Haiti

Friday March 3, 2023

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday March 3, 2023

Bused out of Quebec, francophone asylum seekers struggle to get medical services

Over the phone, the woman’s voice is regretful but hurried — she says she’s sorry, but if the French-speaking migrant on the other end of the line cannot find someone to translate English, the doctor won’t see him for the medical exam he needs in order to claim asylum in Canada.

March 24, 2022

CBC News obtained a recording of the phone conversation the man says took place Wednesday in Niagara Falls, Ont. 

“It’s not possible to speak with the doctor if you can’t speak English,” the woman tells him in French. “You have to find someone at your hotel to help you.” 

“I don’t know anyone here,” Guirlin — whose last name CBC News has agreed to withhold because of his precarious immigration status — replies.

Guirlin and his family are among the more than 5,500 asylum seekers who have been bused by Canada’s government from Quebec’s border with the U.S. to cities in Ontario, including Windsor, Cornwall and Niagara Falls. 

They are also among a number of those — mostly francophones from Haiti or countries in Africa — for whom the transfer happened against their wishes since they could not afford to find a place to stay immediately. Their plan all along was to live in Quebec.

February 17, 2023

Guirlin, his wife, who is six months pregnant, and their four-year-old son ended up in Niagara Falls on Feb. 14. Originally from Haiti, the family had been struggling to make ends meet in Brazil, when they decided to travel north through a dozen countries to make their way to Canada. 

When they arrived on Feb. 11 via Roxham Road, the popular irregular border crossing south of Montreal, they were asked by immigration officers where they planned to live in Canada.

“I said we want to stay in Montreal because I don’t speak English and my wife doesn’t either, and she needs to have medical appointments for the pregnancy,” Guirlin said in a phone interview Thursday. 

He says they were told in the following days there was no space for them in Montreal, and that they were being sent to Ontario. They boarded a bus with roughly 40 other asylum seekers from a number of other countries last Tuesday. For now, the government has put them up in a hotel. (CBC) 

 

Friday August 11, 2017

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday August 11, 2017

Canada’s Army Builds Tent Camp For Haitian Asylum-Seekers Arriving From U.S.

Featuring a Fire and Fury gallery of Donald Trump cartoons

The Canadian military is building a temporary shelter near the border with the United States, to accommodate hundreds of asylum-seekers crossing illegally from the U.S. into Quebec.

June 2, 2017

Most of those arrivals are Haitians who were admitted to the U.S. after the earthquake in 2010, and whose future legal status in America is unclear.

Dan Karpenchuk, reporting for NPR, says the Canadian service members are only building the camp, not remaining afterward to staff it.

“The camp will hold as many as 500 seekers, about the number of asylum-seekers waiting to be processed,” Karpenchuk reports. “The soldiers will also set up lighting [and] heating, and install flooring. They will not have security roles.”

May 11, 2017

The CBC reports that currently, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have a tent set up at the border to handle processing — but there are no beds. People spend two to three days waiting on benches and chairs.

The soldiers, at the request of Public Safety Canada, are assembling a camp at a nearby “converted private campsite,” the CBC reports.

“Setting up tents, this is something obviously we’re quite familiar with, we’re pretty good at doing this,” Maj. Yves Desbiens, the spokesperson on the ground for the Canadian Armed Forces, told the Canadian broadcaster. “But in terms of these capacities, this is not something we do often.”

February 10, 2017

The tent camp on the border is just the first stop for asylum-seekers.

“After they’re processed, the asylum-seekers will be bused to Montreal, where they will be put up in other temporary accommodation, including the Olympic Stadium, a former convent and now a facility at one of the city’s hospitals,” Karpenchuk says.

As we reported last week, Montreal’s Olympic Stadium has just recently been pressed into service to house asylum-seekers, after normal facilities were overwhelmed. But it’s only a temporary option, since the stadium won’t be available during upcoming events.

June 29, 2016

The surge has, by all accounts, been dramatic. Last week, a spokesperson for the provincial government organization that helps asylum-seekers told the CBC that the group helped about 180 people last July — and that more than 1,000 people crossed the border this July.

Immigration Canada told the CBC on Wednesday that crossings at one point along the border have quadrupled in just the past two weeks. (Source: NPR) 

 

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January 20, 2010

L E T T E R S

Re: Editorial cartoon, Jan. 18

I liked Graeme MacKay’s cartoon depicting Hamilton’s Mayor and the building inspection team and the reference to Haiti. There are many places in Hamilton that look earthquake damaged.

Too, MacKay could have done better had he shown an empty chair for an inspector off work on stress leave.

R.S. Barrons,
Hamilton

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Re: Editorial cartoon, Jan. 18 If there is a relief organization out there that can use my “expertise” for relief efforts in Haiti, I will gladly go to try to help. Perhaps cartoonist MacKay will help fund the costs.

Rick Kuipers,
City of Hamilton building inspector

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Nice cartoon today! I howled.

Matt Jelly on Facebook