Through The Professional Education and Training Project (PET), OCASI aims to make funding available to organizations for group in-house professional development training to improve settlement services by addressing gaps in skills, knowledge and attitudes of service providers within each participating agencies. The project also provides settlement practitioners access to online e-learning course.
As far as we understand there are other pending amendments to which we must pay attention. For example, the clause dealing with dual citizens and the government right to deport based on criminality or ‘treason’ we know will be cause for great debate. Organizations like OCASI and the National Council of Canadian Muslims among other progressive organizations spoke out strongly against giving the government the power to revoke citizenship and deport dual citizens arguing that this set up a two tier citizenship regime which is fundamentally unfair. We argued that citizenship is a fundamental right that cannot be taken away. Our current federal government agrees and is seeking to reverse this part of the Citizenship Act through Bill C6.
OCASI – Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants together with the City of Toronto Newcomer Office and a coalition of community organizations launched Refugee Rights Awareness Month 2017 today, in the Member's Lounge at Toronto City Hall.
OCASI and many others across Canada are calling on the Canadian government to suspend the Safe Third Country Agreement with the US. Asylum seekers that enter Canada from the U.S. through regulated border points are subject to the Agreement, and may not be allowed to stay to make a refugee claim. Many Canadians are concerned about the health, safety and well-being of asylum seekers who are crossing the border into Canada at unregulated points, while others mistakenly believe they are breaking the law and should be stopped.
Refugee Rights Month is commemorated on April 4 every year in Canada to bring attention to the advances made in the protection of refugee rights in Canada as a result of the Supreme Court decision (the ‘Singh’ decision) in 1985. Join us this year to commemorate the 32nd anniversary of the 'Singh Decision'.
The weather outside as I write this belies the fact that it is mid-March and we are less than a week away from the official start of Spring. But the frigid cold temperatures we have experienced in the past week did not deter the tens of thousands of women, children and male and non-binary allies who showed up to celebrate and protest across the province as we observed International Women’s Day.
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