Executive Director's Message

In These Times

I spent a recent afternoon in conversation with a few friends and acquaintances about Canada’s changing attitude towards im/migrants and refugees-decreasing support and open xenophobia; the decreasing support for Pride and other queer initiatives nationally and locally especially from corporate Canada; and the increasingly vocal debates happening in feminist spaces on transgender rights.

A Time for Action

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.

Observations

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.

Hope

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.

Talk Is Not Enough

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.

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