Patti Tamara Lenard from the University of Ottawa will be delivering a talk on the ethics of citizen selection of refugees for settlement at the Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto, on January 16, 2019, from 12:30-2pm.

"In this talk, I consider the ethics of one particular way of selecting refugees for resettlement, that is, by giving citizens the driver’s seat in selecting refugees for admission to resettlement. I ask whether it is morally acceptable to permit citizens to name specific refugees for resettlement, under the condition that they are willing to support – financially and emotionally – those whom they name. I argue, ultimately, that there are moral goods that derive from permitting citizens to select refugees for admission, but that they do not outweigh the importance of offering scarce resettlement spots to those who are most in need. Therefore, any refugee admission scheme that permits citizens to select refugees must constrain those who can be named for admission to those who are most in need. I conclude with some proposals for how this can be achieved." - Patti Tamara Lenard 

Registration for the event is now open. 

The final report of the Trans Latinas Rompiendo Barreras (TLRB) project is now available.

​The TLRB project was a collaboration between members of the trans Latina community in Toronto, practitioners at the Centre for the Spanish Speaking Peoples (CSSP), students and researchers from the Global Migration and Health Initiative (GloMHI) and the University of Toronto. 

Given the radical forms of exclusion experienced by trans Latina individuals in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), this program represents a collective search for community resilience through meaningful learning, the promotion of supportive relationships, increased access to resources, and practices of self-care. The project was made up of two main activities, a series of twelve bi-weekly workshops and a monthly self-care and peer advocacy (SPA) drop-in group organized by workshop graduates.

The United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) recently issued a landmark decision condemning Canada for denying access to essential health care on the basis of immigration status based on the case of Ms. Nell Toussaint. The UNHRC has called on Canada to review its national legislation in order “to ensure that irregular migrants have access to essential healthcare to prevent a reasonably foreseeable risk that can result in loss of life”. A number of members of Canada’s health community are signing an open letter, addressed to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Ministers Ginette Taylor and Ahmed Hussen, calling for federal government action around this issue.

Please consider signing the open letter.

Individual and organizational signatures are being collected until Friday, December 14th, 2018, with a plan for wide media release on International Migrants Day (December 18th). Please also share this among your colleagues, but do not share this directly with media, until the final letter with signatories has been released.

If you have any questions, please contact the team leading this initiative.