Applying Biometrics Exemptions during COVID-19 Pandemic

Urgent Action Needed on Strathcona Park and other Homeless Encampments - A Joint Call for Action

Urgent action is needed to address the growing homelessness crisis, yet the federal government continues to drag their feet on this issue.

Numbers don’t lie. BC only got 0.5% of funds from finalized agreements through the National Housing Co-Investment Fund. Only two applications were finalized. It was absolutely shocking to see the numbers. The truth is, though, we already suspected that BC was not getting the kind of resources that we need to support and address our homelessness crisis.

Alberta and Quebec have been shut out of the fund altogether, while Ontario has received 94% of the nearly $1.5 billion so far.

To learn more about these figures, please read Dan Fumano's recent coverage of this important story in the Vancouver Sun.

Cost-sharing Plan with B.C. Provincial and Municipal Government Urgently Needed to Address Homelessness Crisis

July 29, 2020

Sent to: 

The Honourable Ahmed Hussen
Minister of Families, Children and Social Development

 

OPEN LETTER RE: COST-SHARING PLAN WITH B.C. PROVINCIAL AND MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENTS URGENTLY NEEDED TO ADDRESS HOMELESSNESS CRISIS

Minister Hussen,

I am writing urgently with regard to the need for the federal government to commit to working with the non-profits, provincial and municipal governments to address the housing and homelessness crisis, especially in light of a pandemic that has gripped the country and devastated the livelihoods of many Canadians.

The homelessness crisis is not only an affront to human rights, but also poses an enormous national public health risk. This puts the individuals and the communities they live in at risk. Despite the indisputable importance of housing, I am deeply concerned that your government’s National Housing Strategy (NHS) is woefully inadequate.

Based on the response to my order paper question submitted February 4th, 2020, it seems the largest component of the NHS, the National Housing Co-investment Fund (NHCF), has fallen short of expectations. I was shocked to learn that only 23 of 432 of submissions have finalized funding agreements. Even more troubling was the lack of funding outside of Ontario. Among these applications, over 50% of the finalized agreements were from Ontario and over 91% of the $1.47 billion in these agreements went to a single application in the City of Toronto.

Follow-up on Immigration Measures for Sikh and Hindu Communities in Afghanistan

July 27, 2020

Sent to:

The Honourable Marco Mendicino, P.C., M.P.
Minister of Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship

The Honourable Francois-Phillipe Champagne, P.C., M.P.

 

OPEN LETTER: FOLLOW-UP ON IMMIGRATION MEASURES FOR SIKH AND HINDU COMMUNITIES IN AFGHANISTAN

Minister Mendicino and Minister Champagne,

I am writing to join my voice with the concerns raised by the World Sikh Organization (WSO) regarding religious minorities being persecuted in Afghanistan, specifically Sikhs and Hindus. Their lives are constantly at risk as they are being targeted for attack, abduction and extortion by extremist groups in the region, such as ISIS Khorasan (ISIS-K).

As noted by the WSO, on March 25, 2020, ISIS-K terrorists attacked Gurdwara Sri Guru Har Rai Sahib in Kabul and murdered 25 Sikhs, including four-year-old Tania Kaur. At the funeral for the victims of this attack, a second attack was initiated involving the detonation of an explosive device. Earlier, in July 2018, the senior leadership of the Sikh and Afghan communities was assassinated in a suicide bombing that took 19 lives in Jalalabad. In June 2020, an Afghan Sikh, Nidan Singh Sachdeva, was abducted from a gurdwara and tortured for weeks. That was followed on July 17 by the abduction of 13-year-old Salmeet Kaur who was kidnapped from a Kabul gurdwara where she was living with her blind mother and younger brother. Salmeet’s father was killed in the March attack. ISIS-K has sworn to exterminate all Afghan Sikhs and Hindus if they do not leave Afghanistan.