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.
Toronto Star – Temporary Foreign Workers Help Drive Fort McMurray’s 24-7 Economy
Earlier this year, Sara Dorow, a sociologist at the University of Alberta, completed a study of nannies working in Fort McMurray. She estimates there are 600 to 1,000 nannies. Parents with two preschool-aged children save an average of $6,970 a year by hiring one. And the savings are greater with more children. Licensed daycare, if you can find it, costs between $1,300 and $2,000 a month for each space, she told the Edmonton Journal. Wages for a nanny can run anywhere between $12 and $20 an hour. Eighty per cent of families with nannies have at least one spouse working at an oilsands plant. “In other words, the oilsands industry is dependent on the sort of flexibility and consistency provided to its workers by live-in caregivers,” says Dorow. Temporary foreign workers can also be found at Canadian Tire and Sobeys. […]Most of the temporary foreign workers in Fort McMurray are from the Philippines, often sending money to their children and families back home.
Chronicle Journal – One City, Many Voices: We Have to Be in the Welcome Business
The multicultural association is in the midst of it all in at our offices in the old fire hall on Court Street. We work with newcomers to Canada who have chosen to make Thunder Bay their new home. There is a lot of diversity in Thunder Bay and much to learn and celebrate. We have more than 57 language groups living in our city. Newcomers arrive from all over the globe, and they stay. […] We see the positives, celebrate them, promote them and hope to attract newcomers to our region. Recently, a number of community organizations interested in creating an immigration strategy for the city met to create a Local Immigration Partnership. They see the demographic trends — baby boomer retirements, low birth rate and youth out-migration — and want to keep our city viable, vibrant and growing. They are the champions of welcoming newcomers and proud ambassadors of Thunder Bay. […] Our community can’t move forward and prosper if we ignore the problems we have with racism, welcoming and acceptance. We need migration within the country and immigration from outside of Canada to grow, but we also need acceptance and welcoming to retain those who choose to move here.
Ottawa Citizen – Canada Can Use Lessons of Vietnam Airlifts in Syrian Refugee Crisis: Joe Clark
Former prime minister Joe Clark says he believes Canadian officials can overcome obstacles to speed up the acceptance of Syrian refugees, much as his government found ways to airlift Vietnamese boat people after he won office in 1979. “We have the capacity to do more. … I think everyone recognizes that and we have a tradition of doing more,” he said in an interview Friday from his home in Ottawa. Canadian civil servants are capable of assessing possible security risks among Syrian refugees, Clark said, as they did when his government sent teams of officials overseas to process thousands of Vietnamese applicants living in crowded refugee camps. Clark said his Progressive Conservative government adopted and expanded on the policies put in place by a former Liberal government to directly assist Indochinese refugees who fled in rickety boats after the Communists took power in Hanoi. At the time, he said his cabinet was concerned some refugee applicants might be criminals or Communist officials who could pose risks to Canada, but his senior officials were capable of screening applicants.
Global News – Canadians’ Views Toward Refugee Crisis Split Along Party Lines: Poll
Conservative Party supporters are less likely to want Canada to bring in more refugees, while those who support the NDP or the Liberals are more likely to think Canada should do more, a new poll finds. The refugee and migrant crisis is making headlines around the world and has become a highly charged election issue as Canada readies to head to the polls on October 19. More than half (54 per cent) of people surveyed by the Angus Reid Institute think the Canadian government should take in more refugees. But that view varied widely by party affiliation […] More than twice as many Tory supporters said they think the migrants are “bogus: criminals or economic opportunists looking to jump the immigration queue for a better life.” […]Conservative voters were also more likely to think this is a European problem, not a global one […] Tory supporters were also least likely to think Canada should take 10,000 or more refugees in the next year.
Globe and Mail – B.C.’s Kurdish Community to Protest Ottawa’s Refugee Limit
British Columbia’s small Kurdish community is rallying around the aunt of a drowned Syrian boy, whose parents had given up hope of settling in Canada, to demand Ottawa accept more refugees fleeing the humanitarian crisis. Shwan Chawshin, a spokesperson for the non-profit Kurdish House, which plans community gatherings, said his group is organizing the several thousand Kurdish people living in the province to join a rally in Vancouver on Sunday calling on the Canadian government to at least double its stated commitment to admitting 10,000 Syrian refugees by the end of 2017. Tima Kurdi, who is Kurdish, is expected to be there, he said. Ms. Kurdi is the Coquitlam woman who had once planned on sponsoring her brother’s family before his wife and children drowned off the coast of Turkey. Photos of Ms. Kurdi’s three-year-old nephew Alan’s limp body were “very sad not just for the Kurdish community, but to the whole world,” Mr. Chawshin said.
CBC – Canada’s Refugee Response Lacking Says Former PC Senator
A former Progressive Conservative senator from B.C. says Canada can deal with any obstacle when it comes to resettling Syrian refugees — except for the shame of inaction. Pat Carney called on the government to accept 100,000 more refugees, or be swept out of power. “Act from your guts and your heart, not the pollsters and the campaign … otherwise the Conservative government should be swept out of office by a tsunami wave of anger,” Carney wrote in a Facebook post that now appears to be deleted — although she told The Early Edition’s guest host Stephen Quinn that she stands by what she wrote. “Canada is really lagging in this regard,” she said. “My aim is to convince the government that we can do more. We have done it in the past. We can do it and we should do it.” Carney says the federal government’s strategy of relying on military force and taking people from pre-approved refugee camps is not enough to deal with the masses of refugees who are still in danger, or on the move, possibly without paperwork.
