Hill Times: Post-election MP office renos top $1.3-million

A total of 106 MPs reported office renovation expenses after the 2025 election, including 62 first-time MPs and 46 incumbents.

The Hill Times combed through expense reports for all current MPs, and tallied up a total of $1,377,107 in office renovation expenses dated to after the April 28, 2025, federal election, and reported over four quarters ending on March 30 of this year.

Of the 108 MPs who reported such expenses, 55 are Conservatives, 49 are Liberals, three are Bloc Québécois, and one is a New Democrat.

As per the Members’ Allowances and Services manual, MPs are required to contact the House of Commons’ financial management operations team “for guidance on the eligibility” of any renovation expenses not paid by the landlord, which must be “completed no later than three years following a general election.”

In seventh place on the list is incumbent NDP MP Jenny Kwan (Vancouver East, B.C.), who reported a total of $55,912 in office renovation expenses. Kwan was the only MP contacted for comment to make themself available for an interview.

Speaking by phone on July 28, Kwan explained that her hunt for a new constituency office began back in 2023 after a House accessibility review flagged issues with her previous, Hastings Street office, which had two steps leading to its front door.

The Accessibility Canada Act passed in 2019 introduced new accessibility standards and requirements which apply to parliamentary entities, among others, including MP offices. The House subsequently adopted its first-ever accessibility plan in 2022, which set out certain requirements and was followed by a review of MP constituency office arrangements.

NDP MP Jenny Kwan says she began looking for a new riding office after accessibility issues were flagged with her previous space in 2023. 

Kwan said her office looked into the possibility of installing a ramp, but that was ultimately deemed unfeasible within the space available, beginning her search for a new location. Around the same time, she noted, her eight-year lease also ran out, putting her on a month-to-month lease, and her landlord indicated plans to sell.

Kwan said her team eventually found a ground-floor space on 10th Avenue close to transit, in a “very busy corridor in Vancouver East,” near her old office as a British Columbia MLA, and with good street visibility. Lease negotiations came to a halt with the call of the 2025 election, but post-writ, she said she secured one comparable in “cost on a per square footage basis” to her former riding office.

The space, however, was previously a pharmacy. As a result, Kwan said it had to be fit up, and the total costs incurred include for professional architectural drawings, city permits, construction, and materials. “It didn’t even have a proper floor, so we had to turn obviously this space into a functional constituency office,” adding vinyl flooring, a small kitchen area, a reception area, a conference room and other office space, and removing partial existing walls that featured medicine cabinets. 

Kwan confirmed the House has since reviewed the accessibility of her new office—along with a security review—and given it the OK.

*Click image or link to read the full news story - https://www.hilltimes.com/2026/08/05/post-election-mp-office-renos-top-1-3-million/513510/

Storm Media: Red Dragnet｜'Nothing Is Beyond Reach': A Canadian MP on Beijing's Long Arm

Canada is home to roughly 1.7 million people of Chinese origin, about 4.7 per cent of the population, and has been a favored destination for exiles from mainland China and Hong Kong. It is also, unsurprisingly, one of the countries where Beijing's reach abroad is most active.

The federal government's own public advisories describe the mechanics plainly: relatives still in China are used to pressure people in Canada into abandoning activities Beijing considers hostile, or into returning; and agents operating overseas are used to watch, monitor and report on people living in Canada. Public Safety Canada maintains a substantial public-facing section on the tactics involved — physical intimidation and violence, digital harassment and malicious cyber activity, social isolation, and coerced return.

Kwan, the New Democratic Party MP for Vancouver East and her party's public safety and national security critic, describes a campaign that has outgrown the categories built for it.

"The Chinese government's campaign of transnational repression has become increasingly sophisticated and brazen," she said in a written reply to Storm Media in late July. "It extends far beyond China's borders, targeting journalists, human rights defenders, democracy advocates, and refugees through intimidation, surveillance, coercion, and, in some cases, forced returns."

Her framing of what is at stake is deliberately not confined to the individuals affected. "This is not only an attack on individual freedoms but also on the sovereignty of democratic countries and the international refugee protection system," she said. "Democracies must work together to hold those responsible accountable."

*Click image or link to read the Taiwan media news - https://world.storm.mg/articles/1152999

 

National Post: Poilievre calls for changes to public alert system after missing Calgary boy found dead

OTTAWA — Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is calling for faster public alerts when children with special needs go missing, after an 11-year-old Calgary boy with autism was found dead following a two-week search.

Poilievre and Conservative MP Mike Lake said in a letter to federal Emergency Management Minister Eleanor Olszewski that the search for Parker Wells may have had a happier ending if the public had been notified about his disappearance sooner.

NDP public safety critic Jenny Kwan said she supported the idea of an Indigo Alert system.

“When a vulnerable child goes missing, every minute matters. An Indigo Alert would help ensure that autistic, non-verbal, and other medically or developmentally vulnerable children receive the urgent public response they need, giving families and communities another tool to bring children home safely,” wrote Kwan in an email.

Kwan said that the Ottawa should work with the provinces, territories, law enforcement and disability advocates to develop a coordinated Indigo Alert system.

*Click image or link to read the news story - https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/poilievre-calls-for-changes-to-public-alert-system-after-missing-calgary-boy-found-dead

 

Globe & Mail: Acadians treated unfairly by immigration department in citizenship U-turn, historians say

The federal immigration department is being criticized by Acadian history specialists for unfair treatment of members of the French-speaking diaspora community, after it said they may not be entitled to Canadian citizenship because the sources of their family records are not acceptable.

Acadians living outside Canada who obtained citizenship after the November passing of a new law extending citizenship by descent are among those whom the department recently informed may have been granted the right to a Canadian passport in error.

Peggy Sun, the registrar of Canadian Citizenship, wrote in June to about 100 “Lost Canadians” saying she had reasonable grounds to believe that their citizenship status is not valid and informing them it is now under review.

Most of those sent such letters have now had their citizenship certificates and passports restored. But others have been told, in a subsequent letter, that they may have been granted a citizenship certificate in error.

In the case of Acadians, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada has taken issue with some baptismal records, birth records and other documents sourced from France and the U.S.

Acadians, emigrants from France, established distinct communities in what is now Atlantic Canada in the 17th century. But sovereignty over much of their land passed to Britain after the signing of the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht when much French territory in North America was ceded to Britain.

British colonial authorities suspected Acadians were helping the French, including by trading with their forces. And they found that some fought alongside the French against them. The British forcibly expelled about 11,500 of the 14,000 Acadians between 1755 and 1764 from their territory in the Maritimes.

Some were deported to England, where they were imprisoned and later released. Some hid and others fled to regions under French control including in what is now Quebec and Prince Edward Island, or across the border into what is now the United States. Others were displaced to France, with many eventually finding refuge in Louisiana in what was then a Spanish colony.

Academics specializing in Acadian history say it is unjust for IRCC to penalize Acadians whose forebears were forced out by the British in the 18th century. Many records, including those held by churches and individual families were destroyed in the upheaval.

NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan said it was deeply concerning that Acadians were “being denied recognition of legitimate historical records from France and the United States, even though these jurisdictions hold many of the primary archival documents.”

*Click image or link to read the full news story - https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-acadians-immigration-citizenship-unfair-treatment-historians-say/

 

Asian Pacific Post: “How Many More Years Must I Wait?”

For six years, Rajesh Sharma has watched his parents grow older from half a world away.

The Vancouver area small businessman came to Canada from India, built a career, bought a home and met the income requirements to sponsor his mother and father.

His father’s health is failing. His mother now struggles to manage their home alone. Sharma spends his evenings arranging medical appointments from Canada and wondering how many more birthdays and family milestones they will miss.

Ottawa’s recent decision to suspend new applications for the Parent and Grandparent Program (PGP) until further notice has turned that uncertainty into something more final.

For Sharma and thousands of other immigrants, there is now no application date, no place in the queue and no assurance their aging parents will ever be able to join them permanently in Canada.

NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan said the decision leaves Canadians and permanent residents with no date to apply, no guarantee the program will reopen and little hope of reuniting with aging parents caught outside the country.

“The government has shamefully once again suspended new intakes to the Parent and Grandparent sponsorship program,” she said.

“At this rate, it will take decades to clear the backlog. Families cannot afford to wait decades to be reunited with their parents and grandparents.”

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada announced July 15 that it will stop accepting new interest-to-sponsor forms and will not invite more potential sponsors to submit applications until further notice.

The department said it will continue processing applications already in the system and plans to approve up to 15,000 parents and grandparents for permanent residence in 2026.

The department currently has about 60,500 permanent residence applications under the Parents and Grandparents Program in progress.

Processing times are approximately 33 months outside Quebec and can reach 66 months in Quebec. About 54,000 expressions of interest from the original 2020 pool were still outstanding as of September 2025.

Kwan said the government is managing the backlog by restricting access rather than fixing a system that has kept families waiting for years.

“It has remained closed since 2020, shattering dreams of family reunification for thousands of Canadians and permanent residents,” she said.

“Families who have been eagerly waiting for the application system to reopen are once again being told by the Liberals that they are out of luck. It is a slap in the face of families who have waited so long to reunite with their loved ones.”

The suspension comes as Ottawa sharply reduces the number of parents and grandparents it plans to admit.

Under the 2026-2028 Immigration Levels Plan, the federal government has set a target of 15,000 admissions through the program in each of the next three years.

The previous plan had called for 21,500 admissions in 2026, meaning the new target represents a reduction of about 30 per cent.

*Click image or link to read the full news article - https://asianpacificpost.com/article/10670-%E2%80%9Chow-many-more-years-must-i-wait%E2%80%9D.html

City TV News: Hong Kong PR pathway applicants face more than 10-year wait as program nears end

When the federal government launched the permanent residence pathways for Hong Kong residents, it was described as a faster route for eligible Hong Kong nationals already in Canada to become permanent residents.

Five years later, the Hong Kong pathway is set to close Aug. 31, while tens of thousands of applicants are still waiting.

For applicants like Roger Yeung, the wait is no longer just about immigration paperwork. It is affecting careers, education, and the ability to plan a future in Canada.

Roger Yeung has been living in Vancouver since April 2023. He applied for permanent residence under the Hong Kong pathway in October 2024, but says there has been no progress.

NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan says the wait is unacceptable.

Kwan says the federal government originally promised expedited processing for Hong Kongers under the lifeboat program, and that the process appeared to work in the first year.

“The government, in this first year of implementation of the Lifeboat Stream A, Stream B program, they did expedite the process,” Kwan said.

“But then, over the years, we started to notice that the government was slowing down in the processing.”

Kwan says the problem grew after Hong Kong pathway applications were grouped under the Humanitarian and Compassionate and Other category.

She said that category also includes other urgent commitments, including Ukraine and Sudan, leaving Hong Kong applicants competing for limited space.

“For Hong Kongers, there are over 33,000 applications waiting in the backlog, and that’s just for Hong Kongers,” Kwan said.

“If you add in Ukraine and Sudan, you can just imagine how lengthy the wait is.”

To clear the backlog, Kwan says the federal government should change the Immigration Levels Plan quota and allocate enough spaces to process existing applications. She also called on Ottawa to restore immigration staffing levels.

“Rebuild the trust. Honour what you promised Hong Kongers, and deliver on the program. Change the quota now,” Kwan said.

*Click image or link to watch or read the news story - https://vancouver.citynews.ca/2026/07/15/canada-hong-kong-pr-pathway-applicants-wait/