CTV News: Seniors arrested on Parliament Hill during climate protest

TOWN HALL MEETING: Surveillance Pricing

How your data determines what you pay!
What if the price you pay at the store is different than the person standing next to you?

Corporations can use personal data such as location, device type, browsing history, purchase behavior, login status, and loyalty cards/programs to profile consumers and determine what different people are charged for the same goods and services.

How can we stop this from happening in Canada?

Join MP Jenny Kwan, Patrick Johnson - President of UFCW 1518, Jim Stanford - Economist and Director of Centre for Future Work, Avi Lewis - NDP Leader and Benjamin Fung - Canada Research Chair in Data Mining for Cybersecurity and other experts, for a public forum and community conversation about what surveillance pricing means for consumers and workers, how technology and personal data are changing the way prices are set, and what everyday people can do to fight back.

*Scan QR code, click the image or this link to register your attendance - https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/your-data-their-price-a-town-hall-on-surveillance-pricing-tickets-1998495899032

STATEMENT: On Discontinuation of Refugee Family Reunification Policy

Jenny Kwan Statement on Discontinuation of Refugee Family Reunification Policy

This decision by Immigration Minister Lena Diab is deeply troubling because the government has provided no credible explanation for suddenly ending a policy that allowed refugees to reunite with family members who were not initially declared on their applications. If there were no issues identified with the policy, why was it abruptly changed? Refugees should not be punished for circumstances beyond their control, particularly when they have already endured displacement, conflict and separation from their loved ones.

It is also frankly absurd for the government to tell these families to simply apply through the humanitarian and compassionate process. The Minister knows very well that H&C applications can involve extraordinarily long processing times, meaning this is not a genuine solution for families facing prolonged separation. With H&C admissions targeted at just 1,100 people in 2026 and 1,000 in 2027, the prospect of families being reunited expeditiously is effectively negligible. Telling families in these circumstances to get in line for a severely backlogged H&C process is not family reunification—it is asking people who have already waited years to wait indefinitely. The government needs to reverse this decision and provide a fair, timely pathway for refugee families to be reunited. Minister Diab needs to explain why she has chosen to close a pathway to family reunification that was specifically designed to address gaps in the system. Canada should be making family reunification processes more administratively efficient, not marginalizing refugees even further.

Canadian Press: Ottawa won't say if people misused a now-defunct refugee residency sponsorship policy

OTTAWA — The Immigration Department refuses to say whether any applicants actually misused a refugee permanent resident sponsorship policy the government allowed to expire last week, citing “potential integrity concerns.”

The policy offered exemptions to allow certain refugees to sponsor a family member for permanent residency who was not listed on their initial application.

Without this exemption, applicants are permanently barred from sponsoring family members for permanent residency if they were not declared on their original application.

Advocates and academics who pushed for the policy said it was most commonly used to sponsor children — including some who had not been born when an application was first made — and LGBTQ2S+ partners in countries where those relationships are criminalized.

Jenny Kwan, the NDP’s immigration critic, said refugees trying to come to Canada should not be punished for circumstances beyond their control. She said the government has offered “no credible explanation” for the policy’s termination.

“They quietly shut it down, and now it is going to have, I have no doubt, significant implications for refugee families in that reunification,” Kwan said.

“So they’re not broadcasting it, it means that they’re not proud of it.”

The Canadian Press asked again Wednesday if anyone had actually misused the seven-year old policy.

“We have nothing further to add,” a department spokesperson said.

“It’s fair to say that Canadians expect immigration programs to be applied as intended. And we take seriously our responsibility to put in place policies that people can trust and that serve them well.”

Kwan said ending this policy will have serious consequences for refugee families.

“I have met refugee families who did not know that their young child, as an example, was still alive. They came to Canada and the young child was not part of that application because they thought that they had lost their child. They thought that the child was dead,” Kwan said.

“These things happen because people are displaced. They’re in sometimes a war environment in conflict, they get separated from their loved ones, they don’t even know that possibly their loved ones could still be alive.”

*Click image or link to read the news story - https://www.cp24.com/news/canada/2026/09/16/ottawa-wont-say-if-people-misused-a-now-defunct-refugee-residency-sponsorship-policy/