With Canadian flags and baseball caps in hand, Michelle and Tom Hunter waited eagerly at the airport for three hours, ready to welcome the Ukrainian family they will be hosting. They were part of a crowd of other host families, government officials, organizations, translators and other well-wishers who gathered at the Halifax Stanfield International Airport […]
Refugees
Posted inNews + Opinion
Federal court rules that the US is not safe for refugees as per the Safe Third Country Act
In a federal court ruling that came down last week, the Canada-US Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA) was found to be unconstitutional. For those of us who’ve been organizing against this agreement for years, this decision could not come soon enough. And, still, we know that much work remains. Even as the horrors of modern-day […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Refugee moms at serious risk for postpartum depression
Her first pregnancy is a unique experience in any woman’s life. Welcoming a new family member could be an exciting event, especially for a woman becoming a mother for the first time. However, this isn’t always the case for newcomer Syrian refugee women resettling in Canada. From November 2015 to January 2017, 40,000 Syrian refugees […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Federal Court to decide on Abdoul Abdi’s future
Canada’s Federal Court will hear the case of a former ward of the province facing deportation to Somalia. Abdoul Abdi’s fate was to be decided on Wednesday by the Immigration and Refugee Review Board. But news of the federal hearing later this May caused the IRB to put a pause on its own proceedings. The […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Abdoul Abdi released from custody, still facing deportation
Abdoul Abdi is a free man, but still not a Canadian according to the federal government. Lawyer Benjamin Perryman announced on Monday that his client will be released from custody, by order of the Immigration and Refugee Board, and sent to a halfway house in the greater Toronto area while he fights to remain in […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Trudeau offers platitudes but no promises on Abdoul Abdi’s case
“Abdoul Abdi needs to be free!” came the chants of a small crowd of protesters outside Sackville High School on Tuesday night. The protesters aimed their cries at the sprawling line waiting to attend prime minister Justin Trudeau’s town hall event in hopes of raising awareness about the deportation case of Somalian refugee Abdoul Abdi. […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
The perfect silence in Syria
I was in Grade Five when the teacher asked me, “What do you want to learn as a second language, English or French?” In some parts of Syria, kids had the chance to choose between the two. That was the first important decision I had to make. I felt joy at the idea of having […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Trudeau’s refugee cap undervalues Canadian values
Embed from Getty Images On a cold windless January night, Kate McKenna walked into a meeting to consider, with some hesitance, sponsoring a Syrian refugee family to move to Nova Scotia. “Don’t commit to too much,” she reminded herself, as she joined a small group in the gym of the St. James Parish Hall in […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Refugee mental health care adds insult to injury
[Image-1] Roughly a year ago, the first government-sponsored Syrian refugees began to land in Canadian airports. Their arrival was greeted with jubilation by Canadians who saw it as a sign of a new direction for the country. Seemingly in testament to the fact that the federal government had turned over a new leaf, funding for […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Greetings to a career I didn’t reach
[Image-1] In 1995, when I was nine years old and living in Al-Swaidaa, a city in the south of Syria, my oldest sister used to take me with her to the hairdresser once a month. My love, my dream started there. I would read fashion magazines during each visit. They were my window to a […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Speaking the same language
The Melli family think about their journey in terms of routes. There are the one they took to flee their apartment in a suburb of Damascus, and the roads that take each member of the family through HRM to their respective language classes. Then there are the daily adjustments to an unfamiliar place that nonetheless […]