On November 27, 2020, I stood in the House to call on the federal government for urgent help for our Van East community:
"The Minister of Health said she has the highest regard for Dr. Patricia Daly, Dr. Bonnie Henry and Mayor Kennedy Stewart.
Why then has the Minister refused to follow their sound advice and decriminalize simple drug possession to help save lives?
In BC alone, 1,386 people have died from an overdose [this year].
Across the country, over 16,000 people have been taken by the war on drugs.
The DTES is under siege with record overdose deaths.
And we now have the highest COVID-19 infection rates in the city.
Our community is also grappling with the largest homeless encampment in the country.
We need urgent help from the Federal government.
Vancouver [City] Council is calling on the government to decriminalize.
The Province wants the Federal government to cost share 50/50 in their aggressive pandemic housing plan to house the homeless.
Housing advocates want the Port to stand down and not pursue civil proceedings against those who acted in solidarity with the people at the homeless encampment at CRAB Park.
I join with them to call on the Federal government to act."
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, 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.
Less than nine months after Parliament allowed those with Canadian ancestors to be recognized as Canadian citizens, the backlog of applications has soared to a new high.
More than 136,000 applications for citizenship certificates are now waiting for a decision — many of them from Americans. Those who apply today face an estimated wait of 33 months, according to figures posted on Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC)'s website.
That is a 32 per cent jump in wait time and an 11 per cent rise in the number of applications since the previous update on Aug. 10.
NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan said Prime Minister Mark Carney's government needs to ensure that IRCC has the resources to address the "growing crisis," pointing out that the government's last budget called for 3,300 positions to be cut by 2028-29.
"It is completely unacceptable that people who have a legitimate claim to Canadian citizenship, passed in legislation by Parliament, are being left in limbo," she said in a statement.
"Families [are] facing enormous disruption to their ability to travel, work, study, access services and plan their lives."
In the morning of August 31, Egyptian journalist Hossam el-Hamalawy received an email from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), informing him that it had made a “u-turn” and reversed its decision to deny him entry to Canada.
The reversal came in response to a coordinated solidarity campaign that successfully pressured IRCC, Canada’s department of immigration, to change course.
Almost two weeks earlier, on August 18, IRCC rejected el-Hamalawy’s application for an Electronic Travel Authorization (eTA), which is required for German citizens to visit Canada. An Egyptian exile and refugee, el-Hamalawy resides in Berlin and has German citizenship. His eTA application was to attend two public speaking engagements in September at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada.
IRCC initially rejected el-Hamalawy’s eTA application after requesting three times that he provide official documents from the Egyptian government that corroborate his experience of detention and torture under the regime.
In Toronto, the Executive Director of REDWORD.ca, Mostafa Al-A’sar, prepared an open letter to Minister Diab signed by prominent labour leaders, journalists, and human rights activists, including Mostafa Fouad, Executive Director of HuMENA for Human Rights; Ehab Lotayef, founding member of Egyptian Canadian Coalition for Democracy; Judy Rebick, feminist and journalist; and Sid Ryan, former President of the Ontario Federation of Labour.
Other activists launched an email campaign, which encouraged supporters to send letters to Minister Diab and her Parliamentary Secretary, Liberal Member of Parliament Peter Fragiskatos (London Centre), as well as their own Members of Parliament. Letters were sent from across Canada, including Halifax, Nova Scotia (Diab’s home riding) and London, Ontario (Fragiskatos’s home riding). Activists in the United States, Britain, and Europe also shared the email appeal.
In addition to the appeal, activists organized two emergency phone actions, which delivered over 200 voicemail messages to Diab, Fragiskatos, and dozens of Members of Parliament.
Finally, on August 31, Jenny Kwan shared her own open letter to the Minister, which echoed all the demands of the solidarity campaign.