11-09-2015 08:42 AM
Will Canada have 25000 before end of the year. Better be cautious.
Germany imposes surprise curbs on Syrian refugees
Angela Merkel has performed an abrupt U-turn on her open-door policy towards people fleeing Syria’s civil war, with Berlin announcing that the hundreds of thousands of Syrians entering Germany would not be granted asylum or refugee status.
Syrians would still be allowed to enter Germany, but only for one year and with “subsidiary protection” which limits their rights as refugees. Family members would be barred from joining them.
Related: Germany receives nearly half of all Syrian asylum applicants
Germany, along with Sweden and Austria, has been the most open to taking in newcomers over the last six months of the growing refugee crisis, with the numbers entering Germany dwarfing those arriving anywhere else.
However, the interior minister, Thomas de Maiziere, announced that Berlin was starting to fall into line with governments elsewhere in the European Union, who were either erecting barriers to the newcomers or acting as transit countries and limiting their own intake of refugees.
“In this situation other countries are only guaranteeing a limited stay,” De Maiziere said. “We’ll now do the same with Syrians in the future. We’re telling them ‘you will get protection, but only so-called subsidiary protection that is limited to a period and without any family unification.’”
The major policy shift followed a crisis meeting of Merkel’s cabinet and coalition partners on Thursday. The chancellor won global plaudits in August when she suspended EU immigration rules to declare that any Syrians entering Germany would gain refugee status, though this stirred consternation among EU partners who were not forewarned of the move.
Thursday’s meeting decided against setting up “transit zones” for the processing of refugees on Germany’s borders with Austria, but agreed on prompt deportation of people whose asylum claims had failed.
Until now Syrians, Iraqis and Eritreans entering Germany have been virtually guaranteed full refugee status, meaning the right to stay for at least three years, entitlement for family members to join them, and generous welfare benefits.
Almost 40,000 Syrians were granted refugee status in Germany in August, according to the Berlin office responsible for the programme, with only 53 being given “subsidiary” status. That now appears to have ended abruptly.
An interior ministry spokesman told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: “The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees is instructed henceforth to grant Syrian civil war refugees only subsidiary protection.”
De Maiziere described the new regime as “a win for security and order for Germany”.
Related: Winter is coming: the new crisis for refugees in Europe
But the suddenness of the move by the country that has been pivotal in the EU’s biggest ever immigration crisis will ripple across the region with unknown consequences, particularly in the transit countries of the Balkans and central Europe through which hundreds of thousands have been trekking towards Germany.
The German curbs will encourage these countries to establish barriers of their own to the refugee wave. Merkel is also pressing countries such as Croatia, Slovenia, and Serbia to establish “reception centres” or camps where refugees can be processed and screened before they reach Germany. The countries are resisting because no one knows what to do with those who are screened and do not pass muster for passage to Germany.
Berlin is the most powerful advocate of sharing the refugee burden across the EU, but has also frustrated and angered several countries with a series of unilateral decisions that have had major knock-on effects across the union.
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/germany-imposes-surprise-curbs-on-syrian-refugees/ar-CC2Bcm
02-01-2016 09:47 AM
02-02-2016 03:55 PM
No response to post115 just ..................................................
However to continue:
Canada’s refugee plan draws raised eyebrows from U.S. border union
“Whether (refugees) come into Canada with the best of intentions or whether they’re part of a terrorist cell that is trying to do harm either to Canadian or American society, that’s a border that they can easily slip across.”
“The infrastructure that existed in (a refugee’s country of origin) is no longer there, so the databases that may have existed, the police sources, the government sources, are no longer available to properly vet and run background checks,” he explained.
“So it’s very disconcerting to our members and to American citizens to hear that we’re bringing in people from countries like Syria where all those authorities are in disarray and we have nothing to check these people against.”
“I think both countries need to slow down a bit and really dig into the backgrounds of the people,” Moran said. “We understand trying to help out people that are in need, but as Paris attacks have shown, a very small number can do a great deal of damage, both physically and psychologically.”
02-02-2016 04:06 PM
Do we, as Canadians, really care what some paranoid, right-wing extremist, racist, American thinks? Who really cares?
02-02-2016 04:46 PM
They may not erect a physical wall between us just one that makes trade and crossing far more difficult.
Justins plan to legalize marijuana won't help either. Smoking pot snowbirds can get years in Florida if they are not careful on how they obtain it and transport it.
Here are the laws:
02-02-2016 06:59 PM
Let's make laws for Canadians and ignore how Americans feel about it.
They are usually many years behind us in accepting important changes.
02-02-2016 07:52 PM
Canadians do not understand how some of the proposed policies will impact them and their families.
Consider some of the worrying policies that have been proposed:
02-03-2016 06:21 AM
All that is absolute nonsense, nothing based on facts, but typical conservative paranoia - trying once again to scare Canadians.
Give it up. The election is over. You lost.
End of story.
02-03-2016 09:56 AM
02-03-2016 01:24 PM
In case you missed it:
The financial reports show the Liberals raked in $6.5 million during the last three months of 2015, from almost 56,000 donors.
The Conservatives pulled in $5.3 million from 42,750 donors.
02-03-2016 05:59 PM
How did your NDPers do?
02-03-2016 07:06 PM
The fundraising by the NDP was terrible. They failed to keep pace.
I expect many problems for that party trying to rebuild a national presence.
02-04-2016 12:18 PM
02-24-2016 10:14 PM
Before Justin and Wynne bring in more refugees shouldn't they be making this right?
First Nations declare health emergency
TORONTO — First Nations leaders from northern Ontario declared a public-health emergency on Wednesday related to what they called a dire shortage of basic medical supplies and an epidemic of suicides among young people.
The declaration — essentially a desperate plea for help — calls for urgent action from the federal and provincial governments to address a crisis they said has resulted in needless suffering and deaths.
"We are in a state of shock," Grand Chief Jonathan Solomon of the Mushkegowuk Council said wiping away tears. "When is enough? It is sad. Waiting is not an option any more. We have to do something."
The declaration calls on governments to respond within 90 days by, among other things, meeting with First Nation leaders and coming up with a detailed intervention plan that includes ensuring communities have access to safe, clean drinking water.
At a news conference at a downtown hotel, the leaders screened a video of Norman Shewaybick, whose wife Laura died last fall shortly after going into respiratory distress in their remote community in Webequie. As the desperate husband held her hand, the nursing station in the community ran out of the oxygen that might have saved her life.
"We hear stories like this almost on a daily basis," said Alvin Fiddler, grand chief of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation, which has 35,000 members in 49 communities across the northern Ontario.
"It's not like the government doesn't know these things."
Fiddler cited the cases of two four-year-olds who died of rheumatic fever caused by strep throat in 2014, and suicides by children as young as 10.
Governments, the leaders said, have failed to act on numerous reports about the deficiencies in health-care services, including one from the auditor general last year, and another aboriginal leaders delivered in January on the rash of suicides, the latest just last week in Moose Factory.
© Provided by thecanadianpress.com
First Nations communities, many still dealing with the brutal after-effects of the residential school system, are rife with diseases such as hepatitis C and diabetes that should have been prevented or better treated, are short on medical supplies and basic diagnostic equipment, and have a serious substance-abuse problem, the leaders said.
What's clear, they said, is that federal and provincial health policies have failed them, resulting in a substandard level of health care mainstream Canada would never tolerate.
"We're talking about discrimination" said Isadore Day, Ontario regional chief. "We're talking about institutional racism in Canada's and Ontario's health-care system."
Day said First Nations are hoping the new Liberal government in Ottawa will finally respond after years of seeing their pleas for help fall on deaf political ears.
"We have recently come out of a decade of darkness under the previous Harper government," he said.
"As Canada and the provinces and territories look at a new health accord, they must understand... the cost of doing nothing over the last decade has had a drastic impact on the people of the North."
In the House of Commons, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he was well aware of a "tragedy" that extends beyond northern Ontario to across the country.
"We need to fix a relationship that has broken over the past decade, and indeed centuries, between Canada and indigenous peoples," Trudeau said in response to questions from New Democrat Leader Tom Mulcair.
"This government has pledged a new relationship: putting real money forward to build support on infrastructure, on health, on a broad range of things, and creating a true nation-to-nation relationship."
Ontario's aboriginal affairs minister, David Zimmer, said he hoped to talk to provincial and federal health ministers as well as to Fiddler about what he called the serious problems.
"Health issues for First Nations, especially in the remote communities, are always a challenge and, in cases, are in fact emergencies," Zimmer said. "It's something that we all have to tackle. It's everybody's responsibility."
02-25-2016 10:38 AM
"First Nations declare health emergency "
You are correct. It is a bloody shame what the Harper government did for ten years: ignore First Nations creating the mess we are in today. "Creating" may be the wrong word here as the problem has existed for a very long time but they sure made it worst through their refusal to understand and attempt to solve the Aboriginal problems.
The new national government (it is not an Ontario only problem, it is across Canada) will have to spend billions - raising the deficit in the process - to help solve some of the most urgent problems.
02-25-2016 11:30 AM
You are conveniently forgetting that health care is a provincial responsibility however you like to dump it all on Harper.
You couldn't for once mention the names McGinty and Wynne along with Harper? The provinces receive a division of revenue from the Feds, what they do with it is their prerogative. I guess the Ontario Liberals for ten years have placed and still do wind turbines, solar farms and gas plants ahead of health care for our natives.
02-25-2016 11:44 AM
"Before Justin and Wynne bring in.... "
You inserted federal jurisdiction in your post!
02-26-2016 11:14 AM
You are conveniently forgetting that health care is a provincial responsibility however you like to dump it all on Harper.
Delivering Health Care to First Nations is a Federal Gov't Responsibility.
The federal government is responsible for:
The federal government provides direct health care services to certain population groups for which it is constitutionally responsible (First Nations and Inuit people).
The federal government also provides health services to eligible veterans, refugee protection claimants and inmates of federal penitentiaries. In addition, the federal government has responsibilities for health care for serving members of the Canadian Forces and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
http://healthycanadians.gc.ca/health-system-systeme-sante/cards-cartes/federal-role-eng.php
03-14-2016 11:27 AM
Another major Justin headache. Did he think it would be easy after buttering the Natives up in his pre election promises? A project that would provide thousands of jobs for Natives across the nation, does it make any sense to protest it? Business investment will love this one as will the AB Premier Racel Notley NOT! I suppose one could argue that this makes Justin's pipeline non approval a slam dunk.
Mohawks threaten to block Energy East pipeline, saying project is threat to way of life
The Mohawk nation is threatening to do everything legally in its power to block the Energy East pipeline project, calling it a threat to their way of life.
Despite perceptions opposition to the project is harboured mainly by mayors in Quebec, a Mohawk-driven Canadian First Nations movement against the project is picking up steam in other parts of the country.
Besides the official opposition of the Assembly of First Nations Quebec and Labrador representing 43 Quebec chiefs, the list against TransCanada’s pipeline now includes the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs — who are fighting their own pipeline battle — and the Iroquois Caucus regrouping Mohawk nations in Quebec and Ontario.
The level of anger in the First Nations and their complaint at having not been consulted is revealed in a bluntly worded six-page personal “nation-to-nation” style letter from Mohawk Kanesatake Grand Chief Serge “Otsi” Simon to Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard.
Dated March 9, the letter was obtained this weekend by the Montreal Gazette.
Opening a new front for TransCanada and politicians to deal with, the letter unabashedly tags the project to move 1.1-million barrels of crude oil a day from Alberta to refineries in Eastern Canada “risky and dangerous” to First Nations and a threat to their lands, waters and very survival.
“Indeed an alliance of indigenous nations, from coast to coast, is being formed against all the pipeline, rail and tanker projects that would make possible the continued expansion of tar sands,” Simon writes.
“One thing for sure, we the Mohawks of Kanesatake will not be brushed aside any longer and we wish to press upon you that we reserve the right to take legal action if necessary to prevent the abuse of our inherent rights.”
Simon does not mention it in his letter but, a year ago, he told the Journal de Montréal that barricades against the pipeline were not excluded even though the preferred option remains dialogue.
There was no immediate reaction from the premier’s office Sunday.
TransCanada spokesperson Tim Duboyce insisted dialogue is still possible despite the tone of the Mohawk letter.
“Our philosophy is to have meaningful and respectful engagement with indigenous communities with regard to Energy East,” Duboyce said in a statement. “We have already held hundreds of meetings with leaders of more than 160 First Nations and Métis communities along the proposed route.
“These meetings have resulted in a series of agreements allowing for funding agreements that allow indigenous communities to carry out their own independent assessments of the project where it may affect things such as impacts on traditional land use. There are also significant opportunities for First Nations communities to work on the project in the construction phase.”
Simon, however, argues pipeline companies are not to be trusted; their promised automatic spill detection systems have proven unreliable and the number of long term jobs created by such projects exaggerated.
“One need look no further than the Nexan pipeline rupture this past summer, which caused one of the worst spills in Canadian history,” Simon writes, adding sections of TransCanada’s Keystone 1 pipeline are 95 per cent corroded after only two years in operation.
Simon says the Energy East pipeline would pass directly through Mohawk lands including the Seigneury of the Lake of Two Mountains and the Outaouais River in violation of treaty rights. The risk of toxic spill is significant, he says.
And he takes a shot at Quebec, too, saying the Mohawk council of Kanesatake was shocked to learn the government was giving TransCanada the green light to do more seismic testing on the Outaouais River (among others).
The permits came despite the fact Environment Minister David Heurtel called a news conference to complain TransCanada was refusing to respect Quebec’s environmental laws and to announce plans to take TransCanada to court.
Heutrel made the announcement just days before environmental impact assessment hearings into the project kicked off in Lévis March 7. Those hearings are scheduled to resume Monday.
Last week, the hearings heard, among others, from the company vice-president, Louise Bergeron, who argued pipelines are safer than trains to carry oil.
“You would still trust this company to to not harm our river in the performance of the seismic testing when it will not even respect Quebec’s environmental law?” Simon writes.
“TransCanada will be forced to abide by Mohawk law, including the prohibition to pass the pipeline through Mohawk lands and waters.”
Simon disputes one of TransCanada’s main arguments connected to the project: job creation. TransCanada says more than 3,000 jobs will be created during the planning and building phase of the project.
We can assure you that as sovereign people and guardians of our land, we will act accordingly
Simon said there are many more possible long term jobs associated with clean energy, conservation and efficiency.
“We can assure you that as sovereign people and guardians of our land, we will act accordingly,” Simon writes. “The Mohawk Council of Kanesatake as well as the rest of the Iroquois caucus has made its choice. Other First Nations are making the same choice.”
Simon’s letter further confirms the pipeline has become a political football in Canada.
While TransCanada’s website features a big photo of Alberta and Saskatchewan mayors holding up “Go East,” posters (the premiers of the province are big supporters as well), the story is not the same elsewhere.
Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre and 81 other mayors from the Montreal Metropolitan Community are against. Having fumbled the file several times, the Couillard government itself is less than enthusiastic.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government has tried to walk the line. In Montreal in January, Trudeau said it’s up to TransCanada to prove the merits of the $15.7 billion project, not him.
A telephone poll by the SOM firm in late 2015 found that 57 per cent of Quebecers opposed Energy East.
03-14-2016 01:47 PM
Another major Justin headache. Did he think it would be easy after buttering the Natives up in his pre election promises?
Not sure anyone assumed it would be easy.
A project that would provide thousands of jobs for Natives across the nation, does it make any sense to protest it?
I can't find any references to providing thousands of jobs for Natives. What I did find on the Energy East website under jobs was references to providing work for a professional workforce like Welders and approx. 4200 positions for skilled well-paid workers at GE Canada's plant in Peterborough. In the pictures of the jobs they were going to create I didn't see any native people however on their "Our commitment to Aboriginals" page they did say that they would increase Aboriginal employment accessibility by providing opportunities for Aboriginal businesses to participate in the construction and maintenance of facilities.
http://www.energyeastpipeline.com/tag/jobs/
http://www.energyeastpipeline.com/our-commitment-to-aboriginal-engagement/
03-31-2016 04:09 PM
Canada to take in 10,000 more Syrian refugees
If Carolyn Bennett puts as much effort into bettering native reserve conditions as McCallum has in Syrian immigration then Pikangikum (in the news this week) will benefit hugely. I was in Pikangikum in 1975 and it was in sad state of affairs then and appears to have not changed.