The Media Roundup provides links to recent and archived articles, in both English and French, on immigration and diversity appearing in the national and local news. Some international content is also included. Articles are updated weekly.
CTV News – Lacolle Border: Scheer Calls for Renegotiated Safe Third Country Agreement
Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer is banking on diplomacy with the United States to reduce the number of asylum seekers who enter Canada illegally. Scheer says the solution to the problem lies in a renegotiation of the Safe Third Country Agreement between Canada and the United States. Scheer says there are people in refugee camps in Africa and the Middle East who are more deserving of being allowed to enter Canada.
CTV News – $2.5M Lotto Prize to Fund Canadians’ Search for Mother in Uganda Refugee Camp
Angelina and Edward Lado picked up an oversized cheque for $2.5 million on Friday. The couple arrived in Canada from South Sudan 14 years ago and settled in St. John’s. They obtained their Canadian citizenship 11 years ago. “My mother, whom I have not seen since I was an infant and have no memory of, is in a refugee camp somewhere in Uganda,” he told NTV on Friday. “I will go to find her, and hopefully bring her here.”
Globe and Mail – ‘Anything Would Be Better:’ Critics Warn Ottawa’s Family-Reunification Lottery Is Flawed, Open to Manipulation
Canada’s family-reunification program is using a common spreadsheet application to select candidates as part of a process critics say is flawed and open to manipulation. As the first step in the program, the federal government uses Microsoft Excel to randomly pick applications in its lottery, The Globe and Mail has learned. Experts have warned that using Excel to conduct such a sensitive lottery could be problematic, and that the lottery process itself may make the system less fair over all.
CBC News – Leading Obstetricians, Gynecologists Call on Canada to Help Rohingya Victims of Rape
A group of Canadian doctors, lawyers and activists are calling on the Trudeau government to help 10s of thousands of rape victims in Bangladeshi refugee camps. The girls and women were raped when soldiers in Myanmar forced more than 700,000 minority Muslim Rohingya to flee their homes. Hundreds of Canadian obstetricians and gynaecologists gathered in Vancouver on Friday said that nine months after the August 2017 military crackdown, an estimated 81,000 Rohingya women and girls are now about to give birth in “unthinkable” conditions.
CTV News – Canada Has Removed Only a Fraction of Thousands of Illegal Border Crossers
Between Jan. 1, 2017 and March 31, 2018 only 135 individuals who made an asylum claim following an irregular entry were removed from the country, says information provided to the Commons committee on immigration. During that same period, more than 5,000 asylum seekers arrived through unofficial entry points. The government says border officials can only remove failed refugee claimants after they have exhausted all legal options available to try for refugee status, including applications to the Immigration and Refugee Board, appeals and other administrative measures.
CTV News – Refugee Lawyers Call on Canada to Cut Ties with U.S. on Asylum Seekers
Refugee lawyers who help asylum seekers who have crossed into Canada irregularly are calling on government to end its co-operation with the U.S. government and suspend the safe third country agreement. Maureen Silcoff, a spokeswoman for the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, says her organization and other civil society groups were dismayed to hear Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen talk about wanting to work collaboratively with the U.S. government on dealing with the influx of illegal border crossers arriving in Canada from the U.S.
