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.
Radio-Canada – L’immigration francophone à Notre-Dame-de-Lourdes connaît un succès
Une campagne de séduction en France et en Belgique pour recruter de la main-d’œuvre spécialisée dans les communautés francophones rurales du Manitoba connaît un succès mitigé. L’automne dernier, environ 11 travailleurs franco-européens et leurs familles ont été sélectionnés comme immigrants à Notre-Dame-de-Lourdes, un village francophone de 700 personnes situé à 130 kilomètres au sud-ouest de Winnipeg. Leurs candidatures ont été retenues dans le cadre du programme Destination Canada, un salon de l’emploi annuel organisé par les ambassades du Canada à Paris et à Bruxelles. La cohorte représente des personnes qualifiées qui n’arrivent pas à trouver un emploi dans leur pays et qui souhaitent rester au Canada à long terme.
Star Phoenix – Roma Refugee Acceptance on the Rebound
Canada’s acceptance of Hungarian Roma asylum seekers is on an upswing after plummeting to record lows just a few years ago. In 2009-2010, only one to two per cent of refugee claimants from Hungary were accepted as the Conservative government initiated a crackdown on “bogus” refugees. But data from the Immigration and Refugee Board show the acceptance rate has steadily increased: to 20 per cent in 2013, 35 per cent in 2014 and 68 per cent in the first half of 2015. […] “These figures show that Hungary is not, in fact, a safe country for hundreds of recognized refugees,” said Sean Rehaag, an Osgoode Hall Law School professor specializing in immigration and refugee law. […] Refugee experts and advocates said one of many factors likely contributing to the rebound is the growing evidence of persecution of the ethnic Roma minority in Hungary. A 2014 study by the Harvard School of Public Health found recent years have seen a “climate of increasing social and economic exclusion.” State officials often use racist public statements to incite hate against Roma, and paramilitary extremist groups have organized anti-Roma rallies, it added.
The New York Times – Border Crisis Shifts as Undocumented Children’s Cases Overwhelm Courts
Last summer, President Obama declared a crisis along the border with Mexico in response to the tens of thousands of unaccompanied children coming into the country. Detention centers in Texas overflowed, prompting the federal Department of Homeland Security to open emergency shelters. Political tempers boiled over — Rick Perry, who was the governor of Texas, ordered 1,000 National Guard troops to defend the border. The Obama administration created a priority juvenile docket in immigration courts to speed up deportation proceedings. One year later, the number of children arriving at the border has slowed dramatically, in part because Mexico has been returning children to their home countries before they can reach the United States. But the crisis has not ended. It has simply shifted. It is playing out in courtrooms crowded with young defendants but lacking lawyers and judges to handle the sheer volume of cases. Thousands of children without lawyers have been issued deportation orders, some because they never showed up in court.
CBC – Temporary Foreign Workers and Supporters Denounce Poor Treatment on Quebec Farms
A bicycle convoy of protesters denouncing abuses of temporary migrant worker rights gathered on Saturday at a Latin American cultural festival in St-Rémi, in Quebec’s Montérégie region. Led by Noé Arteaga, a Guatemalan temporary migrant worker who won a lawsuit against now-bankrupt Quebec tomato producer Savoura, the group stopped by this weekend’s Fiesta de Cultures. The event was in part sponsored by the Mexican and Guatemalan consulates. Security guards and provincial police at the festival denied the protesters entry, telling them they could only protest outside. That led to a scuffle that saw protesters get dragged away from the festival site. Supporters and members of the Justice for Noé Committee attended the protest to demand better treatment for temporary foreign workers — usually people from Latin and South American countries who are hired by Canadian companies to harvest crops and work in slaughterhouses. Arteaga describes the treatment of temporary foreign workers as inhumane. “We don’t buy Mexican products because it’s slavery,” he said. “But they don’t take into consideration that there are the same conditions, the same problems for temporary workers here [in Quebec].”
CBC – Europe Migrants: 2,000 Rush Past Police into Macedonia
Thousands of rain-soaked migrants on Saturday rushed past Macedonian riot police who were attempting to block them from entering Macedonia from Greece. Police fired stun grenades and dozens of people were injured in the border clashes. By the end of the day, everyone got across, including several hundred migrants, mostly elderly and children, who had remained on the Greek side of the border. Thousands then boarded trains and buses that took them up north to the border with Serbia from where they will attempt to enter European Union-member Hungary. The tumult started when police allowed a small group of migrants with young children to cross the frontier, and crowds in the back squeezed the migrants toward the shielded police wall. Many women, at least one pregnant, and children fell to the ground, apparently fainting after squeezing past the cordon. Then thousands of others, including women with babies and men carrying small children, grabbed their chance to climb over razor wire or run across a field not protected by the fence to enter Macedonia.
EJ Insight – “Chinese Invasion” of Vancouver Real Estate: What’s the Truth?
Bruce Langereis, president of Vancouver developer Delta Group, has challenged the notion of “Chinese buyers”, especially in the context of Vancouver where nearly one-third of its population is ethnically Chinese. “There is much attention on Chinese buyers but many of us forget that these ‘Chinese buyers’ have been in Vancouver for a long time,” Langereis said. According to the Calgary Chinese Cultural Centre, Chinese migration in Canada can be traced back to 1858 when the first wave of Chinese people came to pan for gold in British Columbia. While “foreign money” is often cited as a major factor that drives Vancouver’s property prices, Michael Ferreira, a managing principal at consultancy firm Urban Analytics, has raised questions on who exactly would constitute “foreign investors”. “Should we consider foreign buyers with local representation ‘foreign investors’? If their family spends some of their time in Vancouver, does that make them local residents or foreign investors?” he said. […] As the local government is not tracking where the buyers come from, Yves Tiberghien, director of the Institute of Asian Research at the University of British Columbia (UBC), believes the lack of reliable data partly fuels the debate on the “Chinese money” in Vancouver’s property market.
