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According to an article in the Toronto Star, Doug Ford's government is removing the child benefit that assists families on welfare with providing food and clothing for their children.
"The cut, buried in April’s provincial budget, will end the Transition Child Benefit which provides up to $230 per month, per child in families on welfare who are not receiving the Ontario and Canada child benefits, such as refugee claimants." The cut is scheduled to start November 1 and will impact an average of 16,000 children a month province-wide, according to the government.
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According to the CCR, Bill C-97, the federal budget bill, includes changes to the refugee determination system that will put many people at increased risk of being sent back to face persecution, in violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and of Canada’s international human rights obligations.
The Finance Committee was originally scheduled to study most of Bill C-97, including the refugee determination parts. However, thanks to broad advocacy efforts, the refugee provisions in the budget bill (Bill C-97) have been sent for study by the Citizenship and Immigration Committee. Take action by contacting Members of Parliament and Senators to protest at the inclusion of these offensive provisions in a budget bill, where they will not receive the attention they need. Share this document that explains the concerns. An article posted on the Berkeley Media Studies Group Blog highlights how news coverage perpetuates harmful language about immigration.
"A declaration of a 'national emergency' at the border. A 'zero tolerance' policy; creating a crisis of separated and detained families and children. An attack on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and Temporary Protected Status for refugees. These are just a few of the immigration-related developments that have garnered widespread media coverage in recent months." Researchers looked at language used in articles published in 2018 from top national newspapers and determined that on average, "about 15% of articles about immigration contained derogatory, misleading, or racist terms in reference to immigrants." The author concludes that we must put pressure on the media to stop using harmful language about immigrations in order to prevent the stigma the exists around them. According to a Toronto Star article, migrant workers say they endured modern-day slavery in Simcoe County. For over a month, Francisco Urbina Contreras lived in an infested house in Barrie with 30 other Mexican men and women "who were drawn to Canada by the promise of jobs." The former small business owner from northern Mexico faced bed bugs underneath his foam mattress, an unheated attic he shared with four others and the long wait for one of two bathrooms at the Dunlop St. home.
"This is not what we came to this country for, to live and work like animals." "After decades of struggle, the Federal government has announced that migrant Care Workers will have work permits that will allow them to change jobs in the sector, rather than being tied to a single employer. Unlike before, the government has promised that migrant Care Workers will be able to come to Canada with their spouses and children on open work and study permits.
However, an Interim Program has been created based on Care Worker pressure to give permanent resident status to thousands of women who were excluded because of recent unfair rules. But the program is small, and does not include everyone. Care Workers will fight to ensure that as many workers as possible in Canada get their rights. A New Caregiver Program has just been announced, but we have few details. We don’t know when it will begin, what the requirements will be, and if it will have some regressive steps back. Care Workers will keep watch. For that too, they need your support." - Migrant Workers Alliance and the Landed Status Now Campaign New research on the impact of Texas demanding local law enforcement to work with federal immigration individuals found:
They also determined that fears of deportation and family separation negatively impact child and family health.
They propose a public health approach to local law enforcement practices, in order to make sure the health and safety of Rio Grande Valley children and families stay protected. A study by researchers at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health examined the premature birth rate in NYC within US-born and immigrant mothers before and after the 2016 presidential election. The researchers decided to study birth rates as they can reflect population health. Risk factors for premature birth include stress and trauma.
"The new study found rates of preterm births overall have gone up since the election, but the trend is being driven by immigrant groups targeted by the Trump administration, especially Latinas. Non-Hispanic white women born in the US in the same period saw their premature birth rates go down slightly." An opinion piece published in The Globe and Mail by Y.Y. Brandon Chen, Assistant Professor at the University of Ottawa's Faculty of Law, highlights how we must not exclude irregular migrants from healthcare.
Currently, people residing in Canada with irregular legal status are typically not able to access any health benefits and are required to cover the cost of health necessities and emergencies themselves or depend on charities. Mr. Chen conveys that "people who are often mislabelled as 'illegals' are actually a diverse group and their life situations are typically much more nuanced than what the simplistic label conveys. Most irregular migrants in Canada have had permission to be here at one point and only fell out of such legal status some time later." The federal government is reviewing a decision of the United Nations Human Rights Committee that says Canada violated the rights of Neil Toussaint, an undocumented irregular migrant, by denying her crucial health care.
The UN Human Rights committee determined in its ruling that "under the optional protocol of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, even illegal aliens have an inherent right to life." The committee's decision said: "Member states cannot make a distinction, for the purposes of respecting and promoting the right to life, between regular and irregular migrants." They ruled Canada should provide Toussaint "adequate compensation for the harm she suffered," and "review its national legislation to ensure that irregular migrants have access to health care." In an article published in the Knowable Magazine, occupational health researcher Marc Schenker of UC Davis discusses the hazards and potential solutions to address why migrants are especially vulnerable to workplace injuries. Schenker describes how the power imbalance between employers and immigrant workers, who have few rights, forces migrants to take risks that put their health in danger. He states several migrant workers lack access to health care since nations restrict the benefits they can receive, or workers are afraid to claim existing services.
"In the United States, the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries found that immigrant workers were 15 percent more likely to be fatally injured on the job than those who were native-born." |
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