August 2018
It is the beginning of August and as it is every year after the celebration of the Caribbean Carnival formerly known as Caribana, and the celebration of Emancipation of people of African Descent from enslavement in the Americas (including Canada), there’s always this sense that this is the beginning of the end of summer.
We are collecting your stories about OCASI and photos to mark our 40th anniversary this year. Share your story and help us build the Ontario archive of the immigrant and refugee-serving sector.
Don’t know where to start? Not sure how to tell your story? Here are some sample questions to help you get started:
Asylum seekers (in Canada use the term refugee claimant) have the legal right to cross the border and enter Canada to make a refugee claim. Asylum seekers are crossing irregularly – between ports of entry - but that is not illegal. They are doing so to because the Safe Third Country Agreement (2004) between Canada and the United States requires Canada to send refugee claimants back to the U.S., with a few exceptions. The Safe Third Country Agreement applies only to refugee claims made at border crossings.
July 2018 - The Friday before the long weekend and our national recognition and celebration by some and resistance by others of the formation of our country Canada, we were greeted with unexpected and disappointing news. The newly elected government of Ontario had decided to disregard tradition and do away with the Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration. The Ministry has played an important role in Ontario’s economic development plans.
Toronto/July 6, 2018/ - Ontario civil society groups and refugee advocates urge the Government of Ontario to stay engaged in intergovernmental collaboration to resettle the large numbers of refugee claimants arriving irregularly in Canada from the United States.
June 2018
It is late Spring, feeling and looking like summer, a few days after I returned to Ontario after being away for a week on vacation in Jamaica (yes, I voted in the advance poll!). I came home to a province of mixed political and emotional sentiments - A Progressive Conservative majority government which some find concerning, wondering and worrying if the public policies and programs that they’ve worked so hard and long to bring to fruition will be done away with.
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