Our Team in the Media

Jacqueline Swaisland- The Supreme Court just reined in the scope of a Canadian security law. Refugee advocates are praising the ruling

2024-01-10T20:12:09+00:00September 28th, 2023|Tags: |

The Supreme Court of Canada has imposed a limit on the power of immigration officials and government tribunals to remove foreign nationals with no criminal convictions on security grounds. In a unanimous judgment released on Wednesday, the country’s highest court says if Canada is going to deport a non-citizen on “security grounds,” authorities must show that the person poses not just ...

Erin Simpson- They came to Canada, were in child protection, but never got legal immigration status. Now advocates are speaking up

2024-01-10T20:20:54+00:00March 7th, 2023|Tags: |

Raised by his great-grandmother in the Dominican Republic, Fili has few memories of his parents or his sister and two brothers, who were both murdered. When his only caregiver died, the young boy, then about 10, moved in with friends he met on the streets and started catching fish and unloading cargo at a shipping port to provide for himself. ...

Warda Shazadi Meighen – Afghans yearning to come to Canada are spending sad and fearful days in Albania, waiting on a plane or an email from our government

2024-01-10T20:27:19+00:00May 12th, 2022|Tags: |

HENGJIN, ALBANIA—Every couple of weeks, more of Hilai Barakzai’s neighbours pack up and leave to new homes around the world, while she waits, watches her email and wonders when it will be her turn. Barakzai got onto one of the last desperate flights out of Kabul as the Taliban took over Afghanistan in August 2021. She flew to Pakistan, then ...

Erin Simpson – How long will Canada make this Afghan boy wait for a family reunion?

2024-01-10T20:27:53+00:00April 27th, 2022|Tags: |

As the nine-year-old boy was shoved and pushed by the sea of desperate people behind him, his head kept turning, looking back for his parents and two younger brothers as they fell further and further behind him. When Hadisullhaq Afghanfar finally got past the front gate of the Kabul airport amid the chaos last August to board one of the ...

Warda Shazadi Meighen – Memo to the new cabinet: Canada must meet the moment in Afghanistan

2024-01-09T16:43:01+00:00November 17th, 2021|Tags: |

Imagine that you are a female judge in Afghanistan at this very moment: having gone from being in the epicenter of justice just a few months ago to a basement hideaway trying not to breathe too loudly. You are now hunted by the Taliban, by the murderers you convicted (and whom the Taliban released) as well as ISIS-Khorasan....

Warda Shazadi Meighen & Rachel Bryce – Climate migration is already happening – Canada must lead in developing a coherent response

2024-01-10T20:32:10+00:00November 11th, 2021|Tags: |

Representatives from much of the world gathered in Glasgow to discuss how to respond to the existential impacts of climate change. COP26 brought with it a heightened sense of urgency and the destructive effects of climate change can no longer be ignored, even for the most stubborn amongst us...

Erin Simpson – “I defied the Taliban, and now my family is in grave danger”

2024-01-10T20:33:57+00:00August 16th, 2021|Tags: |

On the morning they left, my elderly parents, older brother, sister-in-law, nephews and niece all watched as their neighbours packed up cars filled with clothes, food and water. Women frantically urged their children into waiting cars, their faces veiled and bodies engulfed by sky-blue burkas...

Warda Shazadi Meighen – Provincial legal aid cuts are senseless economic and social policy

2024-01-10T21:01:06+00:00April 18th, 2019|Tags: |

The Government of Ontario has cut one-third of legal aid funding. Legal Aid Ontario (LAO) funds legal representation for those individuals whose annual income is less than $17,000 – in other words, the most impoverished in our society...

Erin Simpson – How Canada should react to Trump and refugee crisis

2024-01-10T21:05:24+00:00February 15th, 2017|Tags: |

Refugees entering Canada through the US are risking dangerous irregular crossings to avoid detection of Canadian border officials because the Safe Third Country Agreement requires Canadian immigration officials to deny entry...

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