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How to build a better Canada after COVID-19: The power of everyday actions can bring about change
Sunday, 09 August 2020 00:24 Written by theconversation 
Jocelyn Thorpe, University of Manitoba
This story is part of a series that proposes solutions to the many issues exposed during the coronavirus pandemic and what government and citizens can do to make Canada a better place.
I teach in gender studies, where I spend time with university students discussing critical issues that shape our society — power, violence, racism and colonialism. My students learn that histories are complicated and alive in the present.
Yet at a recent Black Lives Matter march in Winnipeg, I was struck by two simple messages: one protestor wore a T-shirt that read “Be kind” and another walked by with a sign saying: “Get your knee off our necks.”
The message to “be kind” seemed to gesture to another world, a world in which one white knee could not possibly have the power to end one Black life. The second message drove home the fact that we live nowhere close to such a world.
Instead, we live in a world where “normal” means systemic injustice that has become only more intense and apparent during COVID–19.
We live in a world where white women like me don’t have to teach our white kids to keep our hands on the wheel if stopped by police. We don’t have to tell them never to talk back, always to agree, always to do exactly as they are told. We can say to them that they need to treat others with kindness and respect — and that they deserve and can expect the same in return.
Make use of power
Canada could be better in a post-COVID-19 world if all of us recognize and make use of the power of our everyday actions toward social justice. We cannot be comfortable in a world where some of us are afforded kindness and respect, taught to expect it, and others are not.
During the pandemic, we have seen our ability to act in alignment with public health measures. As a result, we have all contributed to the success of reducing the spread and severity of this virus. But unlike COVID-19, injustice does not spread by accident. Injustice is about power: who has access to it and who does not.
The norm of present-day inequities stems from a history of colonialism in which white men with access to power built systems that benefited them at the expense of others.
Whether we look historically at the Canadian government starvation policy that helped to clear the Prairies of Indigenous people to make room for white settlers, the 200 years of slavery in Canada or the legal enforcement of women’s subordinate status, we find a common theme: only propertied white men counted as fully human, and therefore they were the only ones who received rights, recognition and respect.
Altering the status quo
Although such an idea is counter to the equality touted in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, we witness its continued effects in multiple forms — for example, in the climate of anti-Black racism and ongoing violence against Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people. Yet we also see a groundswell of support for Black Lives Matter in the wake of the killing of George Floyd. In large enough numbers, people with access to less power can alter the status quo.
It is crucial to name a problem — in this case, systemic injustice — in order to make it visible. The naming is important because it allows us to understand that the violence follows a pattern. But naming alone does not make change happen. Action does.
Calls for “systemic change” seem big and complicated, like the histories that brought us to this moment. But the systems that need changing do not exist in some separate realm. They are made up of people who make decisions every day, decisions about how to act and about who matters.
Similarly, people’s experiences of unjust structures are not structural. They are personal, the result of the actions of others — actions rooted in the belief that some people matter more than others. Actions could equally be rooted in another belief: the belief that everyone is equally human. No one is an object and so no one should be objectified.
Everyone is equally human
We do need systemic change. We cannot accept a status quo of racialized and gendered violence. We are not equally implicated in the structures that operate unjustly, but we all do interact daily with other people (even if those interactions take place at a physical distance these days). Those interactions give us the opportunity to act in line with the belief that everyone is equally human, and equally entitled to the rights, recognition and respect historically granted only to the few.
It has taken centuries to build up unjust structures. They will not disappear quickly. Yet it is also true that unjust structures require unjust beliefs to hold them up. Taking apart the structures goes hand in hand with challenging the beliefs.
Millions of protesters have stood up against the institutionalized belief that Black lives do not matter. Black Lives Matter. It is incumbent upon all of us, particularly those with access to power, to act in alignment with a status quo of justice and respect.
“Be kind.” It’s true that it is a simple imperative. It might be a good place to start.
Be kind. Learn our collective history. Act in kind and respectful ways, every day. End the violence.
Jocelyn Thorpe, Associate Professsor, Women's and Gender Studies, History, University of Manitoba
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
How we mourn the victims of tragedies depends on their citizenship status
Friday, 07 August 2020 14:16 Written by theconversation 
Raluca Bejan, Dalhousie University
Some migrants are welcomed into the nation while others are not. The pandemic throws into sharp relief who is considered worthy and who is not in Canada.
This differentiation was also made clear by the Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 incident. On Jan. 8, 2020, Flight PS752 crashed shortly after taking off in Iran, killing everyone on board. The tragedy highlighted how some migrants are welcomed into Canada while others are not.
Unskilled migrants often arrive as temporary foreign workers or undocumented individuals. They are viewed by Canadian immigration policy as good enough to work yet not good enough to stay. They enter on limited work contracts and are barred from qualifying for permanent residency status. In effect, their entry is premised on their expected departure and future exclusion.
On the other hand, skilled migrants — like engineers, academics and business executives — are selectively recruited into Canada on the basis of their skills through a points system, where credentials, language proficiency and age are highly valued. Young, educated and English- or French-speaking migrants are most desired.
Professional gains and losses
Labelled the “best and the brightest,” skilled immigrants are considered well-equipped to fully participate in Canadian society, contribute to the Canadian economy and strengthen the Canadian national fabric. Their presence is celebrated and their loss is mourned.
Of the Iranian Canadian passengers on board Flight PS752, most were skilled professionals: academics, scientists, doctoral students and medical trainees. The public outcry around the deaths focused on the loss of these professionals for Canada.
In other words, it is the Canadian state’s losses that were mourned. The national frame of reference was stretched to include future contributors to Canadian national development.
Iranians were not woven into the Canadian national fabric prior to this tragic event. A 2017 survey conducted by the Iranian-Canadian Congress found that up to 65 per cent of Iranian Canadians have faced racism and discrimination in workplace environments, social settings and at border crossings. As skilled professionals, however, the loss of their potential contributions to Canada was given due consideration in the wake of the Flight PS752 crash.
Unequal grief and mourning
Although foreigners can become citizens, they are rarely seen — symbolically speaking — as equal to those born in Canada.
For example, the public fundraising campaigns for the victims of Flight PS752 struggled to raise money when compared to the 2018 campaign for the Humboldt Broncos hockey players. While the Canada Strong Campaign managed to exceed its $1.5 million funding goal, smaller-scale, local efforts organized mainly to cover funeral and memorial costs, received low support.
One effort started by community member Shayesteh Majdina in Edmonton raised $68,794 — a $20,000 donation from the family that owns West Edmonton Mall represented 40 per cent of the entire amount. A similar crowdfunding push in Vancouver has not raised any funds.
By contrast, a campaign for 15 Humboldt Broncos hockey players killed in the 2018 bus crash raised over $15 million. This was one of the biggest ever fundraising campaigns hosted on the GoFundMe platform, second only to the MeToo initiative that year.
Within 24 hours, the Humboldt Broncos fundraiser had raised $1 million; by the fourth day it reached $6 million, and within two weeks had reached $15.2 million. This is approximately 15 times more than the $885,602.94 that the Canada Strong Campaign managed to raise for the Iranian victims in over a month. Although an agreement from the federal government intended to match collected funds up to $1.5 million, the matching of state donations was set to end on February 21, 2020, at a time when the campaign sat at half of its funding goal.
These markedly different outpourings of grief reflect the different ways that immigrants are seen in relation to symbols of Canadian culture: the Humboldt Broncos represent a Canadian national symbol.
National subjects and national values
To attend a hockey game in Canada is to participate in a Canadian pastime, similar to celebrating Canada Day, skiing in the winter or shopping for clothes at Roots. Such social and cultural practices become markers of Canadian pride. Their ideological function is not only about maintaining national culture, but also about differentiating the outsiders from the insiders, the newcomers from the Canadians.
In the citizenship study guide “Discover Canada: The Rights and Responsibilities of Citizenship,” hockey is shown as the national winter sport. Anyone who has ever attended a hockey game can recognize its associations with national pride, from people standing up during the anthem to the public recognition of Canadian soldiers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Hockey provides a manifestation of the socio-cultural universality of Canadian identity. Several professional hockey teams, such as the Pittsburgh Penguins, Toronto Maple Leafs and Calgary Flames, as well as the Calgary Hitmen Hockey Club, donated to the Humboldt Broncos fundraising campaign. There is no public information easily available to indicate that these teams donated to the Canada Strong incentive in support of the Iranian plane crash victims.
Skilled immigrants might be potentially included in Canada, but their inclusion and their value as subjects within the nation depends on their contributions. They can never be the type of nationals that signify what Canada is all about. Despite being highly educated and producing an economic benefit to the country, skilled immigrants can never embody the true spirit of national pride.
We might grieve their economic loss to the country — as in the case of the victims of Flight PS752 — and yet we do not grieve for them in the same ways as those born into the ideological confines of the Canadian nation-state.
Raluca Bejan, Assistant Professor of Social Work, Dalhousie University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Nigerian Lady, Kaosiso Ezibe, cleared of Fraud in Canada
Wednesday, 05 August 2020 23:43 Written by newsexpressngr.A Nigerian lady, Kaosiso Ezibe, was on March 10, 2020 cleared of the fraud charges against her by the Ontario Court of Justice, Canada as all the charges were withdrawn.
She was arrested in Canada on July 24, 2019 by Toronto Police Service on six-count charges bordering on fraud, laundering proceeds of a crime and possessing the proceeds of a crime.
A certified copy of the court judgement obtained by our correspondent showed that all the charges were dropped as she the facts established that she was a victim of the fraud she was accused of.
In a telephone interview, Kaosiso Ezeibe expressed delight at the outcome of the matter, while appreciating God for vindicating her. She said she was shocked with her arrest, stating that she had never been involved in any kind of crime because of the good upbringing she received from her family. She said she prayed fervently to God to vindicate her for the sake of her family name.
“I cannot thank God enough for bringing the truth to limelight and vindicating me. From the day I was accused and arrested, I did not stop praying and believing God for victory. I have never been involved in crime and never will. The good upbringing I received from my family and the good reputation of my family are so dear to me that I cannot be involved in crime,” she said.
She thanked her parents who stood firmly by her and the investigators who ensured that the fraudsters were tracked and caught. She then urged Nigerian youths in diaspora to eschew all forms of evil, crime and violence while holding on to the true virtues of hard work, diligence and civility.
28-year-old woman becomes the first COVID-19 survivor to receive a double-lung transplant in the US
Tuesday, 04 August 2020 06:33 Written by OASESNEWSA 28 year old woman, known as Mayra Ramirez has become the very first Coronavirus survivor to receive a double lung transplant in the United States.
Ramirez, experiencing Coronavirus symptoms, arrived at the Northwestern Memorial Hospital's emergency room on April 26 and within minutes, her terrible experience with the disease began.
"All I remember was being put to sleep as I was being intubated and then six weeks of complete nightmares," she told CNN on Monday August 3, 2020.
"Some of the nightmares consisted a lot of drowning and I attribute that to not being able to breathe."
According to her, Covid-19 had irreversibly damaged her lungs and her other organs were beginning to fail.
Ramirez spent more than a month on a ventilator and doctors told her parents who flew from North Carolina to say a final goodbye to her as they were unsure if she would survive.
But doctors, gave a her a clinger of hope; A double-lung transplant was the only thing that could save her life.
"Without the transplant, she would not have made it," Dr. Ankit Bharat, the chief of Thoracic Surgery at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago said.
The fact that she was young and had no bad medical history, made her survival chances higher.
"I looked at myself and I couldn't recognize my own body," Ramirez said, after waking up in the hospital following her procedure.
"I couldn't talk, I could barely lift a finger, I couldn't move. I was in a lot of pain, I was very confused."
"This is not a hoax," she said. "This virus is real, it happened to me."mm
Two months since the surgery and Ramirez says she's still weak and struggling to breathe even as she rehabilitates at home.
Ramirez is now the first person in the US to have received a lung transplant while sick with Covid-19 according to the Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
About 4.6 million people in the US have been infected with Covid-19.
Popular News
Stella Immanuel busted as a quack COVID-19 doctor
Saturday, 01 August 2020 11:26 Written by PM NEWSDr Stella Immanuel has been exposed as a fraud after claiming that the discredited hydroxychloroquine drug is a tested cure for COVID-19.
Immanuel and a group of Trump frontline doctors went to Washington D.C. where Immanuel gave an impassioned speech testifying that the drug is efficacious.
She claimed she had treated 350 patients in her clinic and called all doubters scientific fraud.
But that is what she is being called, as a torrent of reactions followed her testimony.
One commenter wondered how she became a COVID-19 doctor when she is licensed to be a paediatrician.
In one of the reactions to her video statement, she was linked to a fraudulent multi-level marketing VoIP phone scam 5 linx in 2008. She claimed then to be a millionaire in her promotion of the scam. The owners of 5 linx were indicted and sent to prison.
Meanwhile, Facebook has blocked her account and Youtube has also blocked the video as it violates its rules.
Facebook blocked her for conveying misleading information about COVID-19 cure. In response, Immanuel said: “Hello Facebook put back my profile page and videos up or your computers with start crashing till you do. You are not bigger that God. I promise you. If my page is not back up face book will be down in Jesus name.”
Stella Immanuel speaks in Washington D.C.
Here are samples of Twitter reactions to Immanuel:
But Stella Immanuel also has her supporters too, such as President Trump. Read their tweets:
Canadian court correctly finds the U.S. is unsafe for refugees
Sunday, 26 July 2020 01:20 Written by theconversation 
Sean Rehaag, York University, Canada and Sharry Aiken, Queen's University, Ontario
This week, Canada’s Federal Court ruled that the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA) is unconstitutional.
Under the agreement, refugee claimants entering Canada at land ports-of-entry can be returned directly to the United States without being allowed to make a refugee claim in Canada. The agreement was a quid pro quo for concessions offered to the U.S. after 9/11, including a “smart border” accord, enhanced information-sharing and joint border enforcement.
Advocates for refugees have long argued that the STCA violates international refugee law and Canadian constitutional law. Differences between the refugee determination systems in Canada and the U.S., as well as differences in the rights enjoyed by refugee claimants in both countries, mean that some people who would be recognized as refugees in Canada would be denied protection south of the border.
In other words, the U.S. is not “safe” for at least some refugees.
Trump’s election worsened situation
These arguments took on an especially urgent tone after Donald Trump’s election as American president in November 2016.
The Trump administration has implemented many racist, xenophobic and anti-refugee policies to dissuade people from seeking asylum in the U.S. For example: Harsh detention practices (including detention of young children), family separation, restrictions on the refugee definition (such as excluding people facing gender-based violence), militarization of the border and of course attempting to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
This prompted a growing chorus of voices — from law professors to human rights organizations and political parties — to call on Canada to suspend or withdraw from the STCA.
Their arguments are persuasive. How can a country be considered safe for refugees if it locks up refugee kids in cages or refuses refugee protection to women facing gender-based violence?
Closing the loophole
Unfortunately, these voices have been ignored. Instead, worried about critiques from the right about weakness on border control, the federal government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau contemplated trying to get the U.S. to extend the agreement to the entire border — not just official land ports of entry.
The U.S., however, has little incentive to expand the agreement, which would block even more asylum-seekers from leaving the United States for Canada, and there has been little movement on this front.
This inaction left the matter to the courts. Lawyers for refugee and human rights organizations, as well as refugee claimants, went to Federal Court, arguing that the STCA is unconstitutional.
Federal Court Justice Ann Marie McDonald agreed with them.
Her decision focused narrowly on what happens to refugee claimants who are turned away under the STCA.
And what happens is atrocious. Refugee claimants are handed over to American officials who detain them for weeks. Conditions of detention are inhumane. Solitary confinement is common. Access to lawyers is restricted, which makes it harder to secure refugee protection.
Worse still, these are intentional policies aimed at making the experience of seeking asylum in the U.S. so traumatic that others will be discouraged from making the same journey.
As Justice McDonald held:
“The evidence clearly demonstrates that those returned to the U.S. by Canadian officials are detained as a penalty …. penalization of the simple act of making a refugee claim is not in keeping with the spirit or the intention of the STCA or the foundational conventions upon which it was built.”
No safety for refugees
In other words, U.S. immigration detention practices violate international refugee law and undermine the basic premise of the STCA that both countries are safe for refugees.
So there we have it. A Canadian court has determined that American detention practices are “grossly disproportionate” and “shock the conscience,” and that Canada cannot be complicit by sending refugee claimants to the U.S. to face these practices without violating constitutional rights to life, liberty and security of the person.
The question now is what comes next.
The Federal Court suspended its declaration of constitutional invalidity for six months to allow Canadian Parliament to respond.
The government could appeal the decision. If that happens, the STCA will be tangled up in the courts for years — during which time more asylum-seekers like Nedira Mustefa, one of the applicants in the case, will find themselves in solitary confinement in U.S. detention centres. Mustefa told the court she felt “scared, alone and confused,” with no sense of when she would be released, during her time in American detention.
Alternatively, the Canadian government can send a clear signal that it cares about constitutional and international law, heed Justice McDonald’s findings and take steps to immediately suspend the STCA.
The detention practices that she focuses on in her decision are only one among many ways in which the U.S. has attacked refugee rights. These attacks are mounting. The Trump administration recently proposed reforms that would gut what remains of the American asylum system. Every day that the STCA remains in effect, Canada continues to be complicit in these attacks.
Enough is enough. The STCA must be suspended.
Sean Rehaag, Director, Centre for Refugee Studies & Associate Professor, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, Canada and Sharry Aiken, Associate Professor of Law, Queen's University, Ontario
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
