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Immigration

May-June 2022

Retro read

Novel looks at social issues faced by newcomers

Jean Marc Ah-Sen

Photo by Dimitri Nasrallah Dimitri Nasrallah’s Hotline (Véhicule Press) transports readers to mid-eighties Montreal when weight-loss centres were a burgeoning industry, and “body image” and “health consciousness” were terms just entering the vocabulary of self-care. Muna Heddad, a French teacher by trade, takes a job as a hotline phone operator at meal delivery company Nutri-Fort […] More »
November-December 2021

A seat at the table

Podcast features Muslim, immigrant, and refugee women and their stories

Johna Baylon

“Where are you from?” It’s a grating question for many racialized individuals, one that podcaster Mifrah Abid wants to turn on its head. “I was not born here, so I don’t mind it so much, but I understand the implications of that question,” says the former English lecturer from India. “‘Where are you from?’ as […] More »
May-June 2017

Q&A: Zool Suleman, immigration lawyer, on the Safe Third Country Agreement

In the Trump era, should Canada rethink its policy on accepting refugees from the U.S.?

Carine Abouseif@carineabouseif

In January, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order that restricted immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries for 90 days, stopped refugee admission for 120 days, and banned all Syrian refugees indefinitely. Days later, a federal judge blocked the ban. That didn’t stop Trump, who unveiled a revised ban in March that continued to prevent immigration […] More »

Fifth-annual human rights film festival in Toronto talks mental health, immigration, and the refugee experience

The JayU film festival kicks off tonight

Leah Lalich@LeahLalich

The United Nations has declared this month Human Rights Month, with December 10 marking Human Rights Day. Consider it perfect timing: JayU’s fifth-annual human rights film festival kicks off tonight in Toronto, celebrating and visualizing human rights through 12 thought-provoking documentaries. JayU founder and executive director Gilad Cohen says the program this year is especially holistic and […] More »
September-October 2016

How we can rewrite Ukrainian settlement history in our country

The "settler" narrative is complex—and we need to address it

Myrna Kostash

For our special 50th anniversary issue, Canada’s brightest, boldest, and most rebellious thinkers, doers, and creators share their best big ideas. Through ideas macro and micro, radical and everyday, we present 50 essays, think pieces, and calls to action. Picture: plans for sustainable food systems, radical legislation, revolutionary health care, a greener planet, Indigenous self-government, […] More »
September-October 2015

Tories in review: Immigration

And last in our Tories in Review series, Nathaniel Basen examines immigration policies, the closing of Canada's borders and the removal of basic rights

Nathaniel Basen

IT’S FROM BEHIND THE PLEXIGLAS BARRIER of the visitor’s cubicle that I wait for Glory Anawa. I’m at the Immigration Holding Centre in Toronto—or, as Anawa and her two-year-old son Alpha have called it since February 2013, home. In front of me, etched in the glass separating visitor and prisoner, is that same word, HOME, […] More »
September-October 2015

Tories in review: Islamophobia

In our new issue, we examine how 10 key Canadian issues have fared after nearly a decade of Conservative leadership. First up: Hana Shafi on how Islamophobia has festered in the past nine years under Stephen Harper

Hana Shafi

SIX YEARS AGO, then 16-year-old Urooba Jamal was walking home from school in Surrey, B.C. with her two friends, one of whom was wearing hijab. Suddenly, she felt something hit her leg. It was a rock. Then came another and another—more whizzed past her. The culprits were a group of boys, likely no older than […] More »

FTW Friday: 1 million support change to immigration law

Simon Treanor

Today at 2.45pm in Toronto, Vancouver, London, Ont., and Montreal, over 10,000 petitions, supported by over 70 organizations and societies, and representing over 1 million people, will be delivered to the immigration enforcement centre in Toronto. The petitions call for changes to immigration laws and policies that, according to the Immigration Legal Committee, “violates Canadian […] More »
July-August 2011

Book review: Six Metres of Pavement by Farzana Doctor

Niranjana IyerWebsite@NinaIyer

Ismail Boxwala’s Infant daughter died of heatstroke after he left her sleeping in the backseat of his car on a summer day. Twenty years later, Ismail has yet to forgive himself. His wife has long since divorced him and remarried, but Ismail has resolutely passed up any chance at happiness. He lives in the same […] More »
May-June 2011

This45: Doug Saunders on Maytree Foundation president Ratna Omidvar

Doug Saunders with Dylan C. Robertson

“This journey of learning how to become a Canadian has been one of the most exciting and one of the most frustrating journeys in my life,” says Ratna Omidvar. Born in India, Omidvar earned her bachelor of arts before going on scholarship to Germany, where she met her Iranian husband. The two moved to Tehran […] More »
January-February 2011

How Sudanese refugee Mijok Lang became Winnipeg rapper Hot Dogg

Devon BabinWebsite

Mijok Lang may not know how old he is, but he has no doubt where he comes from. He remembers, as a child, singing a familiar tribal song with friends. It was the only way, he says, that they could keep lions and other animals at bay in the jungles of Sudan and Ethiopia as […] More »