Hajj, 36, struggled to get the new words out. He longed to scan a supermarket label or road sign with ease and had grown increasingly upset about his second-grade education, understanding how inadequate it would prove in the years to come.
2017/03/25 Leave a comment
Corporate leadership:
Starbucks, the Seattle-based global coffee chain, has announced plans to hire 10,000 refugees around the world, including 1,000 in Canada over five years.
Wednesday’s announcement followed outgoing Starbucks chairman and CEO Howard Schultz’s earlier defiance and criticisms of U.S. President Donald Trump’s travel bans against Muslim-majority countries and suspension of refugee programs.
In response to the new administration’s executive orders, Schultz reaffirmed the company’s values by committing to hire refugees, “building bridges, not walls, with Mexico,” and supporting undocumented youth and former U.S. president Barack Obama’s affordable health care plan.
“We see the role Canada plays in accepting refugees. These newcomers need jobs to resettle successfully. We believe in their potential. They have tremendous skills to contribute to our company and to our country,” said Luisa Girotto, Starbucks Canada’s vice-president, public affairs.
“All they need is the first opportunity to kick-start a new life in Canada. We have thousands of jobs to fill and enough opportunity for every segment in society.”
Girotto said the company will work with Hire Immigrants — an agency out of Ryerson University that supports best practices to integrate newcomer workers — to recruit, train and retain refugee employees through its local community networks in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Ottawa, Calgary and Edmonton.
The refugee hiring initiative will build on Starbucks’ Opportunity Youth program, which focuses on training and hiring young people as a response to high youth unemployment.
Mark Patterson, executive director of Hire Immigrants, said he was not surprised when approached by Starbucks to be a partner of the refugee employment initiative.
“Here is a company that understands the diverse population it serves. Diversity is part of its values. We hope we can get the message out to show the economic values of being diverse and inclusive, and to spur other employers to do the same,” said Patterson.
Yusra Zein-Alabdin, whose family came to Canada last July via Turkey under the Syrian refugee resettlement program, said social and professional networks are a key to securing employment.
“It is not easy to go out and ask someone if they have an available job,” said the mother of two, who has a degree in English literature and used to teach English to impoverished children back home.
“We were not welcomed in Turkey. I’m surprised and very happy that not only the Canadian government wants to help refugees, but everyone, businesses and employers also want to help us.”
Like New York-based Chobani yogurt, which was attacked on social media by Trump supporters for hiring refugees, Schultz’s refugee hiring speech also drew threats of boycotts against the coffee chain by anti-immigrant groups.
Ontario independent Senator Ratna Omidvar, who founded the Global Diversity Exchange at Ryerson’s Ted Rogers School of Management, said the conversation in the United States on refugees is very different from Canada’s.
“When the community flourishes, the company flourishes. Here we have an enlightened employer, Starbucks, taking a positive stand, saying we need to build bridges, not walls,” said Omidvar. “The company may have to take a risk, but it is a statement that many would agree with.”
Starbucks has more than 1,300 outlets and 19,000 employees in Canada. Staff who work a minimum of 20 hours a week are eligible for medical and dental care, as well as up to $5,000 a year in mental health support and tuition reimbursements.
Source: Starbucks plans to hire 1,000 refugees in Canada | Toronto Star
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Multicultural Meanderings 