All posts by Margaret Parkhill

Orientation booklets reveal life in Canadian refugee detention centres

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The topic: The detention of undocumented refugees when they cross into Canada.

What’s new: National and location specific orientation information booklets given to detainees have been released under a recent Access to Information Request.

Orientation booklets reveal life in Canadian refugee detention centres

Why it’s important: These documents paint a picture of what life is like for refugees inside Canadian detention centres.

“You were detained under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act,” the documents begin.

The documents show that detainees are searched and handcuffed when they are brought to the centre, and any time they leave and return afterwards.

Upon arrival, detainees are given these orientation booklets, offered in 16 different languages to accommodate people coming from as many countries as possible. There is one national booklet that every single detainee receives, and each centre can also have a location-specific booklet to outline its own additional information.

The booklets outline what a refugee can expect day-to-day at the detention centre. This includes meals, phone privileges, and visiting hours.

Wake-up calls start at 5:40 a.m. Since bedtime isn’t until 11:30 p.m., this means the refugees have had only six hours of sleep at best.

Detainees are served breakfast, lunch, dinner, and two snacks. According to Patrizia Giolti of the Canada Border Services Agency, the meals follow the Canada Food Guide and include fish and meat alternatives.

Giolti also says it provides detainees with “access to fresh air” and exercise, but did not elaborate on what that could include. Photos obtained under the Access to Information Act indicate that detainees may have access to a gym area.

Most importantly, the documents outline the detainees’ legal rights, including their right to be represented by counsel at their own expense or through legal aid. According to the booklet, detainees “will be given the necessary information about legal the legal aid services available to [them].” In photos, the phone number for legal aid is written in English and French on a sticker posted on the centre’s bulletin board.

Last year, the average length of detention was 23 days.

What the government says: Giolti says the agency strives to treat detained persons with respect and dignity.

On whether or not the detainees get adequate time to sleep, she says, “We can tell you the CBSA works to ensure that it is exercising responsibility for detentions to the highest possible standards, with the physical and mental health and well-being of detainees as well as the safety and security of Canadians as the primary considerations.” 

What others say: Audrey Macklin, the Chair in Human Rights Law at the University of Toronto, wrote about the people she met in detention centres in a report released in February.

In the report, she says she met a toddler named Alpha, who was born in Canada in 2015 after his mother Glory Anawa came here when she was pregnant to make a refugee claim. She was placed in the Toronto detention centre.

“Born on Canadian soil, Alpha was a Canadian citizen,” Macklin writes. “Sadly, however, he had never seen the outside of the detention centre. Put bluntly, he was a child born and raised in captivity. It was as dehumanizing as it sounds.”

She writes that she hopes the report, published by the International Human Rights Program, would highlight the failures of the Canadian detention system.

Several Montreal-based immigration lawyers did not respond to requests for comment, but Macklin writes in the report that many lawyers don’t speak publicly about the detention centres because they fear it will affect their cases.

What’s next: With the recent influx of refugees entering into Canada, the detention system will be put to the test, and likely pushed to its limits.

Vancouver FOI request

Census shows Stittsville growth as older millennials move in to nest

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Census shows Stittsville growth as older millennials move in to nest  

Millennials may think that home ownership is just a pipe dream, but many are trading the city for the less expensive suburbs.

Ottawa suburban areas like Stittsville have seen growth in their populations between 25 and 75 per cent, according to the latest census.

View larger map

 

This is contradictory to the belief that millennials aren’t buying homes.

Instead, young homebuyers are flocking to Stittsville to purchase affordable condos and townhouses.

Ward 6 Councillor Shad Qadri says that building more compact residential homes has helped drop the cost of living in the suburbs.

“Now that we have higher density, houses are worth significantly lower,” Qadri says. “Up until eight years ago I was hearing from people who grew up here who said they couldn’t stay because they couldn’t afford it. But now they can.”

Many high density developments are popping up all over Stittsville, including the proposed Blackstone and 5618 Hazeldean Rd. projects.

But some young families are looking to move from high density townhouses to starter homes with a bit more room. While the new Potter’s Key development will offer some single family homes, many of the other proposed projects lack the space many seem to be looking for.

Valerie Hollyer moved to Stittsville three years ago after renting in the city for years. For her new family, she was looking for room to grow.

“It came down to getting more bang for your buck,” she says.

For Hollyer, it was also a return home. She grew up in Kanata and wanted to move close to home.

“A lot of my friends did that to go back to their roots,” she says. “And as they start their new families, it’s nice to have their own family nearby.”

More and more millennials are starting their families. A recent article in Housing Policy Debate notes that in 2015, the peak millennials (born in a small boom around 1990) turned 25, when may settle into careers and marriages. With the economy and jobs back on the rise, a perfect storm has been created for millennials to start buying property.

 

There is also evidence that the notion that millennials dislike the suburbs is a misnomer. A recent study by the National Association of Home Builders says that 66 percent of American millennials would prefer to live in a suburb. Only 10 per cent of respondents said they’d prefer to live in a city centre, despite the commute.

“It doesn’t outweigh having a big house and a backyard,” Hollyer says of her commute to work.

Fellow Stittsville resident Courtney Dauphinee agrees, saying she doesn’t mind commuting on transit.

“The mortgages aren’t too outrageous, and public transit is great,” she says. She jokes that she “may be retired by the time LRT makes it out here,” but adds that the light rail expansion towards Stittsville will be helpful for parents who work in the city.

Dr. Christopher Stoney, a public policy professor at Carleton University, says that better commuting solutions may be a factor in millennials finally making the move to the suburbs.

“From an urban planning perspective it could also be that they are anticipating being able to commute further and more cheaply through Uber services, or the LRT that will soon be open,” Stoney says.

Stoney also notes that this trend could undermine attempts to reduce urban sprawl by making it easier and cheaper for people to live outside the downtown core.

Veterans interned: What Canada did to the Japanese-Canadian soldiers of the First World War

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There are some moments in Canadian history that are unforgettable. And then there are others Canada seems eager to forget.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge, a triumph for Canadian troops in the Second World War. One of these troops was Zennosuke Inouye, who fought in the Canadian Over-Seas Expeditionary Force for the escarpment in Vimy.

Inouye served in the Canadian military despite the racism Japanese Canadians were subjected to. Archives Canada: RG 150, Accession 1992-93/166, Box 4703 – 5.

Originally, Inouye was not allowed to serve in the war. Linda Kawamoto Reid, an archivist for the Nikkei Place, says this stemmed from a distrust of Japanese Canadians.

“There was this ‘how could you trust a Jap working beside you?’ mentality,” she says in a phone interview.

Despite the conscription laws of the time, Inouye was rejected by the Dominion military authorities in British Columbia because he was of Japanese descent, according to an article in The Canadian Historical Review. Determined to serve his country, he and 222 other Japanese Canadians enlisted in Alberta.

In April 1917, Inouye had just fended off trench fever and was previously wounded in the Battle of the Somme. At Vimy, his upper arm was torn apart by shrapnel, and he spent almost two months in the war hospital in Bristol. When he arrived back home in Canada, he purchased land near Surrey, B.C. to start a fruit farm for him and his family.

Inouye’s casualty form shows when he arrived in France to serve. Archives Canada: RG 150, Accession 1992-93/166, Box 4703 – 5.
Page 2 of Inouye’s casualty form. Form that he was wounded once, and that he sustained a gun shot wound (GSW). Archives Canada: RG 150, Accession 1992-93/166, Box 4703 – 5.

History professor Peter Neary of the University of Western Ontario writes, “He was loyal to his family and to his adopted country. In the case of the second loyalty, he now had a scar on his arm to prove it. This was a badge of honour that gave him a new identity as a Canadian.”

On the third anniversary of Vimy Ridge, Japanese-Canadian veterans were honoured with the erection of a memorial in Stanley Park, Vancouver. Atop the monument, an eternal flame was lit.

Inouye may have thought he’d never have to fight for land again. But 25 years later, he did.

This year also marks the 75th anniversary of the internment of Japanese Canadians. In 1942, the Privy Council relocated over 12,000 Japanese Canadians in B.C. to internment camps. Among the thousands were 58 Japanese-Canadian veterans of the First World War. Inouye was given a number, 03243, and separated from his sons.

Inouye’s farm land, which he had rented to a neighbour before he was abruptly relocated in an attempt to protect it, was claimed by the secretary of state and resold to the incoming veterans of the Second World War. The custodian of the secretary of state deemed this land “enemy property.”

In a letter of protest to Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, Inouye wrote, “Your petitioner believes that his loyalty to Canada has been well tested in the great war, and that it does not seem fair for the government to take away from one ex-service man a property so dear to him in order that it may be given to [a] soldier returning from the present war.”

Inouye wasn’t the only veteran who felt forgotten. “One veteran caught up in the government sweep threw his medals into the Skeena River in disgust,” writes Neary.

While the government sent these veterans to detention camps, the flame on the Japanese Canadian War Memorial was extinguished.

Eighty letters between Inouye and various recipients have been found and archived by the Nikkei Place as he fought to get his farm land back. Five years after the war, Inouye was the only Japanese-Canadian veteran to have his land returned to him. His home had burned down the year before he returned, and was only ensured for $300 by the custodian of the secretary of state. At age 64, Inouye had to rebuild.

Despite the racism that Inouye and bother Japanese Canadians faced, they continued to serve in Canada’s army. Mixed race Japanese Canadians, and those married to caucasians, were excluded from internment, and about 160 enlisted to serve in the Second World War as interpreters. Japanese Canadians deported to Japan after the war were later recruited to serve with the Canadian troops in the Korean War.

Reid says she recently interviewed a Japanese Canadian veteran of the Korean War and asked him why he agreed to serve a country where his people had faced so much discrimination. The man told her he feels Canadian and loves this country.

“I think they felt they could make a difference,” she says. “It was a statement.”

So why don’t most Canadians know about this?

“I don’t think it’s well-documented, talked about or illuminated,” Reid says. “I would encourage Canadians not to buy into that.”

*****************
Notes about documentation for my professor:

There were other documents that I wanted to use from the Nikkei Place. On their website, it said “copyright: open access” so I assumed I could use that. When I did my interview with the archivist, she informed me that I could not use them without submitting a form, so I submitted one. I have not heard back yet (I’ve followed up, but haven’t gotten a response) , so I went in a different direction. Instead, I hyperlinked the Nikkei Place collection so readers could view it if they were so inclined.

1) Attestation Paper: the very first document a soldier signs in order to enlist in the expeditionary forces. I liked this because it clearly showed his name and the force he served on. This would have been a great personal victory for Inouye, who travelled all the way into Alberta in order to enlist. I found it on Archives Canada.

2) Casualty form: a form that records the relocations, injuries, and deaths of any individual soldier. Though this one is harder to read, you can see clearly on the first page when he was sent to France, and on the second page when he was wounded. I found it on Archives Canada, where I also found information on how to read it. 

TransCanada investors steady after Columbia acquisition, Keystone support

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Despite a $135 million net loss in its third quarter, investors maintain confidence in TransCanada Corporation in the early days of a pipeline-friendly presidency.

According to the company’s most recent financial statements, common shares are down 130 per cent from last year’s third quarter, and are valued at 17 cents per share. This loss is largely due to a $1.1 billion hit the company took when it sold its northern hydro businesses in order to fund a new acquisition.

The acquisition of Columbia Pipeline Group marks a streamlining of TransCanada and “a return to what it knows,” according to Dr. Robert Sproule, a retired finance professor of the University of Waterloo.

By absorbing Columbia, TransCanada hopes to bring the company’s $7.7 billion of planned business growth. The move gives TransCanada a greater share of the pipeline market, which it only stands to benefit from moving forward in an increasingly pro-pipeline political climate.



TransCanada Corp. Stock Prices by MaggieParkhill on TradingView.com

The process of acquiring Columbia began just as Donald Trump, who has been publicly supportive of TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline project, clinched the Republican nomination. Since Trump became the clear GOP nominee front-runner, the company’s common stocks have been higher than ever, with the third quarter resulting in a 41 per cent increase in comparable earnings before losses related to the acquisition.

Another, even larger net loss of related to the Columbia acquisition is expected to be reported in the fourth quarter. “They’re trying to spread the pain, because they don’t want it in one reporting period,” Sproule says. But with President Trump’s executive order to pull an about turn on Keystone, TransCanada has been able to reapply for the controversial pipeline.

This policy change indicates a new path forward for pipelines, keeping investors content despite losing money on their shares. As Sproule explains, “Investors are always looking to the future.”

President and CEO Russ Girling is also looking to the future. In a press release, Girling says the infrastructure project will help meet growing energy demands and create tens of thousands of jobs in the U.S., a campaign promise of the president.

Protestors took to the streets after President Trump’s executive order to push through Keystone XL. (Pax Ahimsa Gethen – Wikimedia Commons)

The path forward, however, is not without risks. With any acquisition, there is a chance that the returns will not cover the losses, according to Sproule. There’s also the potential for legal challenges to the Keystone XL project from environmental or indigenous lobby groups, as well as over land disputes from private citizens.

None of this seems to be affecting shareholder confidence, despite the stocks’ cooling off period this week after the executive order high. “TransCanada has been around for a long time, and the nature of the pipeline business is pretty solid,” says Sproule.

Trump’s executive order not only gives investors confidence, but also halts a $15 billion lawsuit that TransCanada filed against the U.S. government for rejecting Keystone XL over a year ago after the Obama administration axed the project.

U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt ordered that the lawsuit be abated until May 1 to allow for TransCanada’s reapplication to be processed and for a final decision to be made by the Trump administration. The reapplication was submitted on Jan. 27, and the U.S. government has 60 days to respond. According to Judge Hoyt, a decision in to go ahead with the pipeline in March would render the lawsuit moot.

(To view the annotated notes in this financial statement, please click on the “Notes” tab at the top.)