McGill requests 'police assistance' over pro-Palestinian encampment
McGill University says it has 'requested police assistance' about the pro-Palestinian encampment on its lower field.
The number of asylum seekers entering Canada between formal border crossings has surged to the highest point since the government started tracking them in 2017, as dropped pandemic restrictions enable more travel and conflict and catastrophe displace people in many parts of the world.
In the first eight months of 2022, Royal Canadian Mounted Police intercepted 23,358 asylum seekers crossing into the country at unofficial entry points, 13 per cent more than all of 2017, when an influx of border-crossers at Roxham Road, near the Quebec-New York border, made international headlines.
The surge in irregular entries comes as Canada prepares to defend at the Supreme Court the Safe Third Country Agreement with the United States under which it turns back asylum seekers trying to cross at regular ports of entry.
Because of this agreement asylum-seekers cross between ports of entry and turn themselves in to police to pursue refugee claims. Canada is trying to extend the agreement so it applies across the entire land border.
The influx could be as simple as pent-up demand following pandemic border restrictions Canada lifted last fall, said University of Ottawa immigration law professor Jamie Chai-Yun Liew.
"I think it's like any travel: People are just on the move again."
But immigration experts say the rise is another sign that when countries like Canada and the U.S erect barriers to orderly entry, displaced people will turn to other modes.
If Canada does not want to deal with irregular crossers, it should scrap the agreement that bars them from crossing at regular entry points, said Janet Dench, executive director at Canadian Council for Refugees, which is taking the Canadian government to court.
"The Safe Third Country Agreement violates people's rights and needs to be torn up because of that. But also, from a very practical perspective, tearing up the Safe Third Country Agreement would mean that Roxham Road would be closed down."
Earlier this year, the federal government transported 1,922 asylum seekers to neighboring Ontario after the Quebec government said it could not handle the volume.
Lawyer Pierre-Luc Bouchard has been run off his feet with what he says is the biggest summer-fall season he has seen. Bouchard has about 140 active refugee files, one file per family, from countries ranging from Ghana, Colombia and Chad to Venezuela, he told Reuters.
Bouchard is frustrated at the long wait for his clients to secure their work permits, leaving them on social assistance.
(Reporting by Anna Mehler Paperny; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
McGill University says it has 'requested police assistance' about the pro-Palestinian encampment on its lower field.
Donald Trump was held in contempt of court Tuesday and fined US$9,000 for repeatedly violating a gag order that barred him from making public statements about witnesses, jurors and some others connected to his New York hush money case.
A wrong-way crash on Highway 401 in Whitby, Ont. last night has left four people dead, including an infant, Ontario’s police watchdog says.
A new cancer treatment recently approved in Canada promises to cut treatment time down to just minutes, but experts have differing opinions on whether it's what's best for patients.
Air Canada has paused a new seat selection fee for travellers booked on the lowest fares just days after implementing it.
Canada's GDP rose 0.2 per cent in February, driven by a rebound in transportation and warehousing, which saw the largest recorded month-to-month rise in over a year at 1.4 per cent.
A new Canadian dental care program is offering the hope of free care to millions, but while 1.7 million people have signed up for the plan, only about 5,000 dentists have done the same.
Residents in the area of Gaston Road in Dartmouth, N.S., are being asked to shelter in place as police search for an armed suspect.
An ongoing municipal strike, court battles and revolt by half of council has prompted the province to oust the mayor and council in Black River-Matheson.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.
The lawyer for a residential school survivor leading a proposed class-action defamation lawsuit against the Catholic Church over residential schools says the court action is a last resort.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.
A property tax bill is perplexing a small townhouse community in Fergus, Ont.
When identical twin sisters Kim and Michelle Krezonoski were invited to compete against some of the world’s most elite female runners at last week’s Boston Marathon, they were in disbelief.
The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.