The following is a statement from Jenny Kwan, NDP Critic for Immigration and Refugees:
On behalf of the New Democratic Party, I wish to express my profound disappointment with the reinstatement of President Donald Trump’s travel ban. This ban ...
The following is a statement from Jenny Kwan, NDP Critic for Immigration and Refugees:
On behalf of the New Democratic Party, I wish to express my profound disappointment with the reinstatement of President Donald Trump’s travel ban. This ban ...
On behalf of the New Democratic Party, I wish to express my profound disappointment with the reinstatement of President Donald Trump’s travel ban. This ban unfairly targets all refugees and individuals from six predominately Muslim countries. Claims that it will benefit US national security are not supported by a shred of evidence.
Canadians wholly reject any travel ban based on race or religion. We expect our leaders to be brave enough to stand up for human rights and against policies that put lives at risk, while perpetuating hate and fear. Unfortunately Canada’s Prime Minister has refused to directly criticize this ban.
When President Trump’s original travel ban was announced, Prime Minister Trudeau tweeted out a message to refugees welcoming them to Canada even as his government shut down the private sponsorship program set up to assist Syrian refugees. Since then he has failed to take any measures that would enhance Canada’s refugee program in the wake of such a ban.
Not only has Prime Minister Trudeau refused to condemn this ban, he’s refused to increase the number of refugees Canada takes in and placed a hard cap on a category of privately sponsored refugees. Additionally, and despite opposition from across the country, Trudeau has refused to suspend the so-called ‘Safe Third Country Agreement’ which prevents asylum seekers from crossing the border at formal points of entry. Instead, hundreds of asylum seekers have been forced to make dangerous crossings over the Canadian border, some losing appendages to frost bite and one woman losing her life.
Canada has a duty and a responsibility to work with the international community to address the growing refugee crisis, a crisis which will only be made worse by the US travel ban. The government of Canada should condemn this ban, suspend the Safe Third Country Agreement and increase our commitments to support refugees.”
Over the past two months, I have become aware of more than two-hundred Palestinian Canadians with either citizenship or permanent resident status across the country that have applied to sponsor their family members in Gaza to come to Canada through the family reunification program. These families have begun the application process to bring nearly 2,500 loved ones from Gaza in total. Of these family members stuck in Gaza, 78 per cent are still waiting to receive the code from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) that is required to proceed to the next phase and complete their application.
Your department has stated that 986 people have received a code and used it to submit a temporary resident visa (TRV) application which has been accepted into processing. It is apparent that the code issuing system works in lockstep with the 1,000-person cap to severely restrict the inflow of applications. It should be abundantly clear that you must lift the cap.
It has been almost seventy days since the program opened for applications on January 9. These families are desperate to know when, or if, loved ones will be allowed to come to Canada. For many, the news is consuming their life as they anxiously await to hear from IRCC officials regarding their application. Yet they are met with radio silence from IRCC. The process is frankly excruciating to for family members. The federal NDP caucus has already condemned this non-communicative approach, called on you to lift the arbitrary cap, and change the discriminatory lens through which this policy approaches Palestinians.
Metro Vancouver are working cooperatively to expand public transit across Metro Vancouver and improve infrastructure, aiming to meet the ridership, emissions reduction and service expansion goals laid out in Translink’s Access for Everyone plan. The BC provincial government is partnering to provide post-pandemic funding, which will also to aid in meeting BC’s target of reducing light-vehicle kilometres-travelled by 25% by 2030.
For these initiatives to succeed, your partnership and support through long-term, stable, and adequate funding is required.
Surely, in the midst of an affordability crisis, it is sensible to invest in the robust improvement and expansion of public transportation. It will support population growth. It will support people who need reliable, affordable transportation so that they can continue to work, live, go to school, and play in their neighbourhoods without being forced into difficult circumstances due to lack of transportation access. It will accelerate the greenhouse gas emissions reductions we so desperately need in climate emergency.
The special immigration measure that our caucus called for on December 4, 2023, opened on January 9. It is riddled with problems. At the outset, nobody knew when the online portal would open. The arbitrary quota for applications only heightened anxiety as people felt that they had to compete with others for limited spots.
Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has not been proactive or clear in communicating with applicants and has been largely incapable of answering any questions about their files. Many people who completed the first stage of the application are still waiting to receive a code that will allow them to proceed and IRCC cannot explain why some people who applied on January 9 received a code quickly and others still have not. Others have been rejected without any explanation from IRCC or for reasons that were later contradicted. People have been rejected and then subsequently approved with the exact same application.
To highlight the absurdity of the situation, one family was told only two weeks after their application was rejected that the reason was due to a missing ‘notary seal or stamp’ even though no stamp is required by law in British Columbia. Notwithstanding, the application was in fact stamped. The applicant did resubmit with the stamp on a gold seal so that it’s more visible to the scan, but IRCC then approved the original application anyway.