Dundas, Ryerson and Macdonald schools to be renamed in Toronto: TDSB

2025/02/12 Leave a comment

Silly move, dumbing down history:

…Sean Carleton, a historian and Indigenous studies scholar at the University of Manitoba, argues that the purpose of history is to learn from the past, and not simply lionize those from our history.

“In this moment, what people are doing (is), with new information reevaluating the symbols that we choose in society to, convey our values,” said Carleton in an interview. “Many people are saying, ‘Can we not do better than naming a school after someone who advocated for a system of genocidal schooling?’”

If Canadians have these debates, Carleton argued, it could be something we could be proud of.

“The process of having that debate is actually healthy, as long as the people engaged in it are learning from the past and engaging meaningfully in that dialogue, rather than just trying to push the politics of like, you know, ‘Macdonald is a monster,’ or ‘Macdonald is a saint,’” Carleton said.

Renaming, however, has been criticized by some historians.

Margaret MacMillan, an emeritus professor of history at the University of Toronto, has argued that the past cannot be changed by removing names.

“The past is something you can debate about, you can have different opinions about but, if we remove all traces of it, then we’re not even going to have those debates,” MacMillan said, as quoted by the Canadian Institute for Historical Education.

Several other school boards have previously removed names from schools. In 2021, the York Region District School Board voted to change the name of an elementary school in Markham, Ont., that was named after Macdonald. It’s now called Nokiidaa Public School. Nokiidaa is the Ojibwe word meaning “let’s work” or “let’s all work together.”

In addition to Ryerson University changing its name, the legacy of Ryerson was also removed from a Brantford, Ont., elementary school. That school is now named after Edith Monture, the first Indigenous woman to become a nurse in Canada and the first Canadian Indigenous woman to serve in the U.S. military.

In Ottawa, the National Capital Commission, which oversees federal lands in the National Capital Region, renamed the Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway to Kichi Zībī Mīkan, which means “Ottawa River path.”

Multiple other schools around the country — and other public institutions and spaces — have also had their names changed, sometimes with controversy. In Alberta, some schools bearing the name of Jean Vanier, a Catholic philosopher, were renamed after revelations that Vanier was a sexual predator. An LRT station in Edmonton named after Vital-Justin Grandin, another architect of the residential school system, was also changed.

Source: Dundas, Ryerson and Macdonald schools to be renamed in Toronto: TDSB

Filed under Historical Recognition, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Lalande | To successfully fight Trump, Canada needs one thing: more Canadians

2025/02/11 Leave a comment

Certainly, not as many as the CI advocates. Competitiveness is real, and depends less on population growth than smart economic and immigration policies. The grave mistake was CI’s early advocacy for a larger population, Barton’s recommendations, and the Liberal government’s not thinking critically about what that would mean for housing, healthcare and infrastructure:

Time discovers truth.

In this case, it’s a brutal one.

The federal government’s decision to cut immigration targets by 21 per cent in 2025 and 24 per cent in 2026 was a grave mistake. Alarmingly, the consequences are rearing their ugly head at the worst possible time.

By reducing immigration levels, Canada is facing the economic fight of our lives with one arm tied behind our back. This is a moment when we should be projecting strength and growth — yet, instead, we have chosen to shrink. And unfortunately for us, this policy shift is occurring at the same time as another major demographic headwind: the retirement of five million Canadians by the end of the decade.

The economic impacts of these reductions are dire. A new Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) report examined the impact of reduced immigration levels and found that by 2027, Canada will see 1.3 billion fewer hours worked and a $37 billion reduction in nominal GDP, on average, over the next three years. These economic impacts will cripple Canada’s tax base, erode our economic resilience and reduce access to public services that Canadians rely upon.

We also haven’t yet factored in the proverbial elephant in the room that is the ongoing threat of tariffs and trade warfare. When we accept the true extent of economic volatility on the horizon, it becomes clear that Canada is in the midst of an economic emergency.

It’s one made considerably worse by the fact we have undermined our own bargaining power. The Conference Board of Canada has warned of a $6.9 billion reduction in real consumer spending in 2025, growing to $10.8 billion in 2026 — a consequence of both fewer workers, fewer people and a contracting market.

Understanding how we got here is critical. The absence of a national strategy for population and economic growth has left us vulnerable. The only way out is through a renewed focus on Canada’s competitiveness.

First, let’s radically improve our business climate so we can meaningfully diversify the Canadian economy and sharpen the tools in our economic toolbox. Trade wars may be a race to the bottom, but we can at least position ourselves as a stronger and more diversified, self-reliant economic competitor.

In 2023, Canada earned $152 billion from oil and gas exports to the United States, dwarfing all other sectors. Auto manufacturing, by comparison, only accounted for $51 billion worth of exports in 2023. We are doing ourselves a disservice by relying disproportionately on oil and gas exports at the expense of other industries, which can also be sources of innovation, investment and prosperity.

We also need to invest in a pro-growth agenda at lightning speed, attracting entrepreneurs and making it easier for large capital projects to set up shop in Canada and seize our early advantage in burgeoning industries such as artificial intelligence. Highly skilled immigrants are a key part of the equation, bringing entrepreneurial ambition and foreign investment capital with them. This pro-growth agenda must focus not only on attracting new businesses but retaining them for the long-term.

Second, let’s focus on talent.

With U.S. immigration tightening, Canada has a golden opportunity to attract workers — but only with a compelling pitch. Instead of vague promises, we must offer a clear vision: strong job prospects, affordability, accessible health care, and inclusive communities. This pitch should target highly skilled American workers facing growing uncertainty about their residency status, but also prioritize workers for industries where we have shortages such as construction, trades, green economy, and health care.

To win the war for talent, Canada must modernize its immigration points system to prioritize high-demand skills. And we must invest in housing, transit, health care and child care to ensure newcomers don’t just arrive, but stay.

These aren’t new solutions — experts have pushed for them for years. But the current threat of tariffs and trade warfare makes action not only more urgent than ever, but possible. This is a rare political moment where everyone’s attention is focused on Canada’s economic future. Whatever happens in the coming months, we should not look away from the threat.

For once, the political necessity to act is matched by the political will to act. So let’s seize this moment.

Source: Opinion | To successfully fight Trump, Canada needs one thing: more Canadians

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

Gee: Toronto District School Board should reconsider the decision to rename three schools

2025/02/11 Leave a comment

Agree:

…None of this seems to have made the slightest impression on the TDSB, Canada’s biggest school board. A report that went to the board’s governance and policy committee on Jan. 27 noted that, under a section of the “Revised Naming Schools, Teams and Special-Purpose Area Procedure,” the TDSB was undertaking a “proactive critical review of school names.” Dundas, Ryerson and Macdonald are the first three to be sentenced to deletion.

The report says that for some students, the names might act as “a potentially harmful microaggression.” It goes on: “Having to enter school buildings commemorating such individuals may even contribute to mental-health triggers which negatively impact students, staff or families’ ability to effectively participate in the school environment.”

It may not occur to the kids rushing to gym class in Dundas Junior Public that they are the victims of microaggression (if they even know who Dundas was), but the TDSB is going to protect them from it all the same.

As for the cost of making new signs, plaques and team jerseys with whatever name is chosen to replace the three forbidden ones, well, not to worry. The report says that the changes “will be implemented within the existing budget framework.”

What the board seems to have missed is that the climate on historical erasure is changing. Most people don’t much like being called settlers in their own country, even if they accept that great crimes were committed against its original inhabitants in the process of settlement.

A reaction against all this is one reason that Pierre Poilievre of the Conservatives has been leading in the opinion polls and that the abysmal Donald Trump is in the White House again.

Decent countries acknowledge their past sins while also celebrating their virtues. It is a balancing act, hard to get right. Schools are a good place to learn it. They should be teaching students about residential schools and slavery, Expo 67 and Terry Fox. They should be showing them that history is more than a simple story of heroes and villains. They should be asking them to debate the record of names like Dundas, Ryerson and Macdonald, gathering all the evidence and weighing the good against the bad.

What they should not be doing is stripping those names from their front doors.

Source: Toronto District School Board should reconsider the decision to rename three schools

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To: DEI needs to fix systems, not people

2025/02/11 Leave a comment

True, but rather vague beyond better data:

…One key takeaway from implicit bias research is that interventions targeting individual biases often provide only temporary results because bias is embedded within systems. 

So, what can organizations do to address systemic bias more effectively?

Let’s look at hiring as an example. 

Instead of requiring hiring managers to participate in diversity training, organizations could implement hiring criteria that minimize the influence of race and gender bias in the hiring process. Some research suggests tailoring job descriptions to appeal to underrepresented groups. For example, HR postings that increase the transparency of qualifications or focus on benefits can attract more women for roles in traditionally male-dominated fields.

Policing is another area where systemic change can mitigate bias. Studies show police officers are more likely to stop, question, arrest or use force against Black people than white people. 

Rather than mandating police officers undergo diversity training to educate them about their biases — something that has only a fleeting effect — a restructuring of the policies and procedures around stops and frisks would reduce bias’s impact. 

For instance, policies to ensure the collection of race-based datain police stop and frisks and to encourage stricter accountability among police officers could go a long way to curb racial profiling. 

As DEI programs face increasing scrutiny and skepticism, and many employees feel frustrated by ineffective and repetitive online training, there is a growing need to reframe DEI as systems-focused work. If diversity, equity and inclusion are truly the goals, the solution lies in rebuilding the systems that shape our society.

Source: DEI needs to fix systems, not people

Filed under DEI, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Semowo: It’s Black History Month. Let’s Move Inclusion Beyond Visibility

2025/02/10 Leave a comment

Nice to see academics interested in citizenship and the various study guides over the year that overall indicate progress. However, policy makers have to decide how much to include in a guide, how much detail on particular groups and history, keeping in mind the need for simple language, the audience of new Canadians and related needs of being concise.

As well as the balance between portraying a positive image of Canada to those becoming citizens while acknowledging less positive historical and current issues.

Suspect that many groups could make similar critiques without acknowledging the need for balance and perspective.

Unclear that the revised guide, under preparation under at least four IRCC Liberal ministers would equally meet Semowo’s criteria for inclusion. And of course, there is no formal citizenship education under the settlement program, an ongoing gap:

A Canada where Blackness was overlooked

Since 1947, the federal government has published citizenship study guides to help new immigrants prepare for citizenship tests.

These guides are more than bureaucratic texts; they frame Canada’s shared identity and values for newcomers. Yet for much of the 20th century, they presented a Canada relatively devoid of Blackness.

Canada’s first citizenship study guide failed to mention Black Canadians at all. Instead, the guide celebrated British and French heritage while paying scant attention to Indigenous Peoples and other racialized communities.

Subsequent guides beginning in 1963 included either an image, text or both describing people of African descent. However, their inclusion was sparse and narrowly focused, signalling that Blackness is peripheral to Canadian identity.

The 1995 study guide entitled A Look at Canada briefly acknowledged Black Loyalists but overlooked their struggles in Nova Scotia, where many were denied the land they were promised.

Africville, a Black community razed in the 1960s, was notably absent. Indeed, many Canadians remain unaware of Africville or the civil rights activist Viola Desmond, whose defiance against segregation in 1946 is often overshadowed by more well-known American figures, such as Rosa Parks.

This lack of visibility in official narratives not only disconnects Black Canadians from their own history but also perpetuates the myth that systemic anti-Black racism is solely a U.S. problem.

A recent study guide from 2009 titled Discover Canada presented a few notable figures, such as the athlete Marjorie Turner-Bailey, abolitionist publisher Mary Ann Shadd Cary and Victoria Cross recipient able seaman William Hall.

These provide valuable recognition of Black Canadians’ historical presence and struggles.

However, their inclusion follows a pattern of narrow representation, where Black history is framed primarily through individual achievements rather than part of a broader discussion on systemic barriers.

While the guide, a version of which is still in use today, acknowledged slavery, abolition and Black migration, it does not deeply engage with ongoing racial inequities in Canada, such as economic disparities and segregation. This tokenization mirrors patterns in real life.

Black Canadians are often called upon to represent diversity in workplaces or public events, but these gestures rarely challenge the structures that perpetuate inequality.

Similarly, the citizenship study guides’ brief mentions of Black Canadians create the impression that inclusion has been achieved, leaving deeper systemic issues unacknowledged and unaddressed. 2009’s Discover Canada praised the bravery of Black soldiers in both World Wars yet omitted the fact that many were initially denied the opportunity to serve in the military.

Minimalization also occurs when Blackness is reduced to narratives of struggle. While it is vital to honour the fight against slavery and segregation, the guides rarely highlight Black joy and innovation.

This framing not only flattens the complexity of Black experiences but also risks perpetuating stereotypes that limit how Black Canadians are perceived.

‘Selective inclusion’

One of the most revealing insights from the citizenship guides is how they reflect selective inclusion. In 2009’s Discover Canada, for instance, Canadian multiculturalism is celebrated as a cornerstone of national identity.

Yet the guide devotes far more space to Canadians of European descent, reinforcing a hierarchy of who is most celebrated in the national story.

This reflects a broader reality: Black Canadians are often welcomed in limited contexts, such as sports and entertainment, while facing systemic exclusion in areas like politics, corporate leadership and academia. For example, while Canada has celebrated athletes like Donovan Bailey and acclaimed writers like Esi Edugyan, Black representation in federal politics remains disproportionately low.

These issues — of selective inclusion and systemic exclusion — are especially important to highlight now because the dismantling of DEI policies in the U.S. can have a chilling effect across North America: conversations about systemic racism can be labelled as divisive, and efforts to address historical exclusions may be dismissed as unnecessary.

If Canada is to uphold its commitment to diversity, it must critically examine how its own narratives have shaped belonging.

Here in Canada, the federal Conservative Party leaders have been attacking diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. Within progressive circles, our DEI efforts often face criticism — that is, more about optics than meaningful change.

‘Inclusion must go beyond visibility’

As we reflect on Black History Month, our citizenship study guides offer an important lesson: inclusion must go beyond visibility.

It is not enough to name a few figures or reference historic injustices without addressing the reality of anti-Black racism in Canada today — a fact newcomers to Canada not only deserve, but need, to know.

A meaningful way forward would be to integrate Black history more fully into the newcomer education curriculum, ensuring that stories like Africville and Viola Desmond’s trial are seen as essential parts of Canadian history, not as footnotes.

Black History Month is also a reminder that diversity is not just about celebrating achievements but about creating systems that allow all Canadians to thrive.

Citizenship, in its fullest sense, means belonging—not just in the abstract but in the lived experience of equity, recognition and opportunity.

The evolution of the citizenship guides shows progress but also highlights how much work remains.

As we move forward, we must commit to telling the whole story of Canada — a story where Blackness is not erased, tokenized or selectively included, but embraced as integral to the fabric of this nation

Source: It’s Black History Month. Let’s Move Inclusion Beyond Visibility

Filed under Citizenship, Discover Canada Tagged with , ,

Ivison: DEI screening comes before merit questions in Canadian university hiring

2025/02/10 Leave a comment

Disappointing that Ivison would cite this tendentious study without background, context, nuance and deeper analysis. And, of course, no real assessment of whether the quality of academics hired has decreased or increased given various inclusion and equity policies. Suspect a mix, as in most hiring:

…But Milke suggested the point is made just as effectively by pre-screening. 

“What they do at the front end is to try and sort through people who they may consider overrepresented, to use an awful word, in a certain profession or faculty.”

He said that merit-based appointments would naturally become more diverse, reflecting the more ethnically diverse country that Canada has become. 

“The problem with diversity, equity, and inclusion, and this attempt to make everything exactly equal at the end and discriminate at the front end to do that, is you’re not looking at merit and qualifications the way that universities claim they are. Instead, you’re basically banning people from the position who don’t fit some irrelevant, non-changeable category.”

Milke said DEI policies entrench the notion that Canada is a systemically racist state. 

“Now, 100 years ago, there was systemic racism. If you were Chinese, for example, you could not get into a white hospital. They had to set up their own hospital. The same with Jewish people in Toronto, which is why Mount Sinai Hospital was set up. But that was 100 years ago. Systemic racism has been outlawed in Canada since the 1950s. You still find individual cases of prejudice, but systemic racism as a policy, as a law, began to be abolished in places like Ontario in the early 1950s.”

Ivison noted that the Trump administration is moving quickly to dismantle DEI in its areas of jurisdiction but that in Canada, the Liberal government has been an enthusiastic cheerleader of the policies, linking DEI hiring to federal funding. 

Milke said he would like to see the federal government reverse direction and admit students and professors based on merit and achievement. 

“The fundamental nature of DEI is flawed and what governments and universities should be doing is saying, ‘look, how can we restructure this? We do want people of all colours, creeds, backgrounds to succeed and help them to do that, but not by focusing on irrelevant characteristics’.

“The more they go down the DEI path, universities are going to capture a segment of the population that believes racism explains all, or mostly all. So, I think a federal government should strongly consider going back to not only Martin Luther King’s vision of equality of the individual (but to) Pierre Trudeau’s vision, in which he believed in the equality of the individual.”

Milke said he believes diversity is a very positive quality and that successful cultures and civilizations need an array of ideas to flourish. 

“These days, we may be admitting too many immigrants at once to have everyone get or provide housing, (but) that’s a separate issue. In the main, cultures that beg, borrow, and steal from each other generally succeed. Diversity is not a bad thing. It can be a very good thing. But not when it’s top down and people look at you and assume because you’re a certain skin colour, you’ve got privilege. I mean, it’s a fallacy.”

Source: Ivison: DEI screening comes before merit questions in Canadian university hiring

Filed under DEI, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

The Unauthorized Immigrant Population Expands amid Record U.S.-Mexico Border Arrivals

2025/02/10 2 Comments

Helps explain some of the Trump administration concerns with the Southern border (but not the Northern one). Good series of explanatory charts:

Amid record encounters of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border in fiscal years (FY) 2021 and 2022 and wide use of humanitarian parole to allow entry of migrants arriving without visas, the size of the unauthorized immigrant population has reached its highest level yet. The Migration Policy Institute (MPI) estimates that approximately 13.7 million unauthorized immigrants lived in the United States as of mid-2023, up from 12.8 million the year prior. MPI revised upwards its estimates for 2022 and prior years, using an updated methodology that permits better addressing the Census Bureau’s undercount of new immigrants.

Between 2019 and 2023, the unauthorized immigrant population grew by 3 million, or an average of 6 percent per year (see Figure 1). The nation had not seen yearly increases this large since the early 2000s.

This growth is partially explained by increased irregular arrivals at the U.S.-Mexico border, with a rising mix of nationalities from across the Western Hemisphere from countries such as Venezuela, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, and Nicaragua, as well as hundreds of thousands of people who entered with humanitarian parole from Ukraine, Mexico, Haiti, and other countries. And it also stems from sizable numbers of Europeans and others who overstayed their nonimmigrant visa.

Most of the changes are expected continuations of trends that started several years ago. For example, the unauthorized immigrant population from Venezuela started to grow quickly following the severe economic and political turbulence that began there in 2015. Likewise, the unauthorized populations from Honduras and Guatemala grew rapidly starting around 2019….

Source: The Unauthorized Immigrant Population Expands amid Record U.S.-Mexico Border Arrivals

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MacDougall: To stop Trump, drain the social media swamp

2025/02/08 Leave a comment

Agree, but how to make this happen, no matter how needed:

…The West used to have systems in place to resist such people. The main bulwark of that system was a free and independent press and its scrutiny function. We have spent the past 20 years (inadvertently) dismantling that system. In the recent past, you couldn’t lie and expect to get to first base in politics. Now, lying is the key to hitting a home run.

Trump first mused about running for the presidency in the late 1980s. If you read the coverage of the time, much of Trump’s message was the same: the United States was getting ripped off and it was time somebody did something about it. His target was then (mostly) Japan, the then-economic upstarts “stealing” American jobs and prosperity. It’s not Trump that’s different; it’s the universe around him.

The moral for our story is: Trump’s 1980s bluster fell apart the first moment it was challenged by someone working for a serious news outfit. The same was true when he tried to run for the presidency in 2000. Moreover, he had no way to easily co-opt what was then a vibrant Republican Party, with its hierarchies and power blocs. It took hard work to be a serious contender and Trump doesn’t do hard work. The system screened him out.

All this changed in the 2010s when the information economy suddenly gifted Trump a megaphone he could use to get around the hard work of organizing. Twitter gave Trump a playground of shamelessness where fringe topics like “birtherism” were fuel for a political career, rather than a career-killer.

If Canada wants to inoculate itself from Trump, it should club together at the G7 and G20 and start asking why democracies like ours allow the (most American) behemoths of the attention economy to operate in the way they do. Why is “free” an acceptable business model when the cost to society is so great? Why do the authoritarians of the world keep these platforms out or use them as weapons (i.e. TikTok), while we allow ourselves to become addicted to them?

If we want to limit Trump, we need to start by draining the swamp that is the attention economy. Because in the current system Trump — or someone equally shameless — wins every time.

Source: MacDougall: To stop Trump, drain the social media swamp

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Young: The hidden truth about migrant deaths at the Canada-U.S. border

2025/02/08 Leave a comment

While every death is a human tragedy, the known numbers are small compared to the number of irregular arrivals and other asylum seekers. Useful to have some data:

…Death at the border

Our research identified 15 deaths at the Canada-U.S. border between 2020 and 2023, and another 23 deaths going back to 1989. Given the lack of official records, the actual number is likely higher.

We filed access-to-information requests on both sides of the border. The RCMP acknowledged just one death in Canada, and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) produced no results. Instead, we systematically collected media reports on border deaths and analyzed that data.

Roughly three-quarters of migrants whose deaths were covered in news reports were travelling towards the U.S. Their remains were mainly recovered on the Canadian side of the border. 

Migrants face a range of dangers when crossing the Canada-U.S. border irregularly, but drowning represents the most significant threat, followed by hypothermia — 23 and six of the 38 recorded deaths, respectively.

Three people died in encounters with border patrol agents, with two fatally shot on the American side and one dying in a car crash while being chased by Canadian agents.

Invisible deaths

Our requests for official data on border deaths in both the U.S. and Canada came up empty-handed. After more than a year and the conclusion of an independent complaint investigation into the RCMP’s lack of response to our Canadian request, we were provided with information on one single death. The request filed in the U.S. returned no information. 

Researchers in both countries regularly report frustration with slow processes and a lack of results from such requests.

This experience led us to believe that border enforcement agencies do not track deaths along the Canada-U.S. border in either country. This is a problem. The public is left in the dark, while potential migrants are not provided with information about the dangers of irregular crossings.

It is particularly odd that American authorities don’t provide information on deaths at this border, given that deaths along the U.S.-Mexico border are tracked and publicly reported.

If there’s been a policy decision not to track deaths at the Canada-U.S. border, it reveals a lack of concern and a willingness to obscure the full picture from the public. Both the Canadian and American governments need to change their approach to documenting border deaths, detailing all known cases publicly.

More death on the horizon

Trump’s return to the American presidency might lead to an increase in irregular migration between Canada and the U.S. The Canadian government’s move to beef up border security enforcement, in turn, makes it more likely that migrants will perish after choosing dangerous crossing points. 

Even when migrants die amid human smuggling operations, a lot of the responsibility lies with government decisions. 

As Public Safety Canada warned in 2023, more difficult border crossings lead to increased criminality in human smuggling. Government decisions drive people away from safer crossing points and into the influence of criminal organizations.

The governments of Canada and the United States have a moral obligation to inform the public about deaths — and do everything in their power to prevent further tragedies.

Kira Williams (University of Toronto Scarborough) and Caroline Cordeiro (Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy) contributed to the research for this article.

Source: The hidden truth about migrant deaths at the Canada-U.S. border

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Ottawa accused of stalling on visa approvals for thousands of Gazans stranded at critical time

2025/02/08 1 Comment

Suspect the necessary security clearances are part of the reason for delays:

Almost 5,000 Palestinians who applied last year to take part in a special Ottawa program to help them flee war-torn Gaza and join relatives in Canada have been deemed eligible by the government, but so far only 620 – or fewer than 15 per cent – have arrived.

Immigration lawyers representing Palestinians and their Canadian relatives are accusing the government of deliberately stalling applications, and are urging officials to take advantage of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire and reopening of the Rafah crossing to press Israel to allow applicants still in Gaza to exit.

They say scores of Palestinians have paid thousands of dollars in bribes to cross into Egypt to complete biometric checks in Cairo required by the Canadian government and have been waiting for months there for final approval. Others are waiting in Gaza for confirmation that their visas have been approved.

Yameena Ansari, an immigration lawyer, said Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada “is fully capable of expediting processing of applications. They do it regularly for many lines of business. So, if the Gaza applications are not being expedited, that is not an accident.”

Immigration lawyer Warda Shazadi Meighen of Landings LLP in Toronto said Canada must act swiftly to uphold its commitments under the Gazan program. “For those still seeking relocation – particularly individuals with family in Canada – this moment presents a crucial opportunity to fulfill our humanitarian obligations,” she said.

Matthew Behrens, who co-ordinates the Rural Refugee Rights Network, said “it is inexcusable” for IRCC to sit on applications for over a year, warning that “the border could be closed again at a moment’s notice.”

Ottawa’s program faced criticism over security concerns when it was announced. Last year, Marco Rubio, then a senator and now secretary of state in President Donald Trump’s administration, wrote to the U.S. Homeland Security Secretary, warning that the program raised the risk of allowing people with ties to terror groups, such as Hamas, to get easier access to the United States….

Source: Ottawa accused of stalling on visa approvals for thousands of Gazans stranded at critical time

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , ,

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