Canada airlifted 18 vulnerable Canadians out of Haiti by helicopter to the Dominican Republic on Monday, and Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly says more will be offered the chance to evacuate in the coming days.
Haiti has been in a profound security crisis since mid-2021, when gangs took control of key infrastructure and started violent turf wars that have led to the collapse of most of its medical and food systems.
“Gangs are terrorizing the streets; women and children are scared of getting out of their homes,” Joly told a news conference.
The chaos escalated earlier this month when Ariel Henry, Haiti’s unelected prime minister, visited Kenya to confirm plans for an international military intervention led by police from the east African country.
Gangs freed violent prisoners and took over the international airport in Port-au-Prince, preventing Henry from returning home. The Dominican Republic, which shares an island with Haiti, also turned him away.
Two weeks ago, Henry agreed to resign once a transitional council is formed to oversee the intervention.
Canada has been advising Canadians against travelling to Haiti for two years, but Joly said the government felt compelled to help people escape when all commercial flights to the country were cancelled.
“The difference is now the airport is not functional, the security situation is untenable at the airport,” she said. “That is why in these circumstances it is important for us to be able to bring Canadians to safety.”
The assisted evacuation is only available to people with a valid Canadian passport because of strict eligibility requirements in the Dominican Republic, she added.
Canadian permanent residents, citizens without a valid passport, and the foreign family members of Canadians are not eligible to be airlifted. The government is working on alternatives, Joly said.
“We’ll take it, basically, one day at a time.”
The helicopter ride will be provided at no cost, but Joly’s office said it would be up to individual Canadians to pay for their accommodation in the Dominican Republic and for their travel back to Canada, for which Ottawa provides loans.
There are close to 3,000 Canadians officially registered as remaining in Haiti, said Julie Sunday, assistant deputy minister of consular, security, and emergency management.
However, fewer than 300 have requested assistance to leave the country, including permanent residents and relatives of Canadians.
Fewer still — less than 100 of those asking for help, Joly said — are Canadian citizens with valid passports. Only about 30 of those have indicated they were “travel ready,” Sunday said.
“We’re prioritizing the most vulnerable Canadians — for example, those who have a medical condition or those who have children,” Joly said.
She said Canadians would be evacuated from a “green zone,” a safe location in Haiti. Canadians in past evacuations elsewhere have opted against immediately evacuating for fear of danger reaching an airlift point, Joly added, noting that gangs are taking over empty houses.
Earlier this month, Canada airlifted most of its diplomats from its embassy in Port-au-Prince to the Dominican Republic, where they continue to work remotely because of the increasingly volatile security situation.
Canada’s ambassador to Haiti, André François Giroux, will remain in the country, Joly reiterated Monday. Sunday said that staff working at the embassy can still help issue emergency travel documents to Canadians who lack passports.
Ottawa remains focused on helping Haitians find a way out of the crisis and she reiterated that solutions can’t be imposed by foreigners.
“We know that the Haitian people need us,” Joly said in French.
Canada has also deployed diplomatic and consular staff to assist with the evacuation of vulnerable Canadians from the country.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 25, 2024.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
