For 10-year-old Ryleigh Ridland it’s been a long wait for a family hug — on Canadian soil.
She embraced her new family on Friday upon arriving at Vancouver’s airport, ending the protracted legal fight with both the Canadian and South African governments to get her to this country after the tragic loss of her own mother in South Africa.
“I’m feeling very excited to be here in Canada with my family,” she said, her voice wavering as she recounted the long wait to take both her first plane rides and steps in Canada.
“I’ve been waiting. It was kind of hard.”
Ryleigh and her great-aunt Lisa Pyne-Mercier, 53, left Johannesburg for Paris on Wednesday, then after a layover flew to Vancouver. They then headed home to Shawnigan Lake, B.C., about 30 kilometres north of Victoria.
The girl had been in foster care ever since her mother’s sudden death in 2021.
Ryleigh Ridland, 10, runs to her new family upon arriving at the Vancouver airport on Friday. Four years ago, she was found alone on a remote South African farm, roughly a week after her mother had died. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
Ryleigh, then seven years old, was found all alone in stifling heat on a remote rural property on Jan. 9, 2021, near the South African town of Tzaneen, about 360 kilometres northeast of Pretoria.
Her mother, 31-year-old Jackie Ridland, had died at least eight days earlier of natural causes, according to authorities.
Somehow Ryleigh had survived alone in 40 C heat. She was taken to hospital and treated for malaria, dehydration and malnutrition.
Pyne-Mercier, originally from South Africa herself, fought for four years to bring her to Canada.
She was confirmed as the child’s legal guardian by a South African High Court on June 28, 2022. But Pyne-Mercier says she’s faced many administrative hurdles trying to bring the girl to Canada.
The main sticking points include the fact that the girl’s father still lives in South Africa, and that her mother had named Pyne-Mercier as Ryleigh’s guardian in her will, making the case unusual, as most adoptions involve a more direct family member being named guardian.
WATCH | Victory after 4-year legal battle:
B.C. woman wins fight to bring great niece to Canada from South Africa
2 months ago
Duration 2:06
A B.C. woman is one-step closer to reuniting with her great niece after four years of court battles to get permission for the girl to immigrate to Canada from South Africa.
Pyne-Mercier spent thousands of dollars on a legal push to win guardianship and full parental rights in South Africa so Ryleigh could join her in Canada, but the High Commission of Canada in South Africa turned down Ryleigh’s applications for permanent resident status in Canada and a study permit in January 2023.
The High Commission initially ruled that Ryleigh didn’t meet the definition of an “orphan” under Canadian law since her biological father is alive. Under South African law, however, she was considered an orphan due to abandonment, as her father had waived all parental rights after divorcing Ridland in 2016.
Toronto immigration lawyer Michael Battista took over the case in 2023. He was preparing for a hearing in February when news came that Ryleigh could finally apply for permanent residency.
“The needs of a child sometimes are very urgent, and the international adoption process is cumbersome and expensive and time consuming,” said Battista in an interview Friday.
He said this case illustrates the complexity of international adoptions, especially by non-direct relatives.
“The question for us here in Canada is how how much flexibility are we going to give to those relationships, particularly when there’s a situation of urgency and peril that requires recognition of a family member that can, take care of another family member who’s in trouble,” he said.
Ryleigh runs into the arms of Chloe Pyne-Mercier, her new sister, on Friday. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
Battista used a section of Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to try to get around the Hague Convention — which protects children adopted internationally — and bring Ryleigh to Canada on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.
But he credited Pyne-Mercier as “diligent, tenacious and fearless” for her fight to bring her great-niece home.
“She’s been a model and very inspirational to to me and I think to all parents,” said Battista.
Today, an exhausted Ryleigh said she’s eager to meet new friends and teachers and to play in the snow.
“This is a Canadian treasure right here. The things she’s going to do in this country, for this country, it’s just amazing and we want to say thank you,” said Pyne-Mercier.
She said after such a long journey, there was a moment that stood out.
“What really got me was when the [customs] officer said, ‘Congratulations you are now a Canadian citizen.’ That to me was like, wow, it’s worth it. [Ryleigh] did a happy dance then.”
Ryleigh says she’s eager to meet new friends and teachers and to play in the snow. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
TORONTO – A group of hotel service workers in Toronto is set to hold a rally today outside the Fairmont Royal York to demand salary increases as hotel costs in the city skyrocket during Taylor Swift’s concerts.
Unite Here Local 75, the union representing 8,000 hospitality workers in the Greater Toronto Area, says Royal York employees have not seen a salary increase since 2021, and have been negotiating a new contract with the hotel since 2022.
The rally comes as the megastar begins her series of six sold-out concerts in Toronto, with the last show scheduled for Nov. 23.
During show weekends, some hotel rooms and short-term rentals in Toronto are priced up to 10 times more than other weekends, with some advertised for as much as $2,000 per night.
The union says hotel workers who will be serving Swifties during her Toronto stops are bargaining for raises to keep up with the rising cost of living.
The union represents hospitality workers including food service employees, room attendants and bell persons.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 14, 2024.
WASHINGTON – President-elect Donald Trump’s promise to slap an across-the-board tariff of at least 10 per cent on all imports including from Canada is unlikely to apply to Canadian oil, energy experts are predicting.
The threat of the tariff is causing a lot of concern north of the border, where the Canadian Chamber of Commerce said such a tariff could take a $30-billion bite out of the Canadian economy.
Rory Johnston, a Toronto-based oil market researcher and founder of Commodity Context, said he believes there’s a very small probability that Trump’s fees would apply to Canadian oil, but it is “quite a potentially damaging one.”
“Canada is uniquely vulnerable to market pressure posed by U.S. refineries given our lack of alternative egress,” Johnston said during a panel for the Canadian Global Affairs Institute Wednesday.
Michael Catanzaro, a former Trump energy adviser, told a forum in Washington, D.C. last week that he doesn’t expect Trump’s campaign vision of energy dominance and lower energy costs will exclude Canada.
“We should double down on the fact that the U.S. and Canada together can be this powerful force,” he said at the North American Energy Preeminence Forum hosted by the right-leaning Hudson Institute in Washington on Nov. 8.
More than 77 per cent of Canadian exports go to the U.S. and trade comprises 60 per cent of Canada’s gross domestic product. A significant proportion of that comes from oil and gas.
Canada is also the largest source of U.S. energy imports, and almost all Canadian crude oil exports went to its neighbour in 2023. Most of that makes its way through pipelines to the Midwest, where the key battleground states flipped for Trump on promises of making life more affordable.
Without exemptions for Canadian crude, many experts agree that the cost at American pumps is certain to increase. It’s unlikely the Republican leader would take action that’ll make gas cost more, Johnston said.
Johnston added there could be a situation where Canada sees a boon from Trump’s tariffs. If the Republican leader puts those fees on all oil imports except Canada “that is actually a net good thing for Canadian exports.”
But all of this comes with the caveat that there’s been a rocky relationship between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Trump, and the Liberal government in Canada has been at odds with the Republican politically on a number of fronts including climate action and renewable energy.
Catanzaro recalled a meeting with Canadian officials after Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Climate agreement, an international treaty to cut greenhouse gases, during his first administration — a move the president-elect has promised to repeat.
“They were very hostile to us and to the administration,” Catanzaro said.
The Canadian reaction set the bilateral relationship back for some time, Catanzaro said.
Fen Hampson, a professor of international affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa and co-chair of the Expert Group on Canada-U.S. Relations, said he’s not certain the Republican leader would be willing to give a tariff concession under Trudeau.
Hampson said Trump would know that giving Canada an immediate exemption would provide Trudeau a powerful argument about his ability to negotiate with the president-elect ahead of Canada’s looming election. The Republican leader would not be happy with that outcome, given their notably rocky relationship during Trump’s first administration, Hampson added.
Trump called Trudeau “weak” and “dishonest” after the prime minister criticized the president’s 2018 tariff actions at the G7 summit in Quebec. There was another blow-up when Trudeau and other NATO leaders appeared to be on video talking about a Trump press conference the following year. Trump called the prime minister “two-faced.”
Robert Lighthizer, Trump’s then-trade representative, recounted in his book that U.S.-Canada relations were “at their lowest ebb since the failed American invasion of Upper Canada during the War of 1812.”
The Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement, negotiated under the first Trump administration, will come under review in 2026. Hampson said Trump could use the tariffs, or a threat of them, to force Canada into concessions.
Wilbur Ross, the former U.S. commerce secretary who was involved in the negotiation of that trilateral agreement, recently told CBC that Trump is likely to carve out exemptions for sectors such as Canadian oil and gas.
Eric Miller, president of Rideau Potomac Strategy Group, said politicians run for office in poetry and govern in prose, agreeing that wide-reaching tariffs on Canadian energy were unlikely.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 14, 2024.
HALIFAX – The director of a democracy watchdog says that if Nova Scotia’s electoral officer had more power to levy fines, it would discourage situations such as campaign managers giving Tim Hortons gift cards to voters.
The Liberal party has complained to Elections Nova Scotia after a Progressive Conservative campaign manager in Lunenburg, N.S., handed out gift cards each good for a single cup of coffee at a drive-thru while candidate Susan Corkum-Greek greeted voters as they exited.
The campaign manager resigned earlier this week and issued a statement saying he’d handed out 25 of the $2.07 cards.
Duff Conacher, co-founder of Democracy Watch, says Nova Scotia needs law reform to permit its chief electoral officer to directly order a fine in such cases, rather than lengthy, costly and often ineffective court cases.
“We need to discourage violations of election laws, even small ones, as much as we discourage illegal parking,” he said.
He said there may be significant violations of the Elections Act where the public prosecution service should be called in, but often minor cases in provincial jurisdictions can drift on for months and end up being abandoned.
The Liberals have argued providing the gift cards violated Section 327 of the provincial Elections Act, which prohibits offering “a bribe” to influence a person’s vote.
The party has also filed a petition seeking a declaration by the Nova Scotia Supreme Court that the incident constitutes corrupt practices under the Elections Act. However, a spokesperson for the judiciary said the case won’t be heard until after the Nov. 26 election.
Conacher said law reforms in Nova Scotia could result in similar cases being dealt with summarily, as occurs with parking tickets, particularly if they are isolated and less severe.
Asked about such a potential reform, Tim Houston, leader of the Progressive Conservative Party, said it’s important to keep in mind the person involved in Lunenburg was a party volunteer.
“Let’s not lose sight of the fact these are people volunteering their time to help the process …. I think it’s a very slippery slope to kind of weaponize the legal system against a party volunteer who maybe made a mistake,” he said.
Conacher said he does not think his proposal would discourage people from volunteering for political parties.
“It’s more important to discourage violations of the law. I don’t think you discourage volunteers. It just makes them pay more attention to following the rules, and as a result you get fairer elections,” he said.
The NDP and Liberal leaders didn’t immediately provide comment on the proposed law reform.
Unlike the federal system, in Nova Scotia there is no commissioner appointed to levy administrative penalties under the Nova Scotia Elections Act. Conacher said it’s preferable to have separate roles, with chief electoral officers focusing on running elections while the election commissioner focuses on monitoring any violations of the legislation.
However, he said he recognizes this system is more costly, and that it’s possible for chief electoral officers to take on the function of levying administrative fines as well.
“The lack of penalties for many violations can just encourage more violations. You don’t want to tie up the courts with all these minor things,” said Conacher.
Naomi Shelton, a spokeswoman for Elections Nova Scotia, says the Tim Hortons case remains under investigation.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 14, 2024.
