ImmigrantChildren.ca Archive

Category: Citizenship

  • New citizenship guide for new Canadians

    The Honourable Jason Kenney, Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism today released an updated guide to Canadian Citizenship. Discover Canada: The Rights and Responsibilities of Citizenship.
    The launch of the “study guide” (last published in 1997) was held at the Terry Fox Centre, where Minister Kenney talked about inspiration, fortune and his vision for modern Canada. The announcement – and guide – provide a generous nod to Canada’s military history and major events (the 1997 edition skipped quite a bit of this, including Vimy Ridge, Juno Beach, Dieppe). The guide also does not shy away from some shameful periods in Canada’s past, such as the residential schools for Aboriginal children, the Internment of Japanese Canadians and the Chinese Exclusion Act, but I was disappointed to not see mention of the home children.
    Canadian history must acknowledge the home children – some 100,000 children taken from their homeland and brought to our shores to serve labour needs that Canadians could not or would not take on (sound familiar?). A great many of these children were younger than 10 years old and lived lives of brutality. These children were not adopted in the sense of how we use the word today, but taken, often bought and treated as chattel.  I’ll be lobbying the Canadian Museum of Human Rights to include an exhibit on the home children. Who’s with me?

  • Child rights and discrimination

    The Child Rights Information Network (CRIN) has launched a toolkit on the child’s right to non-discrimination. The toolkit/website provides information, resources, and ideas for advocacy to promote children’s right to non-discrimination. While the focus is age-based discrimination, other forms of discrimination (racism, migration status, etc.) are also addressed.

  • Stateless children

    Refugees International presents Futures Denied: Statelessness among infants, children and youth. According to tthe childtrafficking.com listserv, some 11-12 million children, “though born and raised in their parents country of habitual residence” are stateless or without effective nationality.
    Stateless was a concern raised when new citizenship policy, impacting first generation of international adoptees, was introduced by the federal government in the Spring of 2009. The new regulations offered an option to grant immediate Canadian citizenship to adopted children, but put limits or conditions on any children they might have outside of Canada. The rationale for the policy change was to provide an additional option for adoptive parents who were pursuing citizenship status for adopted children through the naturalization process. For more info, including to external links, see the posts at immigrantchildren.ca and chidinterrupted.ca.

  • Putting the culture in multiculturalism

    The Institute for Canadian Citizenship is partnering with Toronto-area cultural institutions, like galleries and museums, in offering new citizens – and their children – passess to local cultural attractions, such as the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Gardiner Museum, the Royal Ontario Museum, Colborne Lodge in High Park, Mackenzie House and many many others.
    As of the end of June, the program has expanded into the Kitchener-Waterloo area.
    For more information, visit Cultural Access Pass.

  • Young Canadian Muslim women

    Status of Women Canada have funded the Canadian Council of Muslim Women to direct a project to assist the integration and inclusion of young Muslim women and girls.
    From the April 2/09 news announcement:

    Status of Women Canada will provide $314,000 for a project called “Being a Canadian Muslim Woman in the 21st Century.” It will focus on equipping young Muslim women to lead and participate in a number of workshops with their educators and non-Muslim and male peers to discuss discrimination, violence and human rights.

    The Council will be working in partnership with two other organizations – the Afghan Women’s Organization of Toronto and YOUCAN.
    A description of the project from the Status of Women website:

    This project will involve seven schools from across Ontario located in Toronto, London, Peel and Waterloo. Muslim girls and their classmates will develop leadership skills as well as knowledge of their rights regarding gender equality, racial equality and how to eliminate violence in their lives. Muslim girls, with the assistance of their educators, non-Muslim and male peers, will form a Steering Committee in each school. These Committees will lead a series of workshops addressing discrimination, violence and human rights. A Steering Committee Coordinator will organize each school to contribute to the formation of a tool for educators. This tool will provide a basis for reacting sensitively and knowledgably to the issues facing young Muslim women in the 21st century.

  • Maclean's interview with Minister Jason Kenney

    Last week’s Maclean’s featured an interview with federal Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, the Honoourable Jason Kenney.
    Kenney reiterated his position favouring interculturalism over multiculturalism and suggests that 2nd generation immigrants – the children of immigrants – are particularly vulnerable to cultural segregation. Quoting Tony Blair, Kenney says “…in our liberal society everyone has a right to be different but a duty to integrate“.
    The editorial this week responds to Kenney’s comments in “Our weak identity isn’t an immigration problem“.
    Related posts on immigrantchildren.ca:

  • Mothering and migration: (Trans)nationalism, globalization & displacement

    Call for papers for a conference from the Association for Research on Mothering (ARM), as posted on the mnchp-l listserv: Mothering and Migration: (Trans)nationalisms, Globalization, and Displacment. The conference will be held February 18-20, 2010 at the University of Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico.
    Submissions are welcome from scholars, students, activists, government agencies and workers, artists, mothers, and others who work or research in the area. Cross-cultural, historical and comparative work is encouraged. Topics can include (but not limited to):
    Representations/images of mothers and migration and (trans)national issues; globalization of motherhood; empowering migrant mothers; reproduction and movement of mother workers; migrant and (trans)national mothers and capitalism; migrant and (trans)national mothers and activism; public policy issues.
    For more information, contact the ARM at arm@yorku.ca or 416.736.2100 ext 60366. Or visit the ARM website. Abstract and bio deadline is Sept 1/09.

  • New citizenship law

    An amendment to the existing Citizenship Act comes into force April 17, 2009. Changes will impact citizenship status on different groups, including children. Here’s the Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) official explanation on the first generation limitation (CIC reports that it will update the page for more information, as questions are raised): 

    Under the current rules, it’s possible for Canadians to pass on their citizenship to endless generations born outside Canada. To protect the value of Canadian citizenship for the future, the new law will – with a few exceptions – limit citizenship by descent to one generation born outside Canada.
    This means that children born to Canadian parents in the first generation outside Canada will only be Canadian at birth if:
    – one parent was born in Canada, or
    – one parent became a Canadian citizen by immigrating to Canada and was later granted citizenship (also called naturalization).
    The rules may also affect children adopted by Canadian parents outside Canada, depending on the way in which the child obtained, or will obtain, their Canadian citizenship. Learn more about the new citizenship law and adoption. 

  • Bernard van Leer annotated bibliography on social inclusion and diversity in early childhood

    The Bernard van Leer Foundation‘s annotated bibliography of resources and publications in social inclusion and diversity is called “Valuing the Learning“.
    The resource is organized in three main sections.
    Section A: Theories, concepts and ways of viewing concerns with resources that mostly focus on theory and key concepts and include the following overlapping sections:

    Diversity, belonging and positive identity, such as inclusion and access, linguistic diversity, relationships, place identity, self-image.
    Children as citizens, child participation, the visibility of children, spaces for children.
    Early Childhood Education and Care as democratic process and the relationship between ECEC and social inclusion, social capital and well-being.

    Section B: Working with children, parents, early childhood practitioners and trainers includes the following:

    Engaging, involving and listening to children.
    Engaging, involving and listening to parents.
    Changing attitudes, behaviours and structures and advocacy strategies. 
    Innovative training and professional development.
    Creating spaces to belong.

    Part C: Information exchange and dissemination of information, including:

    Networking.
    Communicating, through shared knowledge, conferences, publications, translations.
    Researching and documentation.

    Source: Kernan, M. 2008. Valuing the learning: An annotated bibliography of the resources and publications of the Bernard van Leer Foundation and its partners in the area of Social Inclusion and Respect for Diversity (2002-2008). Online Outreach Paper 6. The Hague, The Netherlands: Bernard van Leer Foundation.

  • Early childhood education and racial and ethnic divisions conference, Belgium

    The Joint Learning Initiative on Children and Ethnic Diversity presents Early Childhood Education in Contexts of Racial and Ethnic Divisions Conference, April 29/09 at Ghent University, Belgium.

    “The conference will consist of three to four round table discussions with the experts on common strands about delivering programs of early childhood education in contexts of ethnic division. The experts will meet two days prior to the conference to discuss these strands and will continue their discussion with the audience. Consequently, there will be no programm with distinct individual key-note speeches. Rather, participants will be able to follow in-depth discussions and participate in them”.

    Some of the invited experts include representatives from Universidad Autonoma de Mexico, Hebrew University, UNICEF/OSI/REF, University of Melbourne and the Bernard van Leer Foundation.