TDSB Finally Delivers on its Promise of a Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Policy in Toronto Schools

Click here to watch the Sanctuary School Victory Video

Toronto Wednesday May, 16 – in a unanimous vote, Toronto District School Board trustees stood up to in front of a board room packed with community supporters brandishing neon Access to Education without Fear stickers, to show their continual support for a Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Policy at Toronto schools. Although the promise of this sanctuary schools was made to community members a year ago in a similar meeting with a motion passed last May by the board, it has taken a year before the principle of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell has finally become a concrete policy ready for implementation.

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Commons committee to hold hearings on deporting of illegal skilled workers. Juliet O’Neill. The Ottawa Citizen Wednesday, May 02, 2007

MPs voted yesterday to tackle what critics say is an illogical policy of deporting illegal foreign skilled trades workers while the country faces chronic labour shortages in housing and other building sectors. The Commons immigration committee voted unanimously to hold hearings on tens of thousands of undocumented foreign skilled workers in Canada, many of whom work in an underground economy in which they’re underpaid and have
little recourse if they get injured on the job or face abuse. The idea behind the motion, proposed by Toronto Liberal MP Jim Karygiannis, is to stop deportations, which critics say were increased early among illegal workers last year and to legalize their status in Canada.

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“DON’T ASK DON’T TELL” ON SKYTRAINS

No One is Illegal-Vancouver is completely opposed to the ability of Skytrain Police officers to enforce immigration laws anywhere in the public transit system and all types of racial profiling by the GVTA. We condemn police enforced fare inspections, physical and verbal abuse by transit authorities, and demands to disclose citizenship and immigrant status.

No One is Illegal has received reports regarding the detention of immigrants, refugees, and non-status by Skytrain police demanding them to produce identification and disclose their status. The act of reporting non-status individuals by non-immigration institutions, such as transit authorities, serves to further criminalize and increase the vulnerability of our communities in the context of the never-ending “War on Terrorism”. Therefore we are calling for and organizing towards a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy to be put into effect within the entire transit system of the B.C. lower mainland and the dismantling of the racist Skytrain police force.

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WHY ARE WE PROTESTING?

A recent wave of high-profile mass deportations in the Toronto Portuguese community, as well as reports of checks and raids that occurred at Dufferin Mall and in other public places targeting members of the Latin American, Portuguese, and Caribbean communities, indicate that American-style “immigration sweeps” have been taking place in the past two weeks in Toronto and may be of concern in other cities. Certainly, these events have been cause for outrage in immigrant and refugee communities across the country.

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EMERGENCY RALLY

Thursday April 6
12:30 pm at Canadian Border Services Agency
333 Dunsmuir, Vancouver

In a move that broke major headlines last week, Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) closed Dufferin Mall in Toronto last Sunday and demanded shoppers produce status papers as buses waited outside to detain and deport those who could not produce papers. This racist attack targeted primarily Latin Americans and is part of a mass deportation in Toronto carried out by Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) and Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) over the past few weeks. Deportees were flown out on two airplanes in the past two weeks.

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