Immigrants & refugees

#BoycottTims? It’s about time.

Jun 9, 2015
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Twitter was raging against Tim Hortons last Thursday. According to the Ottawa Sun, for much of the day the hottest trending topic in Canada was #BoycottTims. It’s about time, I thought to myself, these allegations have been in the news for at least a couple of years. Back in 2013, a group of Tims employees… View Article

BC’s workers need a human rights commission

Dec 10, 2014
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Let me explain BC’s strategy for addressing discrimination. First, we ask someone to experience it. Then we ask that person to understand a complex area of law, investigate the facts and engage in a legal proceeding against their employer / landlord / service provider to enforce their rights. We ask many people to do this… View Article

Temporary Foreign Worker Program changes – who do they help?

Jul 10, 2014
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The Conservative Government’s Minister of Employment and Social Development, Jason Kenney, announced on June 20th 2014 a draft of changes to the federal Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP). The program has attracted controversy since at least 2006, most recently when the CBC reported that MacDonald’s outlets in Victoria were favouring temporary foreign workers over Canadians… View Article

Reaction to the Tamil boat: curious comparisons

Aug 21, 2010
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If the 492 Tamil asylum-seekers who recently arrived by boat on BC’s shores are “queue-jumpers”, then I guess my parents were too. See, they came as Vietnam War draft dodgers from the US in 1967. Like a couple of the Tamil women just arrived, my mom was pregnant with me. My parents did not seek… View Article