Executive Director's Message

It seems like we can’t catch a breath, before another unexpected announcement of a legislative, by-law or policy change is announced by one or another level of government. All negative. All curbing individual and group rights. All must and will be challenged- in calls to elected politicians, in the streets and in the courts.

Bill C-2 an omnibus Bill introduced by the federal Minister of Public Safety contains several clauses that effectively shut the Canadian borders to refugee claimants (asylum seekers) in need of a safe refuge and Canada’s protection.

Toronto / May 2025

Toronto / April 2025 - There is much discussion at various tables across the broad national Immigration and settlement sector on ‘Canada’s immigration program’, ‘the future of settlement services’, ‘visioning a new immigration program’ and ‘a new vision for Canada’… you get my drift. All important. All timely. However, the urgency I felt for these conversations just a month or so ago, has receded.

Toronto / March 2025

“When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard nor welcomed, but when we are silent we are still afraid, so it is better to speak.” (Audre Lorde)

Toronto / February 2025

“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” Martin Luther King, Jr.

Before leaving on my usual mid-winter vacation to warmer climes last month, our country and the world were nervously chuckling at the newly elected USA President’s musings about Canada being a 51st State of the USA and disrespectfully calling our Prime Minister, “Governor” as an insult - a belittling, an emasculation if you will.

There were sixty-three thousand individuals who arrived and claimed refugee status in Ontario in 2023. By mid-December 2024 approximately eighty-four thousand claims had been filed by persons residing in the province. We can make a guesstimate that we’ll end up just over the eighty-five thousand number for 2024, as November had seen a slight dip in numbers from the previous month.

Toronto / December 2024

I am having one of those moments where competing emotions are screwing with my heart and head and soul. I am sharing space at this very moment that I’m writing this, with a diversity of organizations and groups in a light-filled room in the aesthetically beautiful Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata Centre gathering place in Winnipeg.

Toronto / October 2024 - It was the beeping sound of text messages coming through my phone that woke me up this morning. I quickly shook off sleep and reached for my phone wondering why my youngest, away at school, would be blowing up my phone this early in the morning. It wasn’t her.

Toronto / September 2024 – It’s Labour day and my thoughts turn to the role of unions, in our work of building inclusive and welcoming communities so that all im/migrants and refugees find a sense of home regardless of where they land in this vast country of ours.

This moment in time feels like back to the future. Not in the sense of Sankofa – looking back to take the lessons that will help to shape the future - but in a sense of historical erasure which will ensure that we repeat practices that are exclusionary, that are discriminatory and divisive.