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CTV: 'We’re not empty investments': Toronto tenants say they wait months for bug infestations, flooding

Tenants and politicians are warning Toronto will see more people experiencing homelessness if action isn’t taken to address the city’s housing crisis.

NDP Housing Critic and Vancouver MP Jenny Kwan is travelling in Ontario calling for the federal government to bring in a moratorium on the acquisition of housing by corporate landlords, and to close tax loopholes associated with Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs).

“Those investors right now do not pay the corporate tax rate. Even though they operate like a corporation. And the government has given them a tax break for all these years. The corporate tax rate is 38 per cent, but they don’t pay that corporate tax,” Kwan said at a press event in St. James Town, in northeast Toronto, on Tuesday.

Canadian Press: Senator says several cabinet ministers knew she was issuing travel docs to Afghans

Sajjan and Mendicino did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and former ministers Garneau and Monsef could not immediately be reached.

In a statement, the immigration department says it can't give further details because of ongoing litigation.

After the meeting, NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan said ministers needed to provide clarity to the committee.  "The real question, for me, is ministerial accountability," Kwan said.

MEDIA RELEASE: Liberals’ failure to come to the table with a fair deal for workers will worsen immigration system

“The NDP stands in solidarity with the 155,000 federal civil public servants who overwhelmingly voted for a strike mandate—including workers from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). They have been without a contract for over a year. These workers deserve respect.

Justin Trudeau’s government’s failure to come to the table with a fair deal—that considers the impacts of inflation and values the work of federal civil public servants during the pandemic—threatens to worsen an immigration system already in chaos.

CPAC: Jenny on Citizenship Rights for Second-Generation Canadians and Lost Canadians

HEADLINE POLITICS

NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan discusses amendments she will be moving at the House of Commons immigration committee on a policy related to citizenship rights of second-generation Canadians born abroad. She is joined at the news conference on Parliament Hill by Randall Emery (founding director of the Canadian Citizens Rights Council), Don Chapman (founder of the Lost Canadians Society), Sujit Choudhry (immigration lawyer representing lost Canadian families), and Emma Kenyon (an individual who was impacted by the citizenship policy). In 2009, Stephen Harper's Conservative government passed Bill C-37, which ended the rights of individuals to pass on Canadian citizenship to their children born abroad. Kwan will table amendments to Bill S-245, which was sponsored by Senator Yonah Martin and passed by the Senate in May 2022. Senator Martin's bill amends the Citizenship Act to permit certain people who lost their Canadian citizenship to regain it. (April 17, 2023) (no interpretation)

MEDIA RELEASE: NDP moves amendments to fix the issue of “Lost Canadians”

OTTAWA — On Monday, NDP critic for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Jenny Kwan (Vancouver East) will table amendments at the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration to reverse a policy enacted by Stephen Harper’s Conservatives that stripped second generation Canadians and their descendants born abroad from their right to citizenship. This policy was never fixed under Justin Trudeau’s Liberals, and Kwan says it’s time to fix this injustice that destroyed lives.

“This punitive measure has caused so much hardship and pain for Canadian families. Their lives are in limbo and too many are having to struggle with forced family separation. Some Canadians even found themselves to be stateless,” said Kwan. “It is time to fix this injustice once and for all.”

MEDIA RELEASE: NDP moves amendments to fix the issue of “Lost Canadians”

Kwan will table amendments to an immigration Senate Bill S-245 to reverse this discriminatory law against second generation Canadians born abroad and their descendants. 

“I have met many lost Canadians whose lives have been turned upside down because of this unjust policy that creates different classes of Canadian citizens,” added Kwan. “New Democrats are committed to ensuring second generation Canadians and their descendants born abroad attain their right to citizenship.”

Sannich News: B.C. MPs demand feds stop corporate landlords in Victoria who ‘swoop in’ to push out tenants

Kwan added that we need to stop allowing profiteering on housing to take place.

“Corporate landlords and real estate investment trusts are trying to increase their profitability. They look for buildings that are underperforming. They swoop in and purchase them and try to push out long-term tenants that are there. Once they’re out, they jack up the rent.”

Kwan said the federal government needs to view housing as a basic human right.

“What we need to do is stop treating housing as a commodity,” Kwan said. “The provincial government is doing their best to address the housing crisis. They can’t do it alone.”

MEDIA RELEASE: Jagmeet Singh is calling on the Liberals to go back to the table with a decent offer for federal public service workers

“We stand in solidarity with the 120000 Treasury Board workers who overwhelmingly voted for a strike mandate.

Workers at the Treasury Board have been without a contract for more than a year while the cost of living soars.

TOWNHALL Meeting April 4: Saving Our Environment

Tuesday, April 11, 7 pm at Italian Cultural Centre Trattoria (3072 Slocan St)

Hosted by MP Jenny Kwan and MP Don Davies

with special guests Dr. Melissa Lem, Grand Chief Stewart Philip and Adele Liu

RSVP by phone: 604-775-5800 or https://m.facebook.com/events/1720681445000494?mibextid=Z0UBBX

Saltwire: New Canada-U.S. immigration deal puts ‘people in danger’ says former asylum seeker

Seidu Mohammed knows the lengths that asylum seekers will often go to when trying to cross the border into Canada and he worries that a newly signed agreement between the U.S. and Canada will cause even more desperation and harm to those trying to get into this country.

“I am speaking from experience, I almost froze to death, I lost my fingers, and I know what this is going to do for people trying to come here to seek safety, and it’s going to make it even harder on people,” Mohammed said on Monday in Emerson near the Canada-U.S. border.