A national alliance dedicated to providing an evidence base for newcomer settlement & integration and the promotion of welcoming communities in Canada
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.
Passport free travel in Europe is under threat as countries reintroduce border controls, toughen security and build fences in response to the biggest refugee emergency the continent has seen in decades. The Schengen open-borders zone uniting 30 countries is a pinnacle of European achievement. It underpins the EU economy, allowing goods, services and people to cross frontiers without checks.
European Union leaders meeting on Malta to discuss the migration crisis were considering inviting Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan to a summit in Brussels this month to seal an accord to curb migration, EU officials said. […] Aware of Europe’s weak bargaining position with Erdogan following his party’s convincing election victory this month, some national governments are wary of rushing to satisfy a demand of the Turkish leader for higher-level contacts. Some have insisted in recent days that they would only agree to an EU-Turkey summit once an accord was fully negotiated.
The new Liberal government is developing plans to fly 1,000 Syrian refugees a day out of Amman, Jordan, according to a planning document obtained by SiriusXM’s Everything Is Political. Refugees will then be flown to Toronto, Montreal and the military base in Trenton, Ont., the planning document shows. The internal aid agency report comes from a group tasked with helping to fulfill a Liberal campaign promise to get 25,000 Syrian refugees into Canada by the end of the year.
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/1000-refugees-a-day-to-be-flown-to-canada-document-shows/
Multicultural organizations across New Brunswick are moving quickly to put in place support networks as hundreds of Syrian refugees could be placed in the province before the end of the year. […] Lisa Bamford De Gante, the executive director of the Multicultural Association of Fredericton, said her staff and volunteers are getting ready for a variety of potential settlement plans.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/syrian-refugees-new-brunswick-plans-1.3316106
The anticipated influx to Canada of 25,000 Syrian refugees by the end of the year has grassroots settlement agencies in Ottawa calling on the government to restore funding cut in recent years. […] Cuts have had an impact on services at agencies such as the Catholic Centre for Immigrants. Executive director Carl Nicholson said the organization receives about two-thirds of its funding from the federal government. “At one point, our budget was about $8 million; it’s now about $5.5 million,” Nicholson said. “It’s not because we’re seeing less people — it’s because the federal government decided to invest less.”
The Liberal cabinet met Thursday to review its plan for the resettlement of Syrian refugees, but offered little public detail – sowing confusion and frustration about what, exactly, is supposed to happen next, and how. […] The original draft plan for the Canadian resettlement program was devised by the sub-cabinet committee tasked with that purpose earlier this week and presented to the full Liberal cabinet for review Thursday. It contains a range of proposals, including how officials could handle the potentially complex security issues.