New anti-racism website started local and grew
By Michael C.K. Ma
April 16, 2010
From: http://www.rabble.ca/news/2010/04/new-anti-racism-website-started-local-and-grew
Rachel Gurofsky was working late one night, trying to meet a deadline. In the morning she was going to jump on the TTC and meet her boss at Union Station on Front Street in Toronto and hand over the research she was doing.
Although it was only partly finished, she knew that the new anti-racism website plan was going to be a great resource. She had sifted through hundreds of similar sites that dealt with issues relating to racism and diversity, and what struck her most about these sites was how un-user-friendly they were, how difficult to navigate, and how information was often not well organized and scattered across numerous sites. She promised herself that the website she had in mind would be better.
The boss she was meeting that morning was me. The site we later launched became The Anti-Racism Resource Centre.
We wanted the website to be a clearinghouse of information related to ending hate crime, racism and discrimination in Peterborough and surrounding areas. The impetus for this website came from a series of racially motivated attacks on Asian-Canadian anglers in southern and central Ontario in the summer of 2007, attacks which continued into the summer of 2009.
It is a user-friendly site designed for educators, employers, students, and the community-at-large. Although the site is hosted and updated by a local institution, Community and Race Relations Committee of Peterborough, the information is applicable across many sectors and provinces.
The site organizes anti-racism resources for web users under six headings:
• Racism 101: Where users are provided with a no-nonsense plain language explanation of issues and terms. An extensive glossary of terms is also provided,
• What are My Rights?: Employee rights and human rights are explained,
• For Employers: Information and resources are provided to help employers better understand and implement anti-discrimination and diversity policies in the workplace,
• For Educators: Useful educational resources for teachers and students are provided,
• Global Issues: Provides an international context for issues regarding race and racism,
• Youth Strike Back: Action orientated activities are profiled showing how a younger generation are responding to issues of racism.
As the co-ordinator of the CRRC, my job was to outreach and organize around issues pertaining to race and racism. In the fall of 2007, my board of directors instructed me to make an online version of the resources that we offer through our local office. Little did I know that a few years later we would launch this significant resource -- made possible from a grant from the Ontario Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services. It far exceeded our original intentions.
At first, the goal was simple: to make a website that would serve Peterborough only, but after Gurofsky presented her findings, which showed that the web lacked a good site aggregating useful information regarding racism, we both knew that we had a chance to make a site that could have a much bigger scope, bigger potential, and be able to serve both users in Peterborough and outside. The need seemed great.
We then sought out a web designer to help us organize the content for the web. We knew what we wanted, and we had an idea of how the information should be organized, but the hard part was knowing how to visually realize that in a user friendly interface.
But it wasn't as straightforward as we first thought.
"It is easy to design something specifically for youth, or for employers, or for employees, but it is another thing to design one site that can do all those things at once, and do it well," said Teena Aujla, who was eventually brought in as the designer.
"For example, a worker looking for information regarding their rights might need specific workplace information. But then in another section, for youth, the user might just want to find out about more general issues regarding racism for a school project. Younger users might be interested in finding out about a cool YouTube videos, but an employee looking for info on workplace issues won't be interested. You have to keep in mind you're serving multiple types of users... It was a balancing act."
Since we launched we have been getting around 600 unique visitors a month -- a good start. Interestingly, and as we expected, the majority of users are from outside the Peterborough area, with 10 per cent coming from the United States, and five per cent coming from other parts of the world -- including Singapore, The Republic of Korea, South Africa, Uganda, and Mexico.
It shows the need for such a resource.
Michael C.K. Ma is an activist scholar who researches and works on issues pertaining to social justice, ethno-racial politics, community activism, and immigrant resettlement. He teaches in the department of criminology at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, B.C.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Monday, April 12, 2010
Hari Sharma - Anti-Racist Activist (1934- 2010)
Hari Sharma
It is with deepest sorrow that we announce the death of our friend and comrade, Hari Prakash Sharma, on March 16 following a prolonged battle with cancer. Hari took his last breath in his home of 42 years at Burnaby (a suburb of Vancouver), British Columbia, surrounded by his comrades Harinder Mahil, Raj Chouhan, and Chin Banerjee. All of them had come together in 1976 to form the Vancouver Chapter of the Indian People’s Association in North America (IPANA), which had been founded by Hari and many others at a meeting in Montreal in 1975.
Hari was born on [November 9], 1934 at Dadri in Uttar Pradesh though his family came from Haryana. His father was a railway employee, so he moved from one place to another wherever his father was posted. Hari received his BA from Agra University and his Master’s in Social Work from Delhi University. The insight into the social life of India Hari got from his travels by train enabled by his father’s employment in the railways and his extensive travels by foot through the villages of India stimulated Hari to start writing short stories in Hindi. Hari is regarded as one of the finest writers of short stories in Hindi and many people had urged him to resume his writing in Hindi. One of his stories was adapted as a play and staged in New Delhi.
Hari moved to the US in 1963 for further education and did his Master in Social Work from the Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, in 1964 and Ph.D. in sociology from Cornell University, Ithaca, NY in 1968. He taught briefly at UCLA before accepting a position at Simon Fraser University, British Columbia in 1968, where he stayed till his retirement in 1999. He was honored by the University as Professor Emeritus.
Hari, like many enlightened academics of the 1960’s plunged in the anti-Vietnam war movement in the US and Canada. This is also the period when he espoused Marxism, which ideology he held dearly and steadfastly until his death.
As a member of the Faculty of Simon Fraser University he became a champion of the academic rights of colleagues who were faced with the threat of dismissal for their support of the student-led movement for democratizing the university. He became an associate and friend of another Marxist Kathleen Gough, who was suspended for her political activities. Kathleen Gough and Hari P. Sharma co-edited the 469-page book, Imperialism and Revolution in South Asia, which was published in 1973 by the Monthly Review Press, New York. The book was sought by political activists of that time and many people know of Hari as an eminent leftist scholar because of that book.
The 1960’s were a period of international revolutionary upheaval. The Naxalbari peasant uprising happened in the spring of 1967. Hari was greatly inspired by it. He went to India and visited Naxalbari area. It is then he got committed to the path opened by Naxalbaaari and retained his faith in its ultimate success until his last days, while many of his comrades had simply written off Naxalbari as a thing of the past. Hari developed contact with peasant revolutionaries and maintained a living contact till his last days.
While associating with the Naxalbari movement in India, Hari carried on anti-imperialist work in Vancouver through the weekly paper, Georgia Straight, published by the Georgia Straight Collective, of which he was a founding member. In 1973 Hari went to the Amnesty International in London and the Commission of Jurists in Geneva and sent a written representation to the UN Human Rights Commission to publicize the condition of more than thirty-thousand political prisoners in Indian jails.
In 1974 he and his comrade Gautam Appa of the London School of Economics organized a petition of international scholars to protest the treatment of political prisoners in India, which he handed to the Indian Consulate in Vancouver, BC on August 15 of the same year.
In 1975 Hari enthusiastically accepted an invitation from his friends in Montreal. He along with many others founded the Indian People’s Association in North America (IPANA) on June 25, 1975, exactly on the same day on which Indira Gandhi declared the State of Emergency in India. Hari’s tireless work against dictatorship in India and in defense of political prisoners and oppressed peoples, and his energetic organization of progressive people across North America in the struggle against Imperialism and for social justice, led to the revocation of his passport by the Indira Gandhi government in 1976.
Having engaged in various anti-racist struggles in the 1970s, IPANA in Vancouver, under Hari’s leadership became a primary force in the formation of the British Columbia Organization to Fight Racism (BCOFR: 1980), which proved to be an extremely effective instrument against the tide of racism in the province at the time. Hari and IPANA also played a leading role in the formation of the Canadian Farmworkers’ Union (CFU: 1980), which for the first time took up the cause of farm workers who had been historically excluded from protection under the labour laws and any protective regulation.
From the 1980s Hari’s work also began to focus on the condition of minorities in India, which came to a crisis with the attack on the Golden Temple and the massacre of Sikhs in Delhi in 1984 following the assassination of Indira Gandhi. Hari stood firm in his defense of the human rights of Sikhs and, increasingly of Muslims who became the primary targets of the rising Hindutva forces gathered under the banner of the Bhartiya Janata Party. He organized a parallel conference on the centralization of state power and the threat to minorities in India to coincide with the Commonwealth Conference in Vancouver in 1987.
In 1989 Hari brought large sections of the South Asian community together to form the Komagata Maru Historical Society to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Komagata Maru incident, in which Indian immigrants traveling to Canada on a chartered ship were turned away from the shores of Vancouver by the racist policies of the Canadian Government. As a result of the society’s work a commemorative plaque was installed in Vancouver. In 2004, during a screening of the documentary film on this incident by Ali Kazimi, Continuous Journey, the Mayor of Vancouver presented a scroll to Hari dedicating the week to the memory of Komagata Maru.
Following the attack on Babri Masjid in December 1992 Hari became the prime mover in the formation of a North American organization dedicated to the defense of minority rights in India called, Non-resident Indians for Secularism and Democracy (NRISAD). This organization brought together Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims, and Christians of origin in South Asia through educational and cultural activities. It had its most significant moment in Vancouver in 1997, when it celebrated the 50th anniversary of the independence of India from colonial rule by bringing together people from the entire spectrum of the South Asian community to focus on how much remained to be done on the subcontinent and the urgent need for peace between Pakistan and India.
Recognizing the need to build a North American front against the growing menace of Hindutva fascism in India, Hari travelled to Montreal in September 1999 to join the founding of International Soth Asia Forum (INSAF). He became is first President and organized the Second Conference in Vancouver from Augst10-12, 2001.
Hari’s leadership again led to the development of NRISAD into South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy (SANSAD) in Vancouver to embrace the necessity of going beyond a focus on India to the entire South Asian region in the quest of peace and democracy based on secularism, human rights and social justice. SANSAD has pursued these goals vigorously, condemning the massacre of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002 (for which he was denied a visa to go to India), championing the human rights of Kashmiris, promoting peace between Pakistan and India, supporting the rights of women in Pakistan, condemning violence against journalists and academics in Bangladesh, supporting the movement for democracy and social justice in Nepal, and defending the human rights of Tamils under the attack of the Sri Lankan state.
Besides being an able political organizer and a gifted writer of short stories, Hari was also a talented photographer. He photographed the common people of India, their lives and struggles. His photpgraphs hang in many homes and have been displayed in many exhibitions. He proved himself to be an excellent director of political drama.
Political ideals remain steadfast. However, there has, naturally been, divergence of opinion on the strategy and tactics of achieving these ideals. During the course of long political activity of more than 50 years, Hari made many friends and comrades. It is natural that among these comrades there also arose disagreements on many issues. Nevertheless, Hari remained a comrade or a friend of all of them and they all are deeply saddened by his passing away.
Hari leaves behind him a legacy of activism in the service of the oppressed. He is an inspiration to engagement in the struggle for a better world, to a never-flagging effort to create a world without exploitation, without imperialist domination, without religious, caste, ethnic or gender oppression, a world that Marx envisioned as human destiny.
Chin Banerjee
Harinder Mahil
Raj Chouhan
Daya Varma
Vinod Mubayi
http://www.anti-racism.ca/content/hari-sharma-anti-racist-activist
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Anti-racism web site launched
Mike Ma of the Community and Race Relations Committee stands in front of the homepage of the committee's new anti-racism information website.
From: http://www.mykawartha.com/news/article/605494--anti-racism-web-site-launched
Anti-racism web site launched Community and Race Relations Committee initiative aims to fill online information void
Sarah Frank (PETERBOROUGH) The Community and Race Relations Committee launched its online Anti-Racism Resource Centre Friday (Feb. 5).
The committee's website -- www.anti-racism.ca -- aims to provide useful information to students, educators and community members on racism and hate crime. Mike Ma points to a lack of accurate, current information when searching anti-racism on the web.
"You get a lot of dead links and out-of-date information," he says.
Mr. Ma hopes this site will eventually be one of the first three hits when anti-racism is searched through Google.
Leslie Harries-Jones, victim services co-ordinator with the Peterborough-Lakefield Community Police Service, is excited over the site.
"It's important for people involved in hate crimes to be able to go online and understand their rights," says Ms Harries-Jones, noting police work closely with the committee and will be able to provide additional input for the site.
Peterborough-Lakefield police staff sergeant Service John Lyons says the station received 26 reported hate bias incidents in 2009.
"Twenty-six doesn't sound like a lot," says Mr. Lyons.
"But it's 26 too many."
Sgt. Lyons hopes the site will give an online presence to the community support available from groups such as the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender (GLBT) committee and the up-and-coming Hate Bias Committee being formed by Trent University students.
Committee chair Nadine Changfoot says the site will be a great resource.
"It is a much-needed contribution to the world of online information because it lays out complex issues in a clear and comprehensive manner that is easy to understand."
"We've really hit a home run," add Mr. Ma.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Racial attack leads to guilty verdict
Professional motorcycle racer pushed Asian fishermen into water, sparking wild car chase
Gail Swainson Urban Affairs Reporter
The Toronto Star
Published On Wed Dec 16 2009
From: http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/crime/article/739389--racial-attack-leads-to-guilty-verdict
Trevor Middleton will be sentenced in 2010 for aggravated assault, criminal negligence.
A 23-year-old Georgina Township man has been found guilty of aggravated assault and criminal negligence causing bodily harm following a racially motivated attack on a group of Asian anglers in 2007.
The incident sparked a wild, early-morning car chase that left a young man permanently brain damaged and in a wheelchair.
An eight-woman, four-man jury found Trevor Middleton guilty on all six charges – two charges of criminal negligence causing bodily harm and four of aggravated assault at 11 a.m. Tuesday.
Middleton, a professional motorcycle racer, was accused of repeatedly ramming his pickup truck into a Honda Civic driven by angler Ruohang Liu after a dispute following a "nip-tipping," a racist term used to describe pushing Asian fishermen into the water.
The incident started after Liu and his friend Charles Hogan were pushed into the water at a popular Sutton-area fishing spot.
Court heard Liu was fishing with Hogan and longtime friends Shayne Berwick and Shiv Kumar at the "Blue Bridge" of Mossington Park.
The family of Berwick – who suffered severe brain damage that has left him in a wheelchair after Middleton ran the car into a tree with his truck – held hands tightly and wept after the decision was read.
Outside the courtroom, Berwick's father, Colin, said the family is gratified with the conviction.
"Now we are just trying to get Shayne back to where he was before," Colin Berwick told a crush of reporters. "But we didn't see the (outcome) being any other way. The evidence was overwhelming."
Brad Lee, spokesman for a group of Asian Canadians, urged Justice Alfred Stong to give Middleton a stiff jail sentence in the hope it will act as a deterrent.
Since 2007, there have been 25 reported attacks on Asian anglers, many on Lake Simcoe, Lee said.
"We are hoping the judge will consider hate crimes as an aggravating factor in sentencing," Lee said.
Middleton's family and his lawyer Gerald Logan declined to comment.
Middleton is due back in court Jan. 4, when a date is scheduled to be set for sentencing.
During the trial, court heard that three truckloads of youths drove to the fishing spot in the early morning hours of Sept. 16, 2007, in anticipation of "nip-tipping."
The four friends and three others were fishing at the Mossington Park bridge when Middleton and his group of 10 to 20 youths arrived in pickup trucks and an SUV.
Witnesses testified Liu and Hogan were pushed into the water after the youths demanded to see their fishing licences.
Following a scuffle between Kumar and one of Middleton's friends, the four anglers piled into Liu's Civic, with Middleton in pursuit.
Court heard a frantic 911 call to the police from Hogan as the Civic was being rammed by the truck. Hogan said two trucks were trying to drive their car into Lake Simcoe.
Middleton testified he chased the vehicle to make a citizen's arrest after his friend was beaten up.
Liu testified that after his vehicle hit a tree and his friends were ejected, he pleaded for Middleton's help, but was refused. Middleton drove off without calling police.
Hogan was thrown from the vehicle into Lake Simcoe. Berwick suffered a fractured skull, a blood clot on the brain, 10 broken ribs and a punctured lung. He spent three months in a coma and is expected to need constant care for the rest of his life.
Colin Berwick said his son, now 26, was three years into his five-year electrician's apprenticeship when he was injured.
His son has no memory of life before the accident, Berwick added.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Justicia for Migrant Workers - Call for Support
To whom it may concern,
We are writing from Justicia for Migrant Workers (J4MW), a volunteer-run non-profit collective that strives to promote the rights of migrant workers. As students, community, and labour activists, we seek to build relationships of trust with migrant workers, support and empower them to address work-place issues, and to amplify workers’ voices to the public and decision-makers in Canada. We do this through: community outreach in migrant communities in rural Ontario, providing information to migrant workers about their rights, and engaging in ongoing training of legal issues affecting migrant workers.
The Supreme Court of Canada, based on our nine years of organizing to address migrant worker’s precarious status, recently granted J4MW intervener status in the upcoming Ontario (Attorney General) v. Fraser; an important legal challenge for the right to organize Ontario’s 100,000 agricultural workers. As interveners, J4MW will bring forth a unique set of arguments to address the specific plight of Canada’s Seasonal Agricultural Workers and Temporary Foreign Workers. This will be the first time in history, that Canada’s highest court will hear arguments relating to the particular experiences of migrant workers.
We are asking for your support to help us ensure migrant workers’ voices can be heard by the Supreme Court on December 17th. The financial and in kind support will help us to cover the costs of transportation, food, lodging, and other materials associated with organizing a series of events for the day of our court appearance.
Background
Since 1966 thousands of workers from Mexico, Caribbean countries, and South and East Asian countries have come into Canada seeking employment on Canadian farms. However, the conditions of their contract prevent workers from accessing basic social resources like Employment Insurance. Workers are subject to low pay, long hours and dangerous working and living conditions that regularly lead to injury and even death. The exclusion from basic human rights legislation such as Health and Safety, and the explicit prohibition from collective bargaining make workers extremely vulnerable.
Furthermore, worker’s access to healthcare is difficult, given the lack of support and interest from the government, and growers to facilitate transportation to medical centres, and translation when needed. Injured workers are often repatriated back to their home country. In fact, any dispute with the employer typically leads to this unjustified resolution. Recently, legislative changes to immigration law will ban workers’ entry into Canada for six years, after they have completed a four-year period of continuous work.
Although it is widely accepted that migrant workers’ labour is a necessity for the survival of the farm industry, given that domestic workers are not willing or compelled to do farm work, migrant workers are systematically racialized, exploited and oppressed.
These are just some of the issues that governmental programs such as SAWP and TFWP represent for migrant workers. We consider it imperative that the Supreme Court hears arguments that illustrate the reality of overt and systemic racism towards migrant workers.
We are asking that your organization make a donation to help with our costs. Any amount is welcome. If your organization would like to arrange a presentation about this issue for your members please let us know. You may mail a cheque to,
Justicia for Migrant Workers
c/o Workers' Action Centre
720 Spadina Avenue, Suite 223
Toronto ON
M5S 2T9
Thank you for your support.
In solidarity,
Justicia for Migrant Workers
info@justicia4migrantworkers.org
http://www.justicia4migrantworkers.org
We are writing from Justicia for Migrant Workers (J4MW), a volunteer-run non-profit collective that strives to promote the rights of migrant workers. As students, community, and labour activists, we seek to build relationships of trust with migrant workers, support and empower them to address work-place issues, and to amplify workers’ voices to the public and decision-makers in Canada. We do this through: community outreach in migrant communities in rural Ontario, providing information to migrant workers about their rights, and engaging in ongoing training of legal issues affecting migrant workers.
The Supreme Court of Canada, based on our nine years of organizing to address migrant worker’s precarious status, recently granted J4MW intervener status in the upcoming Ontario (Attorney General) v. Fraser; an important legal challenge for the right to organize Ontario’s 100,000 agricultural workers. As interveners, J4MW will bring forth a unique set of arguments to address the specific plight of Canada’s Seasonal Agricultural Workers and Temporary Foreign Workers. This will be the first time in history, that Canada’s highest court will hear arguments relating to the particular experiences of migrant workers.
We are asking for your support to help us ensure migrant workers’ voices can be heard by the Supreme Court on December 17th. The financial and in kind support will help us to cover the costs of transportation, food, lodging, and other materials associated with organizing a series of events for the day of our court appearance.
Background
Since 1966 thousands of workers from Mexico, Caribbean countries, and South and East Asian countries have come into Canada seeking employment on Canadian farms. However, the conditions of their contract prevent workers from accessing basic social resources like Employment Insurance. Workers are subject to low pay, long hours and dangerous working and living conditions that regularly lead to injury and even death. The exclusion from basic human rights legislation such as Health and Safety, and the explicit prohibition from collective bargaining make workers extremely vulnerable.
Furthermore, worker’s access to healthcare is difficult, given the lack of support and interest from the government, and growers to facilitate transportation to medical centres, and translation when needed. Injured workers are often repatriated back to their home country. In fact, any dispute with the employer typically leads to this unjustified resolution. Recently, legislative changes to immigration law will ban workers’ entry into Canada for six years, after they have completed a four-year period of continuous work.
Although it is widely accepted that migrant workers’ labour is a necessity for the survival of the farm industry, given that domestic workers are not willing or compelled to do farm work, migrant workers are systematically racialized, exploited and oppressed.
These are just some of the issues that governmental programs such as SAWP and TFWP represent for migrant workers. We consider it imperative that the Supreme Court hears arguments that illustrate the reality of overt and systemic racism towards migrant workers.
We are asking that your organization make a donation to help with our costs. Any amount is welcome. If your organization would like to arrange a presentation about this issue for your members please let us know. You may mail a cheque to,
Justicia for Migrant Workers
c/o Workers' Action Centre
720 Spadina Avenue, Suite 223
Toronto ON
M5S 2T9
Thank you for your support.
In solidarity,
Justicia for Migrant Workers
info@justicia4migrantworkers.org
http://www.justicia4migrantworkers.org
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Trial begins for man on charges related to attacks on fishermen
Trial begins for man on charges related to attacks on fishermen
The Toronto Star
Peter Edwards Staff Reporter
2009/11/26 14:14:11
From: http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/731254--trial-begins-for-man-on-charges-related-to-attacks-on-fishermen
The night of September 17, 2007 began as a bout of "nip-tipping," when three trucks full of Georgina Township youths planned to throw Asian fishermen into the waters of Simcoe Lake, a Newmarket Court heard.
It ended with several injuries, and one of the fishermen, Shayne Berwick, remains confined in a wheelchair, with permanent brain damage.
Trevor Middleton of Georgina Township faces four counts of aggravated assault and two counts of criminal negligence causing bodily harm, for a wild, late-night chase, in which Middleton is accused of ramming a Honda Civic repeatedly with his Ford F-150 truck until the Civic smashed into a tree and ejected Berwick and another passenger.
Berwick's parents were among those who packed the tiny courtroom as Middleton's trial began on Thursday.
Assistant Crown Attorney Amit Ghosh told the jury they would hear evidence that "nip-tipping" is a racist term used by some locals for attacks on Asian fishermen.
On the night that Berwick was severely injured, Ghosh said that Middleton led a group of 10-20 locals in three pickup trucks to the docks, where two fishermen were thrown into the water.
"Many of them had been drinking alcohol, although Mr. Middleton would have consumed little or none himself," Ghosh told the jury in his opening remarks.
All of the attackers except for one then ran to their trucks and drove away, Ghosh said.
The man left behind was severely beaten, and was lying in the road when Middleton returned in his truck moments later.
The trial is expected to last two weeks.
The Toronto Star
Peter Edwards Staff Reporter
2009/11/26 14:14:11
From: http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/731254--trial-begins-for-man-on-charges-related-to-attacks-on-fishermen
The night of September 17, 2007 began as a bout of "nip-tipping," when three trucks full of Georgina Township youths planned to throw Asian fishermen into the waters of Simcoe Lake, a Newmarket Court heard.
It ended with several injuries, and one of the fishermen, Shayne Berwick, remains confined in a wheelchair, with permanent brain damage.
Trevor Middleton of Georgina Township faces four counts of aggravated assault and two counts of criminal negligence causing bodily harm, for a wild, late-night chase, in which Middleton is accused of ramming a Honda Civic repeatedly with his Ford F-150 truck until the Civic smashed into a tree and ejected Berwick and another passenger.
Berwick's parents were among those who packed the tiny courtroom as Middleton's trial began on Thursday.
Assistant Crown Attorney Amit Ghosh told the jury they would hear evidence that "nip-tipping" is a racist term used by some locals for attacks on Asian fishermen.
On the night that Berwick was severely injured, Ghosh said that Middleton led a group of 10-20 locals in three pickup trucks to the docks, where two fishermen were thrown into the water.
"Many of them had been drinking alcohol, although Mr. Middleton would have consumed little or none himself," Ghosh told the jury in his opening remarks.
All of the attackers except for one then ran to their trucks and drove away, Ghosh said.
The man left behind was severely beaten, and was lying in the road when Middleton returned in his truck moments later.
The trial is expected to last two weeks.
Monday, November 23, 2009
From Crisis to Justice Labour and Community Working Together
Posted on 11/23/09 at 5:53am by Benzinga Staff
From: http://www.benzinga.com/press-releases/m44103/from-crisis-to-justice-labour-and-community-working-together
TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - Nov. 20, 2009) - A special Forum bringing together community and labour activists will examine the impacts of the economic crisis on Ontarians, with a particular focus on the disproportionate impact experienced by Ontarians of colour.
The Forum, co-sponsored by the Colour of Poverty Campaign (COPC) and the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) will be held in conjunction with the OFL's Biennial Convention. The goal of the Forum is to build stronger connections between unions and communities of colour so as to broaden our shared understanding of, and to promote shared vision for, racial equity, economic fairness, good jobs and justice for all.
"What the employment statistics from the past year tell us is that while all Ontarians are struggling, racialized workers and their families have been hit especially hard," says Terry Downey executive vice-president of the Ontario Federation of Labour and one of the Forum's co-chairs. "Racialized workers have seen disproportionately larger increases in unemployment rates and disproportionately larger decreases in employment income. This is in line with what we know about the labour market disadvantages that racialized workers experience, even in the best of times."
Avvy Go, Clinic Director of the Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic and the Forum's other co-chair, notes that while racialized workers could achieve greater job security and better pay from unionization they are less likely to be union members.
"We need to examine why that is so, and together, develop solutions to build communication and co-operation between communities," says Go. "The Forum will allow activists from unions and racialized communities to develop a common action plan that will bring about positive solutions that will benefit all workers. It will promote a "green collar", substainable economy that includes good jobs for all."
The Forum will:
- Link activists from unions and community organizations to advance a shared vision for social, economic and environmental justice in our workplaces and in our communities.
- Develop best practices and policies that can be implemented locally, provincially and nationally through collective bargaining and form the framework to lobby for effective provincial and national employment equity and for organizing legislation.
- Increase public awareness of the potential for "green collar" jobs to provide equitable pathways out of poverty, curb global warming, and transform the economy.
The Forum takes place in Toronto, on November 21, 2009 at the Sheraton Centre Hotel, Toronto, Ontario and will run between 9:00 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Guest speakers will include: Uzma Shakir, Atkinson Social Justice Fellow and outgoing Executive Director of the South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario (SALC); Fred Redmond, International Vice-President (Human Affairs) of the United Steelworkers, and Hamid Osman, Ontario Representative on the National Executive of the Canadian Federation of Students.
From: http://www.benzinga.com/press-releases/m44103/from-crisis-to-justice-labour-and-community-working-together
TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - Nov. 20, 2009) - A special Forum bringing together community and labour activists will examine the impacts of the economic crisis on Ontarians, with a particular focus on the disproportionate impact experienced by Ontarians of colour.
The Forum, co-sponsored by the Colour of Poverty Campaign (COPC) and the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) will be held in conjunction with the OFL's Biennial Convention. The goal of the Forum is to build stronger connections between unions and communities of colour so as to broaden our shared understanding of, and to promote shared vision for, racial equity, economic fairness, good jobs and justice for all.
"What the employment statistics from the past year tell us is that while all Ontarians are struggling, racialized workers and their families have been hit especially hard," says Terry Downey executive vice-president of the Ontario Federation of Labour and one of the Forum's co-chairs. "Racialized workers have seen disproportionately larger increases in unemployment rates and disproportionately larger decreases in employment income. This is in line with what we know about the labour market disadvantages that racialized workers experience, even in the best of times."
Avvy Go, Clinic Director of the Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic and the Forum's other co-chair, notes that while racialized workers could achieve greater job security and better pay from unionization they are less likely to be union members.
"We need to examine why that is so, and together, develop solutions to build communication and co-operation between communities," says Go. "The Forum will allow activists from unions and racialized communities to develop a common action plan that will bring about positive solutions that will benefit all workers. It will promote a "green collar", substainable economy that includes good jobs for all."
The Forum will:
- Link activists from unions and community organizations to advance a shared vision for social, economic and environmental justice in our workplaces and in our communities.
- Develop best practices and policies that can be implemented locally, provincially and nationally through collective bargaining and form the framework to lobby for effective provincial and national employment equity and for organizing legislation.
- Increase public awareness of the potential for "green collar" jobs to provide equitable pathways out of poverty, curb global warming, and transform the economy.
The Forum takes place in Toronto, on November 21, 2009 at the Sheraton Centre Hotel, Toronto, Ontario and will run between 9:00 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Guest speakers will include: Uzma Shakir, Atkinson Social Justice Fellow and outgoing Executive Director of the South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario (SALC); Fred Redmond, International Vice-President (Human Affairs) of the United Steelworkers, and Hamid Osman, Ontario Representative on the National Executive of the Canadian Federation of Students.
Trial to begin for man accused of attack, car chase
Trial to begin for man accused of attack, car chase
By MICHELE MANDEL
The Toronto Sun
November 22, 2009
From: http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Crime/2009/11/22/11868236-sun.html
Shane Berwick was critically injured in an accident that left him with brain damage and in a wheelchair. (Veronica Henri/Sun Media)
After more than two long years, Shayne Berwick's family is finally hoping to see justice done.
Tomorrow morning, Terry and Colin Berwick will be in Newmarket court for the start of the trial of Trevor Middleton, the Sutton-area man accused in an attack on their son and his Asian-Canadian friends fishing off Mossington Bridge pier near Jackson's Point in the early morning hours of Sept. 16, 2007.
Middleton faces four counts of aggravated assault, four counts of assault with a weapon, two counts of criminal negligence causing bodily harm and two counts of unlawful act causing bodily harm.
It was a case that captured headlines and is being followed closely by Asian-Canadian rights groups.
"We'll be there every day," vows Shayne's dad.
But his 26-year-old son won't be at the jury selection tomorrow. He won't be testifying at the trial.
He still doesn't remember anything about the incident.
During an alleged car chase, Shayne was ejected from the back seat of his friend's Honda Civic after it hit a tree. He was left with such severe head trauma that doctors at Sunnybrook hospital gave him just a 10% chance of survival.
It's been a long, difficult way back.
Shayne spent four months in a coma at Sunnybrook and more than a year in intensive rehabilitation at Bridgepoint Health. He's had to relearn everything -- from his colours to his numbers. He has no long-term memory and no short term, either. He now recognizes his family but can't tell you what he did just a few minutes before.
"He lives for the moment," explains his dad.
Once an apprentice electrician in his own apartment, Shayne is now back living with his devoted parents in a newly wheelchair-accessible home they had to purchase for him last June. His stepmom recently decided to give up her 20-year career at a daycare to stay home and care for him around the clock. "Shayne comes first," she says, looking at him with love as the family sits around the kitchen table. "He's my main priority and I know I made the right decision."
By using ski poles or a walker, Shayne is slowly learning how to walk again. But he must still spend most of his time in his wheelchair and is busy five days a week with various therapy appointments aimed at one day bringing him back to the man he used to be.
"We always hold out hope," his dad says fiercely. "We can't quit now. He's got to get better. That's our push. And he is improving a lot."
It's what they live for, because looking back is just too painful.
His stepbrother, Mike Miceli, was the one who woke to the devastating phone call at 4 a.m. that morning two years ago from a friend telling him Shayne had been airlifted to the hospital and it didn't look good. He knew his brother had gone fishing because he'd asked him a few days before about a good spot, but he never imagined how the outing would end.
"I think it's a good thing that he can't remember what happened at the beginning because he was a mess," recalls Miceli, 24. "It makes me angry. They just went up there to have a good time; nobody deserves to have something like this happen to them. He's never hurt anybody in his life. To have this happen to him, it's terrible.
"He had to fight for his life, he had to fight to get out of his coma, he had to fight to learn how to eat, he had to fight to learn how to take his first step. It's 24 hours, seven days a week for these guys," he says, looking at his parents. "This is the outcome of that night."
He and his brother were always close, going out together, playing hockey, joking about girls. Their relationship has changed but the kidding and the love is obviously still there, as they sit beside each other, sharing smiles, exchanging high fives.
"The way you have to look at it is that he's still alive and he's doing really well right now so we're looking ahead," Miceli says. "It's still devastating, but we can't dwell on what happened."
He turns to his brother. "As soon as he starts walking, he knows I'll be taking him to a hockey game."
So this trial won't change any of that, but his family is anxious about it just the same.
"I just want to get this started," Colin explains. "We've waited a long time for this. We know there'll be stuff that comes out that will be hard to handle. But if we can deal with what we've handled since the beginning of this, we can handle anything, so bring it on."
His wife is looking forward to putting the court case behind them.
"I'm really nervous -- I haven't slept properly in a couple of weeks. It's just the unknown," Terry admits.
She gazes at Shayne, who is so blissfully unaware of that horrific night two years ago and the legal proceedings that now lie ahead.
"The thing that keeps me going is the positive progress I'm seeing in Shayne. He's come so far from two years ago."
And still has so far to go.
Friday, November 06, 2009
Minorities' view of police worsens: Canadian-born children of immigrants hold most negative opinions, U of T study finds
Minorities' view of police worsens
Canadian-born children of immigrants hold most negative opinions, U of T study finds
Jim Rankin feature writer
Published On Fri Nov 06 2009
The Toronto Star
From: http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/722011--minorities-view-of-police-worsens
Unfavourable perceptions of police and the criminal justice system have grown deeper in Toronto, and the most negative views are held by Canadian-born racial minorities, according to a study by University of Toronto researchers.
The study by criminology professor Scot Wortley and doctoral student Akwasi Owusu-Bempah - published Oct. 23 in the Journal of International Migration and Integration - suggests new immigrants have a favourable view of the justice system when they arrive, but that this erodes over time, and that their Canadian-born children hold the most negative views.
Generally, residents of all racial backgrounds who were involved in the study have favourable views of the police, but negative perceptions were higher amongst black and Chinese residents. The study included a partial replication of a 1994 survey that, in part, served as a basis for the 1995 Commission on Systemic Racism in the Ontario Criminal Justice System. The follow-up survey was conducted in 2007.
The publication of the report comes as the controversial case of Chinese shopkeeper David Chen, who faces charges of assaulting and confining a shoplifter, winds its way through court.
Wortley and Owusu-Bempah say the study should serve as a catalyst to re-examine and measure the effectiveness of policies aimed at addressing bias, whether perceived or real. They answered questions by email.
Star: A lot, as you note, has apparently been done to try and make these feelings, which you might as well call a reality for many, go away. And it’s gotten worse. Why?
SW: I think it is important to stress that, regardless of racial background, the overall perceptions of police performance are positive. More positive, in fact, than public perceptions regarding the performance of the criminal courts. However, among Torontonians, the perception that the police and courts are biased appears to have increased between 1994 and 2007 for all racial groups - including whites.
For racial minorities, the perception of discrimination may result from family and peer group socialization experiences, vicarious contacts with the justice system, such as negative stories about justice system from family and friends, or actual personal experiences.
It is also extremely important to note that our own research, as well as the research of Wesley Skogan in the United States, indicates that negative experiences with the police have a much stronger impact on personal beliefs about the police than positive experiences. In other words, community policing, police officers in schools and other efforts to reach out to minority communities may not be able to erase the negative impact of contacts with the police that are viewed as aggressive, illegitimate or unjust. Many positive interactions with the police can be undone by a single negative experience.
It is therefore important to note that, in Toronto, at the same time that minority outreach strategies have been developed, a number of aggressive street policing strategies have also been implemented. Although such strategies may help reduce gun and gang crime in targeted communities, and perhaps save lives, they might also draw innocent people into the web of suspicion and directly contribute to the perception among some civilians that the police are biased or unfair. I think this is a topic that deserves more research.
It is funny, I have recently heard youth state that they like and admire the police officers who work in their school, but still have a negative view of the police overall. One African Canadian youth I spoke to recently said that the police officers who come to his school during the day are great - but he felt that they were just the “public relations” police. The real police, he said, come into his community after dark and they don’t treat youth as respectfully.
The question of why the perception of racial discrimination has increased among whites is very interesting. There are two likely explanations. First of all, over the past 15 years, white people may have become more aware of the issue of racism through the education system, popular music, television, movies and the news media. Research also indicates that interracial friendships are increasing. Thus, it is possible that white people are now more likely to be influenced by the opinions and experiences of their minority friends and colleagues.
Star: A summary of the study was delivered at a recent, closed session at a conference on racially-biased policing that was hosted by Toronto police. What was the reaction?
AOB: It was generally positive. A number of police services approached us to ask how they could obtain a copy of the final report. It’s also important to note that many police leaders who spoke at this conference acknowledged that racism was a serious problem within policing. A problem that deserves immediate policy attention.
Star: Your study suggests that the children of racial minority immigrants have the most negative views. What should policy-makers make of that one?
AOB & SW: In the past, many policy-makers were comfortable with the idea that some racial minority groups have poor opinions of the police and justice system in Canada because of their experiences in their country of origin.I think it was an attractive explanation because it deflected attention away from the situation in Canada. It deflected responsibility - it was a way of saying it is not our fault these people feel this way. I think our findings suggest that these perceptions are actually based on Canadian experiences - and thus deserve serious attention from Canadian policy-makers.
Star: You mention the importance of somehow auditing or measuring the efforts to deal with these perceptions, in order to ensure that these are not merely “window dressing.” How would one do that?
SW: In our opinion, many police leaders - including Chief Bill Blair and deputy chiefs Keith Forde and Peter Sloley from the Toronto Police Service - are truly committed to eliminating racism and improving police relations with racial minority communities. However, we are not aware of how these strategies - including race relations training - are being evaluated. I think it is important that more attention be given to monitoring police activities on the street and determining what anti-racism programs work and what programs require further development. I also think that all evaluation efforts should be transparent. I think such transparency will help convince a sometimes cynical public that the system is dedicated to change.
We also think that some patience is required. There may be a significant period of time between the implementation of anti-racism initiatives and an actual change in public perceptions. We call this a lagged effect. For example, current increases in minority hiring by the TPS may not have an immediate impact on public opinion - but they could have an impact a few years down the line.
Star: Your study comes with a few caveats, among them, that it only deals with those who identify as either white, black or Chinese. Also, since the benchmark study in ’94, we’ve had 9/11, and missing are perceptions of South and West Asians. Best guess, without further study, what do you see in the not-so-distant future for Canada in terms of perceptions of police and courts?
SW: For financial reasons, our studies have been restricted to three major racial groups. Future research, in our opinion, should address the opinions and beliefs of all major ethnic groups. For example, it would have been very interesting to document whether the opinions of South Asians and West Asians towards the Canadian justice system were impacted by the security response to 9/11.
It is hard to determine how perceptions of the justice system will evolve. Hopefully, recent policy initiatives will have a positive impact. But many people incorrectly assumed that things would have improved between 1994 and 2007. This underscores the need for future research and the importance of tracking these perceptions through the next decade.
Canadian-born children of immigrants hold most negative opinions, U of T study finds
Jim Rankin feature writer
Published On Fri Nov 06 2009
The Toronto Star
From: http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/722011--minorities-view-of-police-worsens
Unfavourable perceptions of police and the criminal justice system have grown deeper in Toronto, and the most negative views are held by Canadian-born racial minorities, according to a study by University of Toronto researchers.
The study by criminology professor Scot Wortley and doctoral student Akwasi Owusu-Bempah - published Oct. 23 in the Journal of International Migration and Integration - suggests new immigrants have a favourable view of the justice system when they arrive, but that this erodes over time, and that their Canadian-born children hold the most negative views.
Generally, residents of all racial backgrounds who were involved in the study have favourable views of the police, but negative perceptions were higher amongst black and Chinese residents. The study included a partial replication of a 1994 survey that, in part, served as a basis for the 1995 Commission on Systemic Racism in the Ontario Criminal Justice System. The follow-up survey was conducted in 2007.
The publication of the report comes as the controversial case of Chinese shopkeeper David Chen, who faces charges of assaulting and confining a shoplifter, winds its way through court.
Wortley and Owusu-Bempah say the study should serve as a catalyst to re-examine and measure the effectiveness of policies aimed at addressing bias, whether perceived or real. They answered questions by email.
Star: A lot, as you note, has apparently been done to try and make these feelings, which you might as well call a reality for many, go away. And it’s gotten worse. Why?
SW: I think it is important to stress that, regardless of racial background, the overall perceptions of police performance are positive. More positive, in fact, than public perceptions regarding the performance of the criminal courts. However, among Torontonians, the perception that the police and courts are biased appears to have increased between 1994 and 2007 for all racial groups - including whites.
For racial minorities, the perception of discrimination may result from family and peer group socialization experiences, vicarious contacts with the justice system, such as negative stories about justice system from family and friends, or actual personal experiences.
It is also extremely important to note that our own research, as well as the research of Wesley Skogan in the United States, indicates that negative experiences with the police have a much stronger impact on personal beliefs about the police than positive experiences. In other words, community policing, police officers in schools and other efforts to reach out to minority communities may not be able to erase the negative impact of contacts with the police that are viewed as aggressive, illegitimate or unjust. Many positive interactions with the police can be undone by a single negative experience.
It is therefore important to note that, in Toronto, at the same time that minority outreach strategies have been developed, a number of aggressive street policing strategies have also been implemented. Although such strategies may help reduce gun and gang crime in targeted communities, and perhaps save lives, they might also draw innocent people into the web of suspicion and directly contribute to the perception among some civilians that the police are biased or unfair. I think this is a topic that deserves more research.
It is funny, I have recently heard youth state that they like and admire the police officers who work in their school, but still have a negative view of the police overall. One African Canadian youth I spoke to recently said that the police officers who come to his school during the day are great - but he felt that they were just the “public relations” police. The real police, he said, come into his community after dark and they don’t treat youth as respectfully.
The question of why the perception of racial discrimination has increased among whites is very interesting. There are two likely explanations. First of all, over the past 15 years, white people may have become more aware of the issue of racism through the education system, popular music, television, movies and the news media. Research also indicates that interracial friendships are increasing. Thus, it is possible that white people are now more likely to be influenced by the opinions and experiences of their minority friends and colleagues.
Star: A summary of the study was delivered at a recent, closed session at a conference on racially-biased policing that was hosted by Toronto police. What was the reaction?
AOB: It was generally positive. A number of police services approached us to ask how they could obtain a copy of the final report. It’s also important to note that many police leaders who spoke at this conference acknowledged that racism was a serious problem within policing. A problem that deserves immediate policy attention.
Star: Your study suggests that the children of racial minority immigrants have the most negative views. What should policy-makers make of that one?
AOB & SW: In the past, many policy-makers were comfortable with the idea that some racial minority groups have poor opinions of the police and justice system in Canada because of their experiences in their country of origin.I think it was an attractive explanation because it deflected attention away from the situation in Canada. It deflected responsibility - it was a way of saying it is not our fault these people feel this way. I think our findings suggest that these perceptions are actually based on Canadian experiences - and thus deserve serious attention from Canadian policy-makers.
Star: You mention the importance of somehow auditing or measuring the efforts to deal with these perceptions, in order to ensure that these are not merely “window dressing.” How would one do that?
SW: In our opinion, many police leaders - including Chief Bill Blair and deputy chiefs Keith Forde and Peter Sloley from the Toronto Police Service - are truly committed to eliminating racism and improving police relations with racial minority communities. However, we are not aware of how these strategies - including race relations training - are being evaluated. I think it is important that more attention be given to monitoring police activities on the street and determining what anti-racism programs work and what programs require further development. I also think that all evaluation efforts should be transparent. I think such transparency will help convince a sometimes cynical public that the system is dedicated to change.
We also think that some patience is required. There may be a significant period of time between the implementation of anti-racism initiatives and an actual change in public perceptions. We call this a lagged effect. For example, current increases in minority hiring by the TPS may not have an immediate impact on public opinion - but they could have an impact a few years down the line.
Star: Your study comes with a few caveats, among them, that it only deals with those who identify as either white, black or Chinese. Also, since the benchmark study in ’94, we’ve had 9/11, and missing are perceptions of South and West Asians. Best guess, without further study, what do you see in the not-so-distant future for Canada in terms of perceptions of police and courts?
SW: For financial reasons, our studies have been restricted to three major racial groups. Future research, in our opinion, should address the opinions and beliefs of all major ethnic groups. For example, it would have been very interesting to document whether the opinions of South Asians and West Asians towards the Canadian justice system were impacted by the security response to 9/11.
It is hard to determine how perceptions of the justice system will evolve. Hopefully, recent policy initiatives will have a positive impact. But many people incorrectly assumed that things would have improved between 1994 and 2007. This underscores the need for future research and the importance of tracking these perceptions through the next decade.
'Guest worker' abuses blasted: Lax federal controls leave migrants open to exploitation, report says
"It's wrong, it's in shambles and it leads to exploitation," said MP Olivia Chow on the temporary worker system in Canada. Photo by TONY BOCK(TORONTO STAR FILE PHOTO)
'Guest worker' abuses blasted: Lax federal controls leave migrants open to exploitation, report says
Les Whittington Ottawa Bureau
Published On Wed Nov 04 2009
The Toronto Star
From: http://www.thestar.com/news/investigations/article/720829---guest-worker-abuses-blasted
OTTAWA–Lack of oversight by the federal government has allowed foreign workers to be abused by their employers, Auditor General Sheila Fraser says in a scathing report on Canada's immigration program.
Fraser said federal authorities do not follow up on job offers for foreign workers to see if the jobs offered are real, if the employer can afford promised wages and if there is a real need for the worker.
Fraser's report follows a year-long series of Star articles that chronicled the exploitation of temporary workers, often referred to as "guest" workers, and live-in caregivers, some of whom were charged as much as $10,000 by recruiters and ended up with bogus jobs with phantom employers.
In some cases, the Star found nannies were housed in high numbers in basement apartments and flophouses around the GTA, then forced to work illegally to start paying recruiters their placement fees.
Many were also forced to surrender their passports and social insurance cards to these agencies to obtain work with other employers.
"The problems we noted could leave temporary workers in a vulnerable position and pose significant risks to the integrity of the immigration program as a whole," Fraser said in a statement accompanying her report to Parliament.
For instance, she said newcomers admitted to Canada under the special program for live-in caregivers may tolerate abuse, poor working conditions and poor accommodations so as not to lose the opportunity to become permanent residents.
Lower-skilled temporary workers from overseas are particularly at risk of these problems because of "their economic conditions, linguistic isolation and limited understanding of their rights," the report said.
"We all have to recognize that many of these people are quite vulnerable," Fraser added at a news conference.
But Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said the government has been aware of the problems and has already responded with tougher regulations.
Last month, Ottawa moved to ensure that employers who abuse foreign workers will be blacklisted and denied permission to hire another foreigner for two years.
The new rules allow "us to share information with the provinces, provincial labour departments who are responsible for ensuring the enforcement of labour codes," Kenney told reporters yesterday. "And it allows us to penalize abusive employers."
Kenney defended the temporary workers programs, saying "there are tens of thousands of employers who tell me that they would go out of business if they couldn't find people to fill those jobs."
But New Democrat MP Olivia Chow said the Conservatives view immigrants as "economic units – basically, use them and throw them out."
"It's wrong, it's in shambles and it leads to exploitation," Chow said of the current system.
Overall, despite a decade of work and the expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars, programs to bring temporary and permanent workers to this country are so badly run that would-be immigrants have no assurance their applications will be judged speedily, consistently or fairly, the auditor general says.
In particular, Fraser questioned then-immigration minister Diane Finley's overhaul of immigration policy in 2008 – reforms highlighted by the controversial decision to give the federal minister unprecedented authority to decide how applications should be processed.
The measures "were implemented without sufficient analysis," Fraser said.
But the reforms introduced by Finley and other measures did not have the desired effect of significantly cutting down the huge inventory of applications by those wanting to be admitted to Canada.
As of late last year, 620,000 would-be immigrants were waiting to see if they could come to Canada under the skilled workers' application process, with the average processing time of their applications at 63 months, the auditor said.
Lack of strategic planning by the government has also skewed the system so that the type of workers being admitted permanently to Canada is changing without significant thought being given to the overall impact on immigration patterns and the country's needs, the audit also found.
Because of strong economic activity prior to 2009 and lengthy delays for skilled workers applying under the Federal Skilled Worker program, increasing numbers of newcomers are being admitted under a patchwork quilt of provincial government immigration programs and as temporary workers.
"There is little evidence that this shift is part of any well-defined strategy to best meet the needs of the Canadian labour market," the auditor said.
Fraser also said officials at Canadian missions abroad are buried under mountains of paperwork because the federal government, despite spending more than $300 million over 10 years on planned information technology updates, has yet to install modern systems for handling immigration cases.
The report also targeted Canada's emergency preparedness, criticizing Public Safety Canada for failing to exercise leadership in planning and co-ordinating emergency responses.
Fraser further reported:
Ottawa is failing its responsibility to oversee environmental hazards on native reserves.
The federal government lacks the power to force companies to recall children's jewellery containing toxic levels of lead.
The foreign aid arm of the federal government – the Canadian International Development Agency – continues to struggle in its 15-year effort to use Canada's financial assistance to make a bigger impact in poor countries around the globe.
AUDITOR'S REPORT
* Echoing the findings of Star investigations, Auditor General Sheila Fraser found the Temporary Foreign Worker program is open to abuse.
* A response plan to deal with emergencies such as the H1N1 outbreak is still in the draft stage almost six years after conception.
* Ottawa's foreign aid program is bogged down by bureaucracy and has failed to provide effective help to the world's poor for the past 15 years.
Part1: How we're creating an illegal workforce Controversial federal program brings in foreigners for temporary jobs, but leaves them ripe for abuse
Tony, 29, from Honduras, now works illegally in Toronto. He "escaped" an Alberta farm where he spent 12 hours a day on his knees picking green onions.
Photo by VINCE TALOTTA/TORONTO STAR
How we're creating an illegal workforce
Controversial federal program brings in foreigners for temporary jobs, but leaves them ripe for abuse
Sandro Contenta & Laurie Monsebraaten, Staff Reporters
The Toronto Star
Published On Sun Nov 01 2009
From: http://www.thestar.com/news/investigations/article/719355--how-we-re-creating-an-illegal-workforce
HOW THE TEMPORARY FOREIGN WORKER PROGRAM WORKS:
The program is made up of four streams: the Live-In Caregiver Program, the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program, and programs for high-skilled workers and low-skilled ones.
The hiring of a temporary foreign worker begins with employers asking Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC) for a "labour market opinion" (LMO). Without an approved LMO, Citizenship and Immigration Canada won't issue a work permit.
The LMO assessment includes verifying whether the foreign worker fills a labour shortage, whether the employer has advertised the job for a minimum of 14 days on the national Job Bank, and whether wages offered are in line with what Canadians or permanent immigrants are getting for that work. There is much debate about how well the LMOs are conducted.
A new LMO is required if a foreign worker wants to switch employers. Since April, employers can no longer ask to extend an existing LMO; they must apply for a new one.
Pressure from employers led to three recent changes: the maximum amount of time for work permits was extended from one year to two years (for those in the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program the maximum is eight months); foreign workers no longer have to leave the country for at least four months while their employers apply for a new LMO; and in Alberta and B.C., LMOs have been fast-tracked in 33 jobs – including carpenters, roofers, front-desk clerks in hotels, residential cleaners and sales clerks – and promised within five days.
The federal government is now proposing to cap the stay of foreign workers at four years. After that, they would be barred for six years from re-entering the country.
With low-skilled foreign workers – for jobs that require no more than a high school diploma or up to two years of on-the-job training – employers must sign a contract with the worker outlining wages and working conditions.
The contract must also note that the employer will pay for travel costs from the home country and back, will not recoup recruitment costs from the worker, will help the worker find suitable and affordable housing, and will provide medical coverage until the worker is eligible for provincial health coverage.
But the federal government says the contract is governed by provincial labour laws and largely washes its hands of enforcement.
Taxes are deducted from their paycheques. But they're not eligible for welfare if laid off. They can receive unemployment insurance, but in practice, few who apply do. And in Alberta and Ontario, seasonal agricultural workers are barred from joining unions.
It's easier for high-skilled temporary workers to bring over their families while working in Canada than it is for those in low-skilled categories. High-skilled workers can also apply to become permanent residents under the Canadian Experience program, set up in 2008. Low-skilled workers can't.
Their best bet for permanent status is through Provincial Nominee Programs. Some allow low-skilled foreign workers in designated industries to be nominated for permanent residency by their employers. Ontario's program, set up last February, does not nominate low-skilled workers for permanent status.
Live-in caregivers can apply for permanent status after two years of work.
– Sandro Contenta
'GUEST WORKERS' 3-DAY SERIES
Today: How "guest workers" are gravitating to Toronto's underground economy.
Tomorrow: Abuses happen. Meet the Indian cook who was swindled by employers, and is now in a homeless shelter.
Tuesday: How Manitoba does it differently – and provides hope of a future for hundreds of meat plant workers.
Foreigners in Canada on temporary work permits are being pushed into Toronto's underground economy by the recession and a controversial federal program that leaves them vulnerable to abuse, a Star investigation has found.
They include people like Tony, a 29-year-old Honduran, who left his Alberta farm job after complaining of long hours and lower-than-promised wages. He rode a bus to Toronto in mid-September with two fellow Hondurans from the same farm. He now works illegally renovating homes, and his friends work illegally cleaning schools.
"I want to be someone, to do something with my life – that's why I'm here," says Tony, who fears being deported.
Also citing employer abuse is a Salvadoran couple fired from their Halifax hotel jobs when the woman got pregnant. They moved here to look for work in September.
In another case, 20 Filipinos arrived in Vancouver last May after each had paid a recruiter $5,000 plus airfare. But the factory where they were to work had burned down a month earlier. No one bothered to tell them, or to notify the government to cancel their work permits. At least two of them are now working illegally in Toronto.
Others find themselves in positions similar to the 120 migrant workers at Rol-Land mushroom farm near Guelph, laid off last December when the recession hit. "Closed" work permits barred them from jobs with other employers. Thirty of them remained in Canada to face precarious prospects in the underground economy.
Unemployed temporary foreign workers add to the pressures on the city's own "guest workers," hit by the recession and an unemployment rate of 10 per cent.
The trend has intensified concern about a federal program that – virtually without debate – has almost doubled the number of workers entering Canada with temporary permits since 2003. They are here to fill labour shortages identified by employers and Ottawa.
Last year, 192,519 foreigners came with work permits of up to two years – almost as many as the permanent residents Canada selected through the immigration system.
According to an official count, on Dec. 1, 2008, there were 251,235 temporary foreign workers in the country.
The program is widely criticized for being poorly monitored and for leaving the workers vulnerable to exploitation. Some experts say it smacks of the failed guest worker programs in Europe, which developed generations of marginalized and resentful residents.
Employers, on the other hand, insist that regardless of the economy's ups and downs, labour shortages are real and longterm.
BUT IS THE Temporary Foreign Worker Program the best way to fill the need?
For many who study the program, the recession's impact on foreign workers has made that question more pressing.
When times were good, foreigners could renew work permits with the same employer or get federal approval to switch jobs. When times got bad, and domestic unemployment rose, the government began closing the tap on the program.
Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC) must conduct labour market opinions (LMOs) when employers seek approval to hire workers abroad. LMOs are supposed to determine whether local citizens or permanent residents could do the job. In 2008, HRSDC approved 176,368 positions with LMOs.
But the first three months of this year saw a 25 per cent reduction in the number of jobs approved with LMOs (29,607) from the same period last year (40,020).
LMOs rejected in the first half of this year included ones involving employers who wanted to renew work permits for those already on their payroll – forcing the employers to lay them off instead.
They also included employers prevented from hiring foreign workers already here and out of a job. (Workers can remain in Canada until their work visas expire, but can't legally work for another employer without a new LMO.)
For many jobless foreign workers, returning home isn't much of an option. They left lives of poverty, are often burdened by debt from money paid to recruiters, and have families back home who depend on remittances.
"For the average Canadian worker, the economic downturn is a crisis, but for the temporary foreign worker, it's a catastrophe," says Naveen Mehta, a lawyer with the United Food and Commercial Workers union.
Gauging the impact of foreign workers on the underground economy is difficult. Officials at Citizenship and Immigration Canada insist that the "vast majority" return home before their permits expire. But they can't prove it.
The government doesn't track when – or if – foreign workers leave the country. Nor does anyone track the number of those laid off. But it does advise employers to lay off foreign workers before Canadian citizens or permanent residents.
"We've got a growing illegal workforce," says Yessy Byl, an expert on the Temporary Foreign Worker Program in Alberta, the province that experienced the biggest increase of foreign workers in the past three years. "It's growing by leaps and bounds.
"You've got a hugely growing group of destitute people," adds Byl, who is also a labour lawyer with the Alberta Federation of Labour. "They have to work to survive."
Byl says the worst is yet to come: many of the 365,000 foreign workers who came to Canada in 2007 and 2008 will see their permits expire next year.
In a 2007 report, the RCMP estimated the number of undocumented workers in Canada ranged from 200,000 to 500,000. Toronto is widely seen as having the largest concentration.
St. Christopher House, a downtown social service agency, is bracing for an influx of underground foreign workers and has hired a new coordinator who recently completed doctoral studies on migrant workers.
"We are trying to get out in advance of that train coming down the track because we believe this issue is going to be big," says executive director Maureen Fair.
Francisco Rico-Martinez, co-director of Toronto's FCJ Refugee Centre, says every month he sees two or three temporary foreign workers looking for help. One week in September, he met Tony, the Alberta farm worker, and the Salvadoran couple from Halifax.
But settlement agencies are in a bind. The federal government doesn't fund services for guest workers. If agencies help, they're diverting scarce funds from refugees and landed immigrants.
HISTORICALLY, the Temporary Foreign Worker Program was a relatively small federal initiative that brought in mostly high-skilled workers for specialized jobs. The live-in caregiver and seasonal agricultural worker programs were the only exceptions.
All that changed in 2002 when Ottawa allowed employers to bring in a wide range of low-skilled foreign workers to toil in the hospitality, food services, construction and manufacturing sectors.
Increases have been especially steep since 2006, under the Conservative government's watch.
"It's a priority of Stephen Harper's government to have immigration tailored more to the needs of Canadian employers," says Jeffrey Reitz, an immigration expert at the Munk Centre for International Studies.
The economy was hot, and employers – from Tim Hortons franchises to developers of Alberta's oilsands – scrambled to find workers. They turned to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program.
"They were doling out work permits like lollipops," says Toronto immigration lawyer Sergio Karas.
The most persistent criticism of the program is that it has addicted employers to cheap, disposable labour. In August, the federal government told a parliamentary committee that "overuse" of the program is the cause of many of its problems.
But it defended the program as necessary, noting that seasonal or cyclical jobs – vegetable picking or work on the oilsands – don't require permanent employees. The Harper government also described the regular immigration system as woefully inflexible and unable to meet labour market demands.
That system, which considers only workers with highly developed skills for permanent residency, is groaning under a backlog of some 900,000 applications. Decisions can take six years.
In 2007, at the peak of a revved-up economy, Canada let in 41,251 skilled workers as permanent residents – 17,660 fewer than in 2001. Meanwhile, 165,000 guest workers were brought in – the majority of them low-skilled.
"The temporary foreign worker program has become the faster and preferred way to get immigrants to Canada to meet long-term labour shortages," the bipartisan report of Parliament's Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration noted in May.
Some argue that the service industry is bringing in foreign workers to flip burgers, pour coffee and clean hotels simply to avoid offering the higher wages needed to attract domestic labour. What seems clear is that many are doing jobs few Canadians want – for example, dismembering pigs on "disassembly lines" in meat plants.
Yet, while high-skilled temporary workers can apply to become permanent residents under federal or provincial programs, most low-skilled workers can't (live-in caregivers are the big exception).
"The attitude is, `We don't want none of them riff-raff here,'" Byl charges.
Governments are rejecting the kinds of people who largely built the country after immigrating in successive waves through the last century, says Toronto immigration lawyer Elizabeth Long.
"Good enough to work, good enough to stay," is a slogan widely used by advocates of giving low-skilled workers a route to permanent status.
The Harper government is doing the opposite. Immigration Minister Jason Kenney last month proposed changes that would cap at four years the amount of time foreigners could work in Canada on temporary permits. They then would be barred from receiving another permit for six years.
The proposals have been widely panned. The parliamentary committee had recommended a path to permanent residency for all guest workers, at least those already here. It also called for "open" permits that would allow workers to switch jobs in the same sector.
Observers say foreign workers are much less likely to leave Canada if they're allowed to stay four years, as Ottawa is proposing. As one slogan, based on the experience of Europe and the U.S., says: "There is nothing more permanent than temporary foreign workers."
Germany stopped recruiting guest workers in 1973. But many stayed and brought over their families. By the mid-1980s, the program was largely responsible for having increased the number of permanent immigrants in Germany by almost 4 million. Left without settlement services for years, many live marginalized lives.
Jenna Hennebry, a sociologist at Wilfrid Laurier University, has researched temporary foreign workers for years. She believes a majority who lose their jobs stay in Canada beyond the time allowed by their work visas.
Some get advice from consultants to apply for refugee status. That clogs up the system but buys them time to stay and work in Canada. Others become undocumented.
Last spring, the Canadian Border Services Agency launched raids at several farms in southern Ontario, detaining about 100 people who had overstayed or violated the conditions of their work permits.
After one raid, about 40 workers from Thailand with expired work permits were sent to a detention centre in Rexdale. Immigration lawyer Long, who represented one of them, said most were deported without getting a chance to speak to a lawyer or file an assessment – guaranteed by the Charter of Rights – of the risk they faced if sent back.
Long said her client had borrowed $17,000 from "loan sharks" in Thailand to pay recruiters. Yet he was paid far less money than promised to work an overnight shift six days a week catching free-range chickens. He, too, was eventually deported.
Union officials and immigration experts say the size of Toronto's undocumented workforce keeps official employer demands for temporary foreign workers in the city – other than nannies – relatively low.
"Why would an employer go through the hassle of a temporary foreign work visa when he can draw from that pool of undocumented workers?" says Diego Mendez, spokesperson for the Greater Toronto local of the Service Employees International Union.
Toronto immigration lawyer Amina Sherazee believes the growing pool of undocumented workers suits Ottawa just fine.
"It's almost a deliberate attempt ... on the part of the government to keep a competitive workforce here who can be exploited cheaply to meet the needs of the market," she says.
Rico-Martinez notes that undocumented workers make up half of his centre's caseload. "We try to talk to the government about this issue, but they're in total denial."
Part 3: Manitoba welcome host for guest workers in Canada Migrant workers get fair shot at future thanks to meat plant, province's unique policy
Some 1,500 migrant workers are employed by Maple Leaf Consumer Foods in Brandon, Man. They toil on the "disassembly" line, dismembering animals, but as one worker says, it "pays well and has good benefits."
Photo by SANDRO CONTENTA/TORONTO STAR
From: http://www.thestar.com/news/investigations/article/720163--part-3-manitoba-welcome-host-for-guest-workers-in-canada
Part 3: Manitoba welcome host for guest workers in Canada - Migrant workers get fair shot at future thanks to meat plant, province's unique policy
Sandro Contenta, Staff Reporter
The Toronto Star
Published On Tue Nov 03 2009
BRANDON, MAN.–By any measure, William Cruz is a success story. He has realized a dream as old as Canada.
In 2002 he came from El Salvador with almost nothing. He braved the winters in this prairie town and the hard slog of its meat plant.
Back home, he had been a cellist with a symphony orchestra. Here, he was cutting out the big bone from a pig's shoulder, a new one arriving on the "disassembly" line every 16 seconds. Virginia, also from El Salvador, did the same nearby with a smaller bone. How could they not fall in love?
They married in 2007 and bought a two-storey house. Cruz, 30, notes with pride that it takes an hour to mow his corner lot.
"Only rich people have a house like this in El Salvador," he says.
When not working, they participate in the city's winter festival – he plays instruments, Virginia does folk dances – and volunteer helping newcomers settle.
Last year, Cruz became a Canadian citizen. Virginia hopes to become one soon.
"I felt great – I felt free," Cruz says. "We say we are very lucky to be here."
And Canada is lucky to have them. But does the federal government think so?
For years, Ottawa has barred low-skilled workers like the Cruzes from entering Canada as landed immigrants through the regular points system. Only high-skilled workers get a shot at that privilege.
The Harper government argues the low-skilled are less likely to integrate and succeed. Others insist that's turning our backs on the kind of people who built the country.
Want them or not, Canada appears to need them.
The immigration system, groaning under a massive backlog, is widely seen as incapable of meeting labour demands. So last year, 192,519 foreigners were brought in with work permits of up to three years – almost double the number that arrived in 2003.
The majority were for low-skilled jobs that require less than a high school education. They serve coffee, clean hotels, drive trucks and, like the Cruzes, slaughter and dismember animals.
Canada's Auditor General, Sheila Fraser, is to issue a report Tuesday that, in part, examines how the government manages the immigration system and the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. The latter has been widely criticized for being poorly monitored and leaving low-skilled migrants vulnerable to abuse.
With the exception of live-in caregivers, low-skilled "guest workers" are largely barred from becoming landed immigrants.
Provinces can nominate migrant workers for landed status, but most reserve that privilege largely for high-skilled ones. Manitoba is the exception, having opened the process to all migrant workers recommended by employers.
Last year, Manitoba welcomed 11,221 landed immigrants, about 4.5 per cent of Canada's total. Fully 71 per cent of them came through its Provincial Nominee Program (PNP). (Of those who became landed immigrants in Canada last year, 13 per cent – 14,075 of them – did so through provincial programs.)
Manitoba's PNP allowed the Cruzes to realize their dream. But where once they might have felt indebted to a government or political party, the Cruzes have Maple Leaf Consumer Foods to thank.
The company has 1,500 migrant workers – 75 per cent of its Brandon workforce – slaughtering and dismembering pigs at its plant here. They come on permits that allow them to work only at the Brandon plant.
Plant manager Leo Collins dismisses talk of foreigners taking Canadian jobs. Before migrants arrived in waves, beginning in 2002, the plant's turnover rate was huge.
Killing, gutting and slicing pigs is heavy, dirty work. Yet the retention rate for foreign workers is 85 per cent. The enticement is a shot at landed status.
Maple Leaf can sponsor an employee for the PNP after six months. The province forwards the nomination to Ottawa for approval.
"It's never been a Temporary Foreign Worker Program for us," Collins says. "Our goal is to have them stay here and bring their families."
By 2011, officials estimate, Brandon's population of 41,000 – stagnant just a few years ago – will jump a stunning 14 per cent.
Allowing employers to determine who gets on the path to citizenship, critics say, is no way to build a nation. Tell that to Cruz and others like him, Collins replies.
One thing is certain: This once conservative prairie town without Sunday bus service is being transformed — fast.
THE WELCOME
The workers come from Latin America, Africa, China and Ukraine. Their biggest hurdle is English. The biggest shock for most is winter. Then there's the fact that Brandon's sidewalks seem forever rolled up.
"The first impression is this is not Europe," says Sergii Smagytel, 35, who arrived from Ukraine in April 2008. "We were scared. Nobody walks on the sidewalk. It was very, very strange for us."
Collins says each migrant worker costs Maple Leaf about $6,000. That includes recruitment, medical exams, permit application fees, one month's rent, a month-long bus pass, free cafeteria food for a week, and a bed with linen and pillows.
It's a lot, but not everything.
Local St. Vincent de Paul Society volunteer Lawrence Dubois once met some newly arrived Salvadorans living in the same apartment, sharing one plate and waiting their turn to eat. He filled a garage with donated furniture, and newcomers had their pick."If it wasn't for those people," says Kerselin Fumier, 36, who arrived in 2008, "I would have returned to Mauritius."
No one reports serious incidents of racism.
THE STRAINS
The sprawling Maple Leaf plant is a 15-minute drive outside of town on a road with an unpaved shoulder and an 80-km/h speed limit. When a large group of Chinese workers arrived, they wanted bikes, and the company obliged.
Next thing you know, pickup trucks are swerving, honking and weaving past cyclists on their way to work during pre-dawn hours.
"We're a truck town," says registered nurse Nancy McPherson, an analyst with the Brandon Regional Health Authority. "This became a huge issue."
More serious is the housing crunch.
Brandon's vacancy rate is 0.1 per cent. Prices have skyrocketed. Developers are building large, expensive family homes instead of rental units. With accommodation eating up more household income, the Samaritan House food bank has served 30 to 60 new families every month this year.
Governments and service providers have been slow to respond, McPherson says. It's starting to happen.
A language cooperative has been set up with 12 certified translators, available for $25 an hour. The school board has extended English as an additional language to all schools, where enrolment is going up after years of decline.
The crime rate is down, police say. Officers are kept busy, however, explaining laws, laying impaired-driving charges, and stopping motorists without a provincial driver's licence.
"We get a lot of drivers who produce a Maple Leaf card," says Const. Tanis Basaraba, with the Community Policing Unit. Newcomers are also victims. Scott recalls one from El Salvador cashing his first paycheque and lining up the bills on a shopping mall bench to count. A thief scooped them up and was gone.
The Chinese have learned the hard way to lock their bikes. And there have been incidents of extortion: some have had their families back home threatened for money.
THE WORK
The plant opened in 1999 and kills 85,000 hogs a week.
At work, Kerselin Fumier looks like a modern version of a medieval knight: hard hat, white lab coat and protective steel-wire mesh apron. He works saws and machines that cut carcasses in half, break the shoulders and slice them off.
Half a pig can weigh 200 pounds. Fumier spends hours pulling and tugging them into the right position. Repetitive strain injuries, the union says, are the most common.
His friend Sony Bottebell, also from Mauritius, works the "front end kill" section of the line. He flips hogs and fits their hind legs to hooks that raise and dip them in scalding water.
Bottebell makes $13.55 an hour and Fumier, $15.50.
"All Canadians will tell you that Maple Leaf will kill you," says Fumier. "It's a hard job ... But it's the only place that guarantees a job, pays well and has good benefits."
The plant's union fully backs Maple Leaf's migrant program. But union rep Ray Berthelette says low wages make attracting Canadians difficult. That dates back to the mid-1980s, when the North American hog industry broke unions and rolled back wages.
In a recent study, Simon Fraser University economist Dominique Gross concluded the migrant program contributes to keeping higher unemployment rates in some parts of the country.
Turning to migrants spares employers the higher wages and other incentives that would make it worthwhile for the unemployed to move for a job, Gross says.
About 10 per cent of Maple Leaf migrants decide the job is not for them and head home, Berthelette says. Many of those who stay muse about getting other work once they're landed.
THE ARTIST
Juan Zavaleta arrived from Mexico with the first group of Maple Leaf migrant workers in January 2002. It fulfilled a dream that had little to do with a new life in Canada.
Years earlier, he had created works of art from horse carcasses. Maple Leaf was a chance at hands-on research. He lied about being a butcher. "It was a messy job – a lot of blood," he says. "For me it was just wonderful."
A fascination with death helps: fake skulls and skeletons decorate Zavaleta's living room. He married in 2003 at a goth wedding in his backyard. The bride and groom wore black.
Zavaleta, 38, says his "honeymoon" soured when he suffered a rib injury on the job. One day, back pain reduced him to lying down on the shop floor. The "disassembly" line was stopped for two hours.
The migrant program, he insists, counts on submissive workers, fearful they'll be sent back to desperate lives. He quit in 2005 and stayed in Brandon to focus on his art.
One project involved thousands of disposable paper towels with patterns of blood collected while he worked. Another was made of bloodied Maple Leaf uniforms Zavaleta bought at a garage sale and wore on the job.
"I investigated 21st-century slavery in First World countries," Zavaleta says. "It's a very strange way to enslave people; very brand new and totally legal."
O CANADA
Talking with Maple Leaf's foreign workers could serve as therapy for anyone cynical about Canada.
"People have told me for years they feel it's like winning the lottery," says union official Zara Pople.
Since June, Jose Armijo has been vacuuming excrement from pigs for $13 an hour.
He sends $200 a week to his two children and wife in Honduras, where he had lost his job in a print shop. He shares a house with six workers, dreams of bringing his family to Canada, and can't seem to stop smiling.
"When my wife comes, I want to have a typical Canadian dish waiting for her," he says.
In his prime, Eduardo Navidad, 43, was a boxer in El Salvador, living in a leaky shack. Then he sold slush from scraped ice in a pushcart. He says he thought of killing himself.
"I can't say I have a lot of money," says Navidad, who came four years ago and has landed immigrant status. "But I feel I have everything."
Sergii Smagytel was a beekeeper in Ukraine. "We always knew at school about Canada, that it is a great country," he says in English. He's planning on buying a house and bringing over his wife and their two kids, 4 and 1.
"I came not because I wanted to," he says. "I came for my children. I know that if they get an education in Canada, the whole world will be opened to them. I believe so."
Part 2: A temporary worker's Catch-22 Temporary permits leave foreigners open to exploitation
photo by Lucas Oleniuk/Toronto Star
Part 2: A temporary worker's Catch-22
Temporary permits leave foreigners open to exploitation
The Toronto Star
Sandro Contenta & Laurie Monsebraaten, Staff Reporters
Published On Mon Nov 02 2009
From: http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/719602--star-investigation-a-temporary-worker-s-catch-22?bn=1
Mac Akela, who cannot be shown for legal reasons, has been forced to work illegally after abuse by employers.
In Mumbai, Mac Akela was a top chef at a luxury hotel, running a department of 72 people and preparing meals for the rich and powerful. Life was good.
He had a wife and three children. And his $15,000 yearly salary got him far, particularly with the rent-free home his employer provided.
One day, a visiting Toronto restaurateur fell in love with Akela's cuisine. He offered him twice his salary, and by November 2007, Akela was cooking up a storm in a north Toronto restaurant. Six months later, he was broke and living in a homeless shelter.
He blames much of his downfall on Canada's controversial Temporary Foreign Worker program. It tied him to his Toronto job, preventing him from working for anyone else, even when his employer swindled him out of half his promised salary.
Asking for his money got Akela fired and kicked out of his employer-owned, one-bedroom apartment, which he shared with two other workers for $400 a month. That set him on an 18-month ordeal of government red tape, largely illegal work and more abuse from employers.
"I am fed up," says Akela, who fears being deported and asked that his real name be withheld. "I came to this country with big dreams. I used to be treated with respect back home. Here it's nothing but lying and cheating."
"I thought Canada was a fair country," he adds.
Fair isn't a word commonly used to describe Canada's controversial program for foreigners working here temporarily. It's widely criticized for being poorly monitored and for leaving workers vulnerable to abuse.
Canada's auditor general, Sheila Fraser, issues a report Tuesday that, in part, will examine how the government manages the program.
Virtually without debate, successive federal governments almost doubled the number of foreigners coming to Canada with temporary work permits since 2003. Last year, more than 192,000 came in – almost as many as the permanent residents Canada selected through the immigration system.
On Dec. 1, 2008, Ottawa counted 251,235 foreigners in Canada with valid temporary work permits, many of which can last two years. The workers come to fill labour shortages identified by employers and Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC).
Officials at the department say they reduced the influx when the recession hit and unemployment rose above 8 per cent nationally. But employers insist labour shortages are long-term, and the Conservative government is committed to keeping the "guest worker" program.
There is widespread concern, however, that protection for migrant workers has not kept pace with the program's rapid expansion. The anxiety is over low-skilled workers, who toil in jobs requiring no more than a high school education. They're the majority of migrant workers to Canada.
Often ignorant of Canadian labour laws, they're left vulnerable by a federal government that washes its hands of enforcing program regulations and provinces that have been slow to wake up to the abuses many suffer, advocates and union officials say.
Stories of recruiters gouging migrant workers with fees of up to $10,000 are well known. Yet Ontario is proposing to ban those fees solely for nannies, who make up less than a third of the 66,600 guest workers who came to the province in 2008. In Alberta, where recruitment fees are banned for all migrant workers, the province is investigating more than 280 complaints against agencies, most for charging fees.
Abusive employers are a minority. But mistreatment doesn't just happen in "mom and pop" businesses.
In April 2007, two Chinese workers on a $10.8 billion oil sands project were killed when the roof of an oil storage tank collapsed. The site, north of Fort McMurray, Alta., is owned by Canadian Natural Resources Ltd.
The victims and 130 other Chinese on temporary permits, were working for SSEC Canada Ltd., owned by China's Sinopec Shanghai Engineering Company Ltd. Last April, the Alberta government laid 53 charges against the three companies under the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
It was also discovered that SSEC paid the foreign workers just 10 per cent of the $34 hourly rate specified in the union contract. Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. has since agreed to hand over $3.17 million and provincial officials are trying to find the workers, now back in China, to give them the money.
Also well documented are examples of migrant workers having their passports seized by employers while earning lower wages and working longer hours than promised.
Yet only last month did the federal government propose to blacklist abusive employers and deny them foreign workers for two years. Until that becomes law, the federal official in charge of the program suggests Ottawa is powerless.
Last year, a parliamentary committee asked whether the government could deny "labour market opinions" – needed to hire workers from abroad – if employers mistreated foreign workers in the past.
"To the best of my knowledge, at this point we don't have the authority to assess past performance when we're checking on new labour market opinions," replied Andrew Kenyon, head of the temporary foreign worker program at HRSDC.
This didn't stop the department fast-tracking approvals in 33 job categories – including roofers and sales clerks – for migrants to Alberta and British Columbia in the fall of 2008.
HRSDC officials declined a request for an interview for this story. In an email response to questions, they contradicted Kenyon. A "more systematic" way to withhold foreign worker permits from abusive employers is being put in place, they said. They also noted initiatives that "encourage" employers to attest they're complying with regulations.
In an information sheet for employers, HRSDC notes it has "no authority to intervene in the employer-employee relationship or to enforce the terms and conditions of employment. It is the responsibility of the employer and worker to familiarize themselves with laws that apply to them and to look after their own interests."
Advocates say that's outrageous, given the power employers have over foreign workers here temporarily. The result is vulnerable workers fearing deportation and sometimes suffering in silence.
Last May, the bipartisan report of Parliament's Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration called for "open" temporary permits that would allow migrant workers to switch jobs in the same sector.
It's not a move popular with employers, who spend money recruiting and training migrant workers. They already complain that it's too easy for other employers to poach their guest workers.
Francisco Rico-Martinez, co-director of Toronto's FCJ Refugee Centre, says employers are increasingly recruiting from countries where workers are considered more desperate and so more pliant.
"It's a nasty concept they're applying: Take the most vulnerable and they will obey better the rules," Rico-Martinez charges.
He insists that explains the rise in the number of workers coming from Guatemala – from 13 in 2002 to 3,303 in 2008. There, the International Organization for Migrants, a multi-government agency that includes Canada, charges recruits $500. They lose the money if they remain in Canada illegally.
Guatemalans are also getting the message that if they don't return, their relatives, their village or even their country will be banned from accessing Canada through the migrants' program, adds Rico-Martinez, who works widely in Latin America and has interviewed temporary workers heading to Canada.
It's impossible to know how many employers are abusive because enforcement usually depends on complaints. And guest workers are often too afraid to speak out.
Akela did. A shelter worker helped him take his complaint of unpaid wages to the Ontario Labour Relations Board in May 2008. It was settled when the restaurateur paid him about $2,000, some $6,500 less than what he was owed.
"There is no incentive for employers to obey the law, because if they are caught, they are rarely penalized," says Deena Ladd of the Workers' Action Centre in Toronto.
Akela, 43, boasts a repertoire of more than 400 dishes, from Tandoori and Mughlai to Asian-Italian fusion.
"I'm an artist," he says. "I have my own creations."
He came to Canada with the hope of one day becoming a permanent resident and opening a restaurant of his own. The plan got off to a shaky start. The restaurateur who brought him here insisted on paying him cash, leaving no official proof he was working and paying taxes.
Stunned at being fired and thrown out of his apartment, he wandered the streets for two nights, before entering the homeless shelter where he still lives. Akela quickly found a new employer and started working again. But this second restaurateur balked at getting government approval to hire him legally. Akela tried to do it himself. He paid an immigration lawyer $1,470 to file the application. But when he checked with HRSDC six months later, he discovered the lawyer had filed no papers.
He had arrived in Canada with a one-year work permit. This was about to expire. Then Akela answered an ad last fall for a new restaurant downtown. The owner got government approval to hire a migrant chef, gave Akela the job, and said he would help renew his work visa.
He began work last January and was paid $3,000 a month, but it was also in cash. Then Akela's OHIP expired. To renew it, he needed a work visa. He says the employer wouldn't give it to him. One thing led to another and in April, Akela was fired – again.
He doesn't know what to think. One minute he believes the employer withheld his work visa to prevent him from working with a competitor. The next, he wonders if the employer ever obtained it.
He tried to get Immigration Canada to issue him a copy but got nowhere. With a family in India to support, Akela reluctantly joined Toronto's growing pool of underground workers.
He worked three weeks at a fourth restaurant, but says he wasn't paid. A fifth restaurant promised better. But after two weeks on the job, Akela slipped on a wet floor and smashed his elbow, landing him in hospital with no OHIP coverage. Medical help cost him $150.
He was off work for almost two months. He's now back on the job, undocumented, with a sixth restaurant. He's turned to Toronto immigration lawyer Elizabeth Long for help getting some kind of status.
"My daughter is 7 years old," he says, shaking his head. "When I left she was 5. I am missing her. I should be preparing to bring them here by now. But everything is in ruins."
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Angling for justice
Globe and Mail, Oct. 3rd, 2009
From: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/angling-for-justice/article1310986/
JOE FRIESEN
LINDSAY — From Saturday's Globe and Mail Published on Saturday, Oct. 03, 2009 12:00AM EDT Last updated on Wednesday, Oct. 07, 2009 3:05AM EDT
The 12-year-old boy shuffled toward the judge with the timid reluctance one would expect of a child called to answer before authority.
Barely four feet tall with a bird-like frame, his tiny stature - unusual even for a boy his age - took the Lindsay, Ont., courtroom by surprise.
The judge, peering down from the bench, explained that he had been charged with a criminal assault. "Do you understand what that means?" he asked in a tone adults reserve for small children.
"Yes," the boy replied.
The child stands accused of being the latest and youngest villain in a peculiar crime wave.
"Nipper-tipping," as it is known to its perpetrators, emerged into the public eye two years ago during a spate of attacks on Asian-Canadian fishermen. At first, the act of pushing an unsuspecting angler into the water was viewed as a sophomoric, racist prank: The name itself combines an anti-Japanese epithet with the rural hilarity of cow-tipping. After increased scrutiny and public pressure, a zero-tolerance policy seems to have emerged, culminating in the trial of a frightened, pre-adolescent boy.
His alleged involvement could be described as a copycat crime. In April, 2007, an Asian man and his 13-year-old son fishing at Jackson's Point on Lake Simcoe in Georgina, Ont., were accosted, the latter pushed in the water. That summer, four similar events took place from July to August. Each time, the victims had only their hobby and their ancestry in common.
The breaking point came on Sept. 17 of that year when a similar incident at Jackson's Point led to a car chase in which a racially mixed group was pursued by locals. Their car crashed, leaving 23-year-old Shayne Berwick with a serious brain injury.
"Nipper-tipping" became a political flashpoint.
Chinese-Canadian leaders demanded that the cases be prosecuted as hate crimes. York Regional Police responded with helicopters to patrol popular fishing holes and Asian police officers went undercover as fishermen (they weren't attacked but reported being subjected to racial slurs). The Ontario Provincial Police responded by assigning hate-crime investigators to any incident involving Asian fishermen. The Ontario Human Rights Commission weighed in with a report, Fishing Without Fear, that graded more than 20 organizations involved in the events.
Did tolerance end at the GTA border? Or were white locals applying vigilante tactics to outsiders they accuse of illegally depleting fish stocks? As the multicultural city extends further toward areas relatively untouched by immigration, these flare-ups may be a symptom of deeper unease.
Fisheries have long been a source of conflict between whites and Asians. At the turn of the century in B.C. there was a fight over Fraser River salmon that led to violence, and in 1907 there were anti-Asian riots in Vancouver. There was also an anti-Chinese riot in Lindsay, Ont., in 1919. Patricia Roy, a historian who has studied the history of the Chinese and Japanese in Canada, said these kinds of tensions are not uncommon anywhere in the world. Locals are often hostile to outsiders if they believe they're infringing on a scarce resource, and that hostility is more easily focused if the outsiders belong to an identifiable racial group.
"I wouldn't say it's what Canada is, I would say it's what people are," Prof. Roy said. "I think it's more human nature than Canadian."
In the Lindsay courtroom last week, the 12-year-old's parents stood with him in court, laying their hands on his shoulders as though trying to keep his fidgety torso pointed in the right direction. They told the judge they planned to hire a lawyer to defend their son, but declined to speak with reporters for fear of jeopardizing his case.
The decision to prosecute a child is the strongest signal yet that police and justice officials are serious about cracking down on a practice that remains an open wound for many Asian-Canadians.
The victim is a 46-year-old Chinese-Canadian from Markham who was on a day trip this August to the Kawarthas with his family. Fishing at the side of Canal Lake, he was approached by two boys. When he turned his attention to his fishing rod, one of the boys allegedly ran up and knocked him into the water, which was two metres below. The victim's wife, who along with his son and daughter watched the attack unfold, chased and caught the boy and then called the OPP.
Still, a criminal-assault charge in this case is somewhat surprising. Officers typically have a great deal of discretion to either arrest or caution young suspects. But with the scrutiny of the Toronto media and the Human Rights Commission, as well as governments pledging these attacks will be taken seriously, the police may feel they have no choice but to lay charges.
While the authorities have been cracking down, prosecutors have been criticized for easing up. Last week another high-profile assault prosecution came to a sudden and - in the eyes of the Chinese community - unsatisfactory end.
Scott MacEachern, a 21-year-old business student from Georgina, had been charged with three separate attacks on Asian fishermen in York region during the summer of 2007. In each case, he had allegedly shoved someone into the water. Mr. MacEachern pled guilty to only one of the charges, the others were dropped, and he walked free with a sentence of 12 months probation.
"I'm shocked that he was let go," said Mike Ma, co-ordinator of the Peterborough Community and Race-Relations Committee. The news of the sentence was splashed on the front pages of Chinese-Canadian newspapers, and call-in shows lit up with angry responses. York police said they did their best, but witnesses in some cases couldn't identify the accused.
Mr. Ma, who has lived in Canada nearly all his life, said he worries about his own safety now when he fishes in the area outside Peterborough.
"My sister and brother-in-law and their family came to visit me a few weeks ago and we went fishing," he said. "The whole time in the back of my mind I'm thinking, 'Am I safe?' because of the way I look."
Very few locals are willing to speak on the record for fear of being branded as racists. But they say their complaints are legitimate: Many Asian day-trippers are fishing without a licence, trespassing on private property and ignoring catch limits. Some of the fishing is happening at night, which can only mean they're up to no good and the catch is being sold in Toronto's Chinatown the following morning.
In their view, a centuries-old local fishery is being depleted by outsiders, and the Ministry of Natural Resources is doing nothing to stop it. Confronting the fishermen, pushing them in the water, spraying graffiti - such as the message on a Hastings, Ont., bridge that read "Fuck You Nips!!, fish thieves" - are all misguided but understandable attempts to redress injustice, they argue.
Mr. Ma said he's still shocked by the number of people who characterize these incidents as youthful pranks or a legitimate conflict while down-playing the racial overtones.
"Why is it that these attacks are uniformly on Asian-Canadians?" he asks. "It's been quite uniform."
The attacks have been concentrated primarily in the Township of Georgina, near Lake Simcoe, and more recently to the east in the Kawartha Lakes area. While Toronto has a visible minority population of 45 per cent, it's just 3.9 per cent in Georgina, and 1.6 per cent in Kawartha Lakes.
The number of incidents reported to police involving Asian fishermen has declined, from 10 in 2007 to five in 2009 - but the threat hasn't abated.
This week a Toronto woman born in the Philippines was fishing at a Pigeon Lake resort when she was approached by three men who demanded to know what she was catching and whether she had a licence - typical harassment many Asian fishers describe. The police said the woman fled the area and called for help. The OPP said the incident "may have involved physical contact," but they didn't have sufficient grounds to lay an assault charge.
They later issued a press release asking people who fish not to resort to vigilante enforcement. Concerns should be taken up with natural resources officers, they said.
Ontario's Natural Resources Minister Donna Cansfield said one of the most important steps taken by her ministry was to meet with the Asian anglers association and have the province's fishing regulations translated into Cantonese to prevent misunderstandings.
"Obviously there has been some level of discomfort in the communities - both communities - it's not one or the other," Ms. Cansfield said. "We live in a very cosmopolitan world, especially in Ontario, and we have to find ways and means of how we live together."
From: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/angling-for-justice/article1310986/
JOE FRIESEN
LINDSAY — From Saturday's Globe and Mail Published on Saturday, Oct. 03, 2009 12:00AM EDT Last updated on Wednesday, Oct. 07, 2009 3:05AM EDT
The 12-year-old boy shuffled toward the judge with the timid reluctance one would expect of a child called to answer before authority.
Barely four feet tall with a bird-like frame, his tiny stature - unusual even for a boy his age - took the Lindsay, Ont., courtroom by surprise.
The judge, peering down from the bench, explained that he had been charged with a criminal assault. "Do you understand what that means?" he asked in a tone adults reserve for small children.
"Yes," the boy replied.
The child stands accused of being the latest and youngest villain in a peculiar crime wave.
"Nipper-tipping," as it is known to its perpetrators, emerged into the public eye two years ago during a spate of attacks on Asian-Canadian fishermen. At first, the act of pushing an unsuspecting angler into the water was viewed as a sophomoric, racist prank: The name itself combines an anti-Japanese epithet with the rural hilarity of cow-tipping. After increased scrutiny and public pressure, a zero-tolerance policy seems to have emerged, culminating in the trial of a frightened, pre-adolescent boy.
His alleged involvement could be described as a copycat crime. In April, 2007, an Asian man and his 13-year-old son fishing at Jackson's Point on Lake Simcoe in Georgina, Ont., were accosted, the latter pushed in the water. That summer, four similar events took place from July to August. Each time, the victims had only their hobby and their ancestry in common.
The breaking point came on Sept. 17 of that year when a similar incident at Jackson's Point led to a car chase in which a racially mixed group was pursued by locals. Their car crashed, leaving 23-year-old Shayne Berwick with a serious brain injury.
"Nipper-tipping" became a political flashpoint.
Chinese-Canadian leaders demanded that the cases be prosecuted as hate crimes. York Regional Police responded with helicopters to patrol popular fishing holes and Asian police officers went undercover as fishermen (they weren't attacked but reported being subjected to racial slurs). The Ontario Provincial Police responded by assigning hate-crime investigators to any incident involving Asian fishermen. The Ontario Human Rights Commission weighed in with a report, Fishing Without Fear, that graded more than 20 organizations involved in the events.
Did tolerance end at the GTA border? Or were white locals applying vigilante tactics to outsiders they accuse of illegally depleting fish stocks? As the multicultural city extends further toward areas relatively untouched by immigration, these flare-ups may be a symptom of deeper unease.
Fisheries have long been a source of conflict between whites and Asians. At the turn of the century in B.C. there was a fight over Fraser River salmon that led to violence, and in 1907 there were anti-Asian riots in Vancouver. There was also an anti-Chinese riot in Lindsay, Ont., in 1919. Patricia Roy, a historian who has studied the history of the Chinese and Japanese in Canada, said these kinds of tensions are not uncommon anywhere in the world. Locals are often hostile to outsiders if they believe they're infringing on a scarce resource, and that hostility is more easily focused if the outsiders belong to an identifiable racial group.
"I wouldn't say it's what Canada is, I would say it's what people are," Prof. Roy said. "I think it's more human nature than Canadian."
In the Lindsay courtroom last week, the 12-year-old's parents stood with him in court, laying their hands on his shoulders as though trying to keep his fidgety torso pointed in the right direction. They told the judge they planned to hire a lawyer to defend their son, but declined to speak with reporters for fear of jeopardizing his case.
The decision to prosecute a child is the strongest signal yet that police and justice officials are serious about cracking down on a practice that remains an open wound for many Asian-Canadians.
The victim is a 46-year-old Chinese-Canadian from Markham who was on a day trip this August to the Kawarthas with his family. Fishing at the side of Canal Lake, he was approached by two boys. When he turned his attention to his fishing rod, one of the boys allegedly ran up and knocked him into the water, which was two metres below. The victim's wife, who along with his son and daughter watched the attack unfold, chased and caught the boy and then called the OPP.
Still, a criminal-assault charge in this case is somewhat surprising. Officers typically have a great deal of discretion to either arrest or caution young suspects. But with the scrutiny of the Toronto media and the Human Rights Commission, as well as governments pledging these attacks will be taken seriously, the police may feel they have no choice but to lay charges.
While the authorities have been cracking down, prosecutors have been criticized for easing up. Last week another high-profile assault prosecution came to a sudden and - in the eyes of the Chinese community - unsatisfactory end.
Scott MacEachern, a 21-year-old business student from Georgina, had been charged with three separate attacks on Asian fishermen in York region during the summer of 2007. In each case, he had allegedly shoved someone into the water. Mr. MacEachern pled guilty to only one of the charges, the others were dropped, and he walked free with a sentence of 12 months probation.
"I'm shocked that he was let go," said Mike Ma, co-ordinator of the Peterborough Community and Race-Relations Committee. The news of the sentence was splashed on the front pages of Chinese-Canadian newspapers, and call-in shows lit up with angry responses. York police said they did their best, but witnesses in some cases couldn't identify the accused.
Mr. Ma, who has lived in Canada nearly all his life, said he worries about his own safety now when he fishes in the area outside Peterborough.
"My sister and brother-in-law and their family came to visit me a few weeks ago and we went fishing," he said. "The whole time in the back of my mind I'm thinking, 'Am I safe?' because of the way I look."
Very few locals are willing to speak on the record for fear of being branded as racists. But they say their complaints are legitimate: Many Asian day-trippers are fishing without a licence, trespassing on private property and ignoring catch limits. Some of the fishing is happening at night, which can only mean they're up to no good and the catch is being sold in Toronto's Chinatown the following morning.
In their view, a centuries-old local fishery is being depleted by outsiders, and the Ministry of Natural Resources is doing nothing to stop it. Confronting the fishermen, pushing them in the water, spraying graffiti - such as the message on a Hastings, Ont., bridge that read "Fuck You Nips!!, fish thieves" - are all misguided but understandable attempts to redress injustice, they argue.
Mr. Ma said he's still shocked by the number of people who characterize these incidents as youthful pranks or a legitimate conflict while down-playing the racial overtones.
"Why is it that these attacks are uniformly on Asian-Canadians?" he asks. "It's been quite uniform."
The attacks have been concentrated primarily in the Township of Georgina, near Lake Simcoe, and more recently to the east in the Kawartha Lakes area. While Toronto has a visible minority population of 45 per cent, it's just 3.9 per cent in Georgina, and 1.6 per cent in Kawartha Lakes.
The number of incidents reported to police involving Asian fishermen has declined, from 10 in 2007 to five in 2009 - but the threat hasn't abated.
This week a Toronto woman born in the Philippines was fishing at a Pigeon Lake resort when she was approached by three men who demanded to know what she was catching and whether she had a licence - typical harassment many Asian fishers describe. The police said the woman fled the area and called for help. The OPP said the incident "may have involved physical contact," but they didn't have sufficient grounds to lay an assault charge.
They later issued a press release asking people who fish not to resort to vigilante enforcement. Concerns should be taken up with natural resources officers, they said.
Ontario's Natural Resources Minister Donna Cansfield said one of the most important steps taken by her ministry was to meet with the Asian anglers association and have the province's fishing regulations translated into Cantonese to prevent misunderstandings.
"Obviously there has been some level of discomfort in the communities - both communities - it's not one or the other," Ms. Cansfield said. "We live in a very cosmopolitan world, especially in Ontario, and we have to find ways and means of how we live together."
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