Voies vers la prospérité: Canada

Few politicians in Canada know more about the plight of refugees than Ontario Health Minister Eric Hoskins. Hoskins, a physician who on Friday announced an additional $300,000 in provincial funding to help settle those fleeing war in Syria, understands the situation both as a front-line aid worker and a government official. “We are a safe haven for the world’s most vulnerable and dispossessed,” the co-founder of War Child Canada told reporters at Lifeline Syria’s College Street office. “It’s a history with which I am very familiar. I have spent my entire career working with refugees and families displaced by war in communities ravaged by conflict in Africa and the Middle East, including three years in Iraq,” he said. Urging Ottawa to do more to help Syrian refugees come to Canada, Hoskins recalled when he worked as an advisor to then foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy during the 1999 Kosovo crisis. “We made a decision — because it was the right thing to do — to urgently resettle 5,000 Kosovo refugees to Canada and we did this in less than one month. We can do this again,” he said.

http://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2015/09/05/hoskins-implores-ottawa-to-speed-up-refugee-resettlement.html

Fraîchement réélu par acclamation comme président de l’Association canadienne-française de l’Alberta (ACFA) provinciale, Jean Johnson, veut faire savoir au gouvernement fédéral qu’il désire jouer un rôle dans la crise des migrants d’origine syrienne en Europe. Les images de milliers de familles syriennes traversant la Hongrie à pied pour trouver refuge en Autriche et en Allemagne ont fait le tour du monde sur les médias sociaux aujourd’hui. Il n’y a plus de doute, la question de la crise des migrants syriens est sur toutes les lèvres. « Avec tout ce qui se passe en Syrie en ce moment, nous avons un rôle à jouer en tant que nation. S’il y a des réfugiés qui parlent le français, ça devient un point d’attraction pour nous et c’est notre responsabilité de faire savoir au gouvernement fédéral que nous voulons les recevoir », lance Jean Johnson.

http://www.lefranco.ab.ca/a-lire/actualite/1305-conflit-international-jean-johnson-veut-accueillir-les-syriens-francophones.html

Après la Nouvelle-Écosse, le gouvernement du Nouveau-Brunswick donnera 50 000 $ aux efforts d’aide en Syrie. L’annonce a lieu le lendemain de la publication de l’image bouleversante d’un jeune garçon syrien, Alan Kurdi, mort noyé sur une plage turque. Après que Stephen Harper ait refusé d’accélérer l’accueil de réfugiés syriens au Canada suivant la publication des photos tragiques du petit Alan Kurdi, des provinces ont décidé de passer à l’acte en envoyant des fonds au groupe menant les efforts d’aide au pays du Moyen-Orient. Vendredi, le premier ministre du Nouveau-Brunswick, Brian Gallant, en a fait l’annonce devant un groupe de journaliste à sa sortie d’une réunion avec des groupes d’aînés.

http://www.acadienouvelle.com/actualites/2015/09/04/le-n-b-offre-50-000-aux-refugies-syriens/

The refugee crisis in Europe has reached a fever pitch. More than 393,000 migrants applied for asylum in European Union countries in the first half of 2015, with most of the migrants are coming from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, or closer still, from Kosovo. That’s an increase of almost 170,000 over the same period the previous year. Germany has borne the brunt of this wave, receiving over 154,000 applications, while Canada has only received only 7,032.

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2015/09/04/by-the-numbers-how-many-people-apply-for-asylum-in-europe.html

Earlier this year, Sara Dorow, a sociologist at the University of Alberta, completed a study of nannies working in Fort McMurray. She estimates there are 600 to 1,000 nannies. Parents with two preschool-aged children save an average of $6,970 a year by hiring one. And the savings are greater with more children. Licensed daycare, if you can find it, costs between $1,300 and $2,000 a month for each space, she told the Edmonton Journal. Wages for a nanny can run anywhere between $12 and $20 an hour. Eighty per cent of families with nannies have at least one spouse working at an oilsands plant. “In other words, the oilsands industry is dependent on the sort of flexibility and consistency provided to its workers by live-in caregivers,” says Dorow. Temporary foreign workers can also be found at Canadian Tire and Sobeys. […]Most of the temporary foreign workers in Fort McMurray are from the Philippines, often sending money to their children and families back home.

http://www.thestar.com/news/atkinsonseries/2015/09/04/temporary-foreign-workers-help-drive-fort-mcmurrays-24-7-economy.html

The multicultural association is in the midst of it all in at our offices in the old fire hall on Court Street. We work with newcomers to Canada who have chosen to make Thunder Bay their new home. There is a lot of diversity in Thunder Bay and much to learn and celebrate. We have more than 57 language groups living in our city. Newcomers arrive from all over the globe, and they stay. […] We see the positives, celebrate them, promote them and hope to attract newcomers to our region. Recently, a number of community organizations interested in creating an immigration strategy for the city met to create a Local Immigration Partnership. They see the demographic trends — baby boomer retirements, low birth rate and youth out-migration — and want to keep our city viable, vibrant and growing. They are the champions of welcoming newcomers and proud ambassadors of Thunder Bay. […] Our community can’t move forward and prosper if we ignore the problems we have with racism, welcoming and acceptance. We need migration within the country and immigration from outside of Canada to grow, but we also need acceptance and welcoming to retain those who choose to move here.

http://www.chroniclejournal.com/opinion/columns/one-city-many-voices-we-have-to-be-in-the/article_25f4fc14-5287-11e5-9429-bf4a6bbab793.html