The federal government has suspended the deportation of a mother and her three children living in Trois-Rivières, Que., shortly after the United Nations Human Rights Committee asked it to.
Arlyn Huilar and her three kids, who are six, nine and 11 years old, were scheduled to be deported to the Philippines Tuesday. Her husband and their father, David Ajibade, is still in Nigeria, where he was deported late last month.
Sunday, when Huilar and the children got home from attending church, they learned the Canada Border Services Agency had cancelled their deportation pending a ruling on whether they can become Canadian permanent residents on humanitarian grounds.
“It was a shock and [the kids] were jumping for joy,” Huilar said over the phone to CBC Monday.
The family’s lawyer, Sabrina Kosseim, made a request for the UN Human Rights Committee to intervene in the family’s case immediately after Ajibade was deported June 28.
The committee informed her late last week that they had accepted her request and would be asking Canada to stay the deportation of Huilar and the children.
“It’s clear there are threats to fundamental rights in this case,” Kosseim said, namely, the children’s physical and mental health rights.
The family had applied for refugee status in 2019, but were rejected last year. Huilar is from the Philippines and Ajibade is from Nigeria.
The couple met online and were married in Nigeria in 2009. Their children faced racism and hostility in the Philippines, then narrowly avoided a kidnapping in Nigeria, Kosseim said.
The family’s hope of finding a safe haven in Canada ended when the CBSA ordered their deportation to two different continents this spring.
Hours before Carlsen, the youngest child, was set to be deported with his father to Nigeria — while the rest of the family was going to be sent to the Philippines — a federal court judge ruled he should not be separated from his two older siblings and mother.
‘It’s not fully over’
Ajibade was then deported alone to his home country and the deportation of Huilar and their children was delayed.
Kosseim had argued in court that separating a six year old from his older siblings, in addition to separating the family as a whole, was unusually cruel.
In an interview Monday, the lawyer said Ajibade was struggling without his family.
“He is obviously very relieved for them that they’ll be able to stay in Canada for the time being. But it remains that the family is still separated right now. It’s a family that’s always been united, always been together. So we are hoping that they will be reunited not too long from now,” Kosseim said.
Huilar, Ajibade and their children arrived in Canada via Roxham Road in May 2019 and soon settled in Trois-Rivières, a city 130 kilometres east of Montreal. As they awaited news of their refugee claim, the parents moved up in their jobs. They made friends at their local church and the children settled into French school.
Ajibade, who is an engineer by training and worked as a foreman in Quebec, said Trois-Rivières was the first place the family had felt at home. In March, they applied for permanent residency on humanitarian grounds.
But those applications can take two years to process, and they were still waiting when Ajibade was deported to Nigeria last month.
“I know it’s not fully over, but to me it’s like an ounce of opportunity and hope and it’s worth holding on to,” Huilar said.
The federal government did not immediately respond to CBC News’s requests for comment before publication Monday.
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.
