September 12, 2015
‪
Toronto, Vancouver
Organizers of #RefugeesWelcome respond to the $100 million emergency matching fund announcement.

“This fund would not have saved Alan, Ghalib and Rehaana’s lives – what we need is to immediately bring refugees and migrants to Canada,” says Tings Chak of No One Is Illegal – Toronto

According to Harsha Walia of No One Is Illegal-Vancouver “This emergency relief fund is a band aid solution. The federal government needs to implement emergency measures, as it has done in the past, to immediately welcome Syrian refugees as well as re-unite family members from Syria. More importantly, the refugee crisis highlights how this government needs to completely overhaul our exclusionary immigration and refugee system so that all refugees and migrants can arrive and remain in safety.”

#RefugeesWelcome is also calling for the $100 million dollar emergency relief fund to be redirected from the $500 million being spent on military intervention in Syria. Walia further adds “We must put an immediate end to Canada’s role in creating an unprecedented crisis of refugees and displaced peoples. We must resolve the refugee crisis because we have a hand in worsening it.”

Refugees Welome actions have taken place in over 30 communities during the past week including in Antigonish, Ajax, Calgary, Charlottetown, Dauphin, Edmonton, Fredericton, Hamilton, Halifax, Inuvik, Kingston, Kitchener, London, Montreal, Ottawa, Quebec City, Regina, Saskatoon, St. Catharines, St John’s, Sydney, Thunder Bay, Toronto, Vancouver, Victoria and Winnipeg. Further responses including educational forums and actions are being called across the country to be coordinated through a website expected to launch Monday September 14 at www.refugeeswelcome.ca

IN VANCOUVER, COAST SALISH TERRITORIES
Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh lands
September 6, 2015, 2pm. Vancouver Art Gallery (Robson side)

https://www.facebook.com/events/1703064886579884/permalink/1703307339888972/

With images and stories in the media on the migrant crisis from Syria and the surrounding areas, the deaths of the Aylan, Galip and Rehan Kurdi has shone a light on the complicity of the Canadian governments, itscorporations and allies in this crisis. Thousands of Eritrean, Somali, Syrian, Yemeni, and Balkan refugees are dying on the shores of Fortress Europe; as Latin Americans have died enroute to the United States of America.

Due to discriminatory restrictions implemented by the federal government, the number of refugee claims in Canada decreased by 50 percent and the number of accepted refugees dropped by 30 percent between 2006 and 2012. These laws and policies have caused untold misery and death. In Canada today, citizenship is harder to get, and easier to lose. Most racialized and poor migrants can only come here as short-term migrant workers, easily deported. Thousands of migrant workers and undocumented people have died after being denied services in Canada or been deported or repatriated after being injured to their death. Read more about Canadian immigraton policies at www.neverhome.ca

The Canadian government in alliance with resource-extractive corporations along with their European and American partners have been profiting from the wars, environmental collapse and economic depressions of many countries in the South resulting in over 52 million displaced people around the globe.

At the same time, communities are rising up across the globe. In Germany and Iceland, tens of thousands of people have forced open the borders, and opened their homes to refugees. It’s time for us to do the same.

Sep 4-9: Cross-country mobilizations

Ajax, Calgary, London, Montreal, Ottawa, Quebec City, Saskatoon, St. Catharines, St John’s, Toronto, Vancouver Coast Salish Territories, Victoria, Winnipeg

– see below for details on each

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During the week of July 20, 2015, several news sources, including Castanet Media, the CBC, HuffingtonPost, Vancouver Sun, and KelownaNow, published stories about four Mexican farmworkers who had not been seen since late June 2015.

We, the undersigned, are outraged at the sensational and overtly racist coverage of this ‘story’, which reinforces and perpetuates negative stereotypes of Mexicans as criminals. The inclusion of mug-shot like photos of two of the men in select articles, the emphasis on the men’s temporary and foreign statuses, as well as the statement that both Canadian Border Services Agency and U.S.Department of Homeland Security had been alerted (Castanet) to the situation “to track” (VancouverSun) the group, actively frame Mexican migrants as constituting security threats and public menaces to both Canada and the United States. Ultimately, the suggestion that these men may do something illegal, particularly when no criminal act hasbeen committed, reflects the racist biases of these news outlets.
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By Tara Carman

http://www.vancouversun.com/private+security+firm+gets+contract+monitor+Vancouver+airport+holding+cells/11205566/story.html

The federal government has awarded the Canada Border Services Agency security contract for the immigration holding centre at the Vancouver airport to Garda Canada, ignoring a coroner’s jury recommendation that CBSA use its own officers.

The jury made the recommendation amid revelations that a supervisor from the previous security firm, Genesis, falsified room check records the morning Mexican national Lucia Vega Jimenez hanged herself in a shower stall. The inquest heard evidence Genesis frequently understaffed the centre to the extent that guards could not safely perform room checks, and that guards routinely played video games or watched movies on overnight shifts.

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IMMIGRATION CHANGES:

It’s official – second class citizenship goes into effect

Last Friday, part of Bill C-24 went into effect, officially creating a two-tier citizenship system. As a result of this new law, dual citizens and people who have immigrated to Canada can have their citizenship taken away while other Canadians cannot. The government’s press release last week tried to justify this discriminatory law by raising the threat of “jihadi terrorism,” but Bill C-24 could easily be used against non-terrorists—for example, a journalist who is convicted of a “terrorism offence” in another country for reporting on human rights violations by the government.

Read more: https://bccla.org/2015/06/its-official-second-class-citizenship-goes-into-effect/

Hundreds make final bids to stay in Canada after deportation hold lifted

Mr. Lafleur is one of 3,500 people in Canada – 3,200 Haitians and 300 Zimbabweans – who were affected when the federal government lifted a hold on deportations to their home countries in December, deeming the situation in Haiti and Zimbabwe to be stable. Those without status were given six months to apply for residency on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.

Read more: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/hundreds-make-final-bids-to-stay-in-canada-after-deportation-hold-lifted/article24728764/

New Tory legislation will force deportation of foreign criminals and strip them of refugee protection

The government’s plans is to change several acts to make it easier and faster to remove non-Canadian criminals out of Canada, including some who have already been accorded refugee protection and permanent residency status, he said.

Read more: http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadian-politics/new-tory-legislation-will-force-deportation-of-foreign-criminals-and-strip-them-of-refugee-protection

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