CJPME Political Blog, Oct.21, 2016

My organization has joined in the sponsorship of 9 different Syrian refugee families.  Some of the files were submitted as early as 2015; all have been approved; yet not a single refugee has arrived.  There are thousands of sponsoring groups in Canada in a position identical to ours. 

Montreal, September 17, 2015 — Almost 3000 Canadians have signed a petition calling for the resignation of Canada’s Immigration and Citizenship Minister Chris Alexander.  Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) launched the petition about two weeks ago, based on the grassroots anger expressed by many in the wake of the Canadian government’s inaction on the Syrian refugee file.  While the petition acknowledged the tragic death of 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi on a Turkish beach as the catalyst to the anger, the petition was a broader critique on the record of Alexander as Immigration and Citizen Minister. 

CJPME Factsheet 125, published June, 2011: This factsheet looks at Canada’s continued defunding of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinians in the Near East (UNRWA), which provides assistance, protection and advocacy to approximately 4.8 million Palestinian refugees in the Middle East. Until 2009, Canada had been one of the top 20 contributors to UNRWA’s core programs. While UNRWA’s funding grew consistently between 2000 and 2008, Canada was the only donor country to defund UNRWA’s core programs during this period.