Refugee/Migrant Crisis

spaminator

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Our asylum system is being abused and needs to change fast
Canada's system for helping refugees is overrun and in need of an overhaul, will the Carney government act?


Author of the article:Brian Lilley
Published Aug 28, 2025 • 3 minute read

If all of the people waiting for their asylum claim to be heard right now were gathered in one place, they would form a city bigger than Kitchener, Regina or Burnaby. It’s just another example of the mess the Liberals have created with our once well-functioning and well-respected immigration and refugee system.


According to the latest government figures, there are 287,786 people waiting to have their asylum claim heard.


On Friday, ministers responsible for immigration in provincial governments across the country will have a virtual meeting with their federal counterpart Lena Metlege Diab. Fixing the asylum system, along with problems with the temporary foreign workers, reducing the number of permanent residents and dealing with illegal immigration are all topics on the table.

Getting a handle on the asylum system must be a priority because right now it is being abused, used as a backdoor into Canada, rather than a system to protect those fleeing war or persecution.

As one example, in 2015 we had just 16,592 asylum claims compared to 55,093 in the first six months of 2025 and 190,039 people claiming asylum last year. Back in 2015, the backlog for cases being heard was just 9,999, not close to 300,000.


Last year, we had 32,563 people claim asylum from India and almost 10,000 in the first six months of this year. India is a fellow democracy with a growing economy. It has challenges, yes, but we should not be seeing a small city of asylum claims from India.

The same holds true for Mexico, a NAFTA partner, a fellow democracy and a regular source of abuse for our asylum system.

In 2010, the Harper government brought in massive changes to the asylum system and Canada’s visa policy. In part it was to deal with false claims being made by people coming into Canada from places like Mexico and Hungary.

Those visa requirements for Mexican nationals effectively shut off the flow of thousands of people falsely claiming asylum from that country. In early 2016 though, the Trudeau government dropped that visa requirement and the flow is people coming north to claim asylum in Canada grew steadily until we saw 25,236 arrive in 2023.


New visa requirements were introduced in February 2024, yet we still saw more than 12,000 asylum claims last year from Mexico and 2,700 in the first six years of 2025.

Our system, meant to help real refugees, is clearly being abused. Just look at the 254 Americans who have claimed asylum so far this year.

The answer to this problem and the backlog isn’t to just speed up processing times. Though that is needed, we need to restructure our system.

Right now, we incentivize people to come to Canada and make fake claims by not having proper guardrails in place such as visa requirements. We incentivize people to come here through the asylum system because they know they can get a work permit and generous benefits, including health care, almost immediately.


Federal health coverage for asylum seekers cost roughly $60 million in 2016 but the government’s latest figures show a cost of $590,405,500 in fiscal year 2023-24.



The federal government has also spent billions on housing for asylum claimants over the past few years from hotel and motel rooms to rent subsidies. Costs also fall on municipalities such as Toronto where at times more than 50% of the city’s roughly 10,000 shelter beds have been occupied by asylum seekers.

The cost to the Ontario government, where one in four welfare recipients is an asylum seeker, is approximately $500 million per year.

The way the system is being run right now is not sustainable and needs to change. The question is whether the Liberals have the will power to change a system they believe is compassionate instead of flawed.
 

spaminator

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Grenadian refugee sentenced to 13 years for 'horrific' kidnapping, sex assault
Ironically, Keyron Moore came to Canada as a refugee in 2006 to escape gang violence in Grenada


Author of the article:Michele Mandel
Published Sep 05, 2025 • Last updated 23 hours ago • 4 minute read

She’s lucky to be alive – but she is still their captive.


On the night of Nov. 1, 2022, after meeting with a friend who had questions about bitcoin, she was heading back to her Porsche Macan parked in a plaza at Yonge St. and Steeles Ave. when a Kia SUV suddenly pulled up.


An armed man in an orange hoodie jumped out and grabbed her. As she screamed and fought, a Good Samaritan ran to her aid but was forced to back off when her kidnapper fired a gun in his direction.

“The sound is imprinted in my brain, in my ears, at random moments,” the woman, whose identity is protected, would later write in her victim impact statement.

“Look what you made me do,” he told her.

Never located and known during the trial only as “orange hoodie guy” or OHG, the kidnapper took her phone, changed her password and turned off her locating. To get her to stop screaming, he hit her in the head with his gun.


It would only get worse.



Driving the getaway car was Keyron Moore, who came to Canada as a refugee in 2006 from Grenada to – cue the irony – escape gang violence.

When they stopped for gas, OHG got out and Moore, also armed with a gun, got into the backseat and demanded oral sex.

“I told him I don’t want to do that. I told him that I’m cooperating,” the woman testified. “And then he said that if I don’t do it, he’ll shoot me, and I said that if he shoots me, then I can’t cooperate, and he won’t get anything. And then he says he doesn’t have to shoot me to kill me. He could just shoot me in my leg.”


After being duct taped and driven around for hours, Moore delivered her to a Barrie home where a chair and rope were waiting for her in the garage, as were three “kids” with “Toronto Jamaican” accents armed with a gun, a lighter, a screwdriver, a hammer – and a heroin needle.

They demanded $1 million in crypto.

They saw that she was Chinese and she drove a Porsche and so she had to have money.


They were prepared to torture her until she handed it over. And so they began.

“They burnt my hair, and they burnt the bottom of my feet,” she testified. “They hammered my feet and then they hammered my hands … they were bashing.”

She still bears the physical and emotional scars from her torture.

“The pain was intense,” she recalled. “The forceful impact on my knees, hands and feet has led to lingering joint pain, stiffness and sensitivity. The pressure and repeated blows may have caused nerve damage, leading to numbness, tingling and unpredictable pain in my extremities.”


Her kidnappers demanded she call people.

“They kept on asking me how much my life is worth,” she said.


To add to the horror, they ran a syringe along her body and up and down her arms and legs. They told her it was filled with heroin and they could kill her with one injection. They then stripped her naked while she was tied to the chair and stuffed a sock in her mouth.

All the while, Moore stood by and watched, smoking a joint.

When they all left for a few minutes – Moore to clean the car and the teens to smoke – she managed to loosen the ropes and ran for her life to a neighbour who called 911. After 12 harrowing hours, she was finally free.

Convicted in March of kidnapping with a firearm, forcible confinement, sexual assault with a firearm and reckless discharge of a firearm, Moore was recently sentenced to 13 years in prison for what Justice Michael Townsend called “the horrific, degrading, violent and disgusting acts” towards an innocent woman.

More than three years later, she is still hostage to what he put her through.

“I don’t go outside alone. The fear is too overwhelming. I feel like I have a target on my back, like someone is always watching, waiting for the right moment. My heart races at the thought of being approached, followed, or taken,” she said in her victim impact statement.

“Every time I see headlights in the dark, I feel like I am back in that moment. My body reacts before my mind can catch up. Panic sets in, my breath becomes shallow, and I feel like I am seconds away from being dragged away.”

mmandel@postmedia.com
 

spaminator

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Hezbollah, other terror groups actively fundraising in Canada: government report
Lebanese terror group Hezbollah is active in Canadian drug, stolen car trade, says new Department of Finance report

Author of the article:Bryan Passifiume
Published Sep 04, 2025 • Last updated 2 days ago • 2 minute read

Hamas will see the vote as an endorsement of their Oct. 7 terror attack and the tactics they use.
A Hamas flag was paraded at a pro-Palestinian protest in October 2023 in Toronto. Photo by Supplied /Toronto Sun
OTTAWA — Canada’s “open and accessible” financial sector is vulnerable to terror groups looking to finance their overseas operations, a new government report details.


The report, entitled 2025 Assessment of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Risks in Canada, was quietly released by the Department of Finance last week, indicating overseas terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah involved in Politically Motivated Violent Extremism (PVME) are actively raising funds in Canada.


“Several terrorist entities listed under the Criminal Code in Canada that fall under the PMVE category, such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Khalistani violent extremist groups Babbar Khalsa International and the International Sikh Youth Federation, have been observed by law enforcement and intelligence agencies to receive financial support originating from Canada,” the report read.


“FINTRAC’s 2022 Operational Alert on Terrorist Activity Financing identified Hezbollah as the second most frequently identified international terrorist entity to receive outgoing Canadian funds.”

Hezbollah is a Lebanese-based terror organization largely involved in ongoing genocidal strikes against Israel.

Support of Hezbollah is strong in Canada — particularly within anti-Jewish, anti-Israel and far-left — with Hezbollah flags and banners commonly displayed at Toronto’s frequent anti-Israel intimidation rallies.



Vancouver-based terror group Samidoun has overt ties to both Hezbollah, with group leader Charlotte Kates making an appearance earlier this year at the funeral of exterminated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut.


Hezbollah has a long history of raising money through the international drug trade, including here in Canada, and uses Islamic money brokers called hawalas to transfer money overseas.

“Both Hamas and Hezbollah are known to use MSBs (money service businesses,) especially IVTS (Informal value transfer system) such as hawalas to move money across borders. Hezbollah, in particular, is known to use Lebanon’s banking sector to maintain their account holdings,” the report read.

“Hezbollah remains a highly active global player in the cocaine, heroin, fentanyl, and captagon trades, with trafficking networks spanning Latin America, Canada, and the US,” the report read.

Hezbollah also uses trade in stolen and used cars to fund their terror.


“American officials have observed Hezbollah buying used cars in North America and shipping them for resale through jurisdictions …. after which proceeds are transported to Lebanon by way of couriers,” the report continued.

“The Port of Montréal is a known link where luxury vehicles are shipped to Lebanon, financially supporting Hezbollah.”

This week, the Toronto Sun reported government money meant for humanitarian causes in Gaza were instead ending up in the hands of Palestinian terror groups.

Casey Babb, an advisor to Secure Canada and Macdonald-Laurier Institute Senior Fellow, described the report as another slap in the face to hard-working Canadians.

“There’s something especially heinous about terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah using Canada to generate revenue, which they’ll then turn around and use to kill Canadians,” he said.

“From car theft, to the drug trade, to hawala, to abuse and manipulation of our charities sector, Islamic and Khalistani terrorist groups are exploiting many finance generating pathways in this country to keep themselves afloat.

“More must be done to ensure these activities are prevented.”

bpassifiume@postmedia.com
X: @bryanpassifiume
 

Ron in Regina

"Voice of the West" Party
Apr 9, 2008
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Wow… she seems confused between the terms, immigrant and refugee.
 

IdRatherBeSkiing

Satelitte Radio Addict
May 28, 2007
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The beauty I assume of working illegally without a SSN would be that you would not have to pay any taxes to the IRS. If I had my taxes added back to my salary I would be driving a nicer car too.
 
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Ron in Regina

"Voice of the West" Party
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spaminator

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Police arrest multiple people at opposing immigration demonstrations in Toronto
Author of the article:Canadian Press
Canadian Press
Vanessa Tiberio
Published Sep 13, 2025 • Last updated 22 hours ago • 2 minute read

Police and fire officials separate an anti-immigration protest, left, from a counterprotest at Christie Pits Park in Toronto, Saturday, Sept. 13, 2025.
Police and fire officials separate an anti-immigration protest, left, from a counterprotest at Christie Pits Park in Toronto, Saturday, Sept. 13, 2025. Photo by Vanessa Tiberio /THE CANADIAN PRESS
TORONTO — Ten people were arrested when a demonstration calling for deportations and an end to mass immigration was met by a counter-demonstration in a Toronto park known as the scene of an historic antisemitic riot.


Hundreds of people supporting immigration gathered at Toronto’s Christie Pits Park on Saturday afternoon in response to a demonstration encouraging mass deportations and nationalism called “Canada First.”


Organizers of the Canada First rally took to social media last month to promote their event, with a poster advertising it for 1 p.m. reading, “Stop mass immigration. Start mass deportations. Remigration is necessary.”

Numerous pro-immigration counter rallies had planned their own community rallies at the park with a start time of noon.



“Bring friends, water, snacks, art supplies and noisemakers and anything else you’ll need to spend an afternoon in the park,” one post promoting the counter-rally read.

In 1933, thousands of people converged at the park for one of Canada’s most notable antisemitic riots and counter-protests that broke after a Nazi-inspired flag with a Swastika was pulled out during a baseball game.



In advance of Saturday’s demonstration, police posted a social media statement saying they were aware of the rally and counter-rallies and had planned to be at the park.

City councillor Dianne Saxe posted a statement on social media last month while the event was in the planning stages, calling it a “hate demonstration.”

“This rally does not represent what we stand for as a city or as Canadians,” Saxe said in her statement, adding that she was appalled at the choice to hold the rally at Christie Pits Park with its storied history.



At the planned start time of the rally, demonstrators carrying Canadian flags marched from Christie Pits onto Bloor St. West, beginning their march across the city.

Dozens of officers lined Bloor St. West to block off portions of the road as the anti-immigration demonstrators marched from the city’s west end to its downtown core.

The counter-ralliers remained at Christie Pits Park, playing drums, chanting, offering face painting and handing out snacks and drinks.

There were a few intense moments when protesters from either side clashed.

A standoff ensued at one point between the two groups, when a few dozen anti-immigration demonstrators made their way into the park and stood opposite a more sizable group of counter-ralliers.


Around half-a-dozen mounted police units rode between the opposing groups in the park, positioning themselves at times to keep the crowds apart.

Toronto police said a man was arrested for assault at the protest at around 12:40 p.m. in the area of Christie Pits Park.

In an update half an hour later, police said six people in total had been arrested, with four more arrests being announced on social media later in the afternoon. Police have not immediately provided information about the reason of the arrests.

The demonstration follows on the tail of a march in London, U.K., organized by far-right activist Tommy Robinson that drew more than 110,000 people Saturday.

Police say they intend to provide more information on the arrests later.
 

Ron in Regina

"Voice of the West" Party
Apr 9, 2008
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Regina, Saskatchewan
Huh…apparently something similar is happening in the UK, maybe on a bit of a different scale though.
(YouTube & ‘Unite the Kingdom': Over 100,000 anti-immigration protesters rally in London)

I have no experience judging the scale of the sheer volume of people in a crowd like that, but does this look like 100,000 people?
(YouTube & Aerial footage shows scale of 'unite the kingdom' rally)

When I was a young man, I worked for the exhibition association, so I could judge scale of crowds on a smaller scale than this. The building that most of the concerts were held in was a hockey arena with 6400 seats, & if the stage and set up took 1/3 of the ice surface area, the other 2/3 of the ice surface area was roughly 4000 people.

That’s the closest I can get to trying to guesstimate this sheer amount of people at this rally in the UK, assuming that an area of approximately the size of a ice sheet for hockey is roughly 6000 people. How many ice sheets for hockey are we looking at in this last video in order to multiply that by 6000?
 

petros

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Nov 21, 2008
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Low Earth Orbit
Huh…apparently something similar is happening in the UK, maybe on a bit of a different scale though.
(YouTube & ‘Unite the Kingdom': Over 100,000 anti-immigration protesters rally in London)

I have no experience judging the scale of the sheer volume of people in a crowd like that, but does this look like 100,000 people?
(YouTube & Aerial footage shows scale of 'unite the kingdom' rally)

When I was a young man, I worked for the exhibition association, so I could judge scale of crowds on a smaller scale than this. The building that most of the concerts were held in was a hockey arena with 6400 seats, & if the stage and set up took 1/3 of the ice surface area, the other 2/3 of the ice surface area was roughly 4000 people.

That’s the closest I can get to trying to guesstimate this sheer amount of people at this rally in the UK, assuming that an area of approximately the size of a ice sheet for hockey is roughly 6000 people. How many ice sheets for hockey are we looking at in this last video in order to multiply that by 6000?
Get AI to count.
 

spaminator

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Oct 26, 2009
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Canada sees surge in migrants crossing border through New York
Author of the article:Bloomberg News
Bloomberg News
Mathieu Dion, Alicia A. Caldwell and Paula Sambo
Published Sep 18, 2025 • Last updated 1 day ago • 4 minute read

The Canada-U.S. border.
The Canada-U.S. border.
Canada is seeing a sharp increase in asylum-seekers entering through a border crossing between New York and the province of Quebec, as President Donald Trump’s policies drive away migrants and even some U.S. citizens.


Canadian officials have received more than 5,500 asylum claims since the beginning of July at the Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle border crossing, south of Montreal. That’s a 263% increase from the same period last year, according to data from the Canada Border Services Agency.


The summertime spike underscores how President Donald Trump’s hard-line immigration approach is reverberating beyond U.S. borders. His administration has rolled back protections for hundreds of thousands of people who once held temporary legal status and expanded raids that now routinely sweep up people without criminal records. This week, Trump authorized the deployment of the National Guard to Memphis, adding to earlier deployments in Los Angeles and Washington and ones threatened in Chicago and elsewhere. The White House is pressing agencies to hit deportation targets.


Across Canada, the number of asylum claims made at the country’s land border posts jumped 30% in the first half of the year, even though the overall number of claims declined, with tightening entry requirements resulting in fewer asylum-seekers at airports. Haitians are by far the largest group, followed by U.S. citizens — often the American-born children of undocumented parents, according to experts — and Venezuelans.

French-speaking Quebec is home to Canada’s biggest Haitian community and it has long been a draw for new arrivals.

The Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle crossing — located six hours north of New York City — has emerged as a main gateway for northbound migration. The area was dotted with a wooded trail where in the past, migrants would sneak across the border due to a longstanding loophole in an agreement between the U.S. and Canada.


But rule changes negotiated between the U.S. and Canada in 2023 made it harder for people who entered Canada via that route to stay — channeling people through the official port of entry that’s just north of Champlain, New York.

Aisling Bondy, president of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, said it appears the ICE raids might be causing undocumented people “who’ve lived under the radar for 10, 20 years in the U.S.” to reconsider the risk of staying and making their way to Canada.

Once there, many are likely to be turned away unless they can prove close family ties in Canada. As of mid-September, there were 2,272 cases this year in which people claimed refugee status in Canada, were deemed ineligible under the Safe Third Country Agreement, and removed to the USA, according to data from the Canadian border agency.


The STCA is a treaty between the two nations that says foreign nationals who are pursuing refugee protection must do so in the first safe country they arrive in, whether it’s the U.S. or Canada.

U.S. citizens aren’t subject to that treaty. Most U.S. nationals seeking asylum in Canada are likely the U.S.-born children of undocumented migrants, Bondy said. “Those children are usually part of the refugee claim process.” Children born in the U.S. automatically become U.S. citizens, no matter their parents’ immigration status, though Trump is seeking to change that right.

Adult U.S. citizens showing up at the Canadian border and attempting to claim asylum on the grounds their country is unsafe have a difficult path to staying, according to Canadian immigration experts.


“I’m very wary to recommend making a refugee claim to U.S. nationals, just because traditionally they have not had a high success rate,” said Bjorna Shkurti, an immigration lawyer with Caron & Partners LLP in Calgary. “There’s a genuine fear that people have — with the administration that’s currently in place in the U.S. — to even approach a port of entry to initiate a refugee claim.”

There was also an upward trend in July and August of foreign nationals trying to cross the border into Canada from the US illegally — this is, not arriving through an official port of entry.

A total of 1,125 people have been caught doing so since the beginning of the year and sent back to the U.S. Officials with U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not respond to requests for comment.


The Royal Canadian Mounted Police confirmed there has been a significant increase in illegal entries in Quebec, especially in the area south of Montreal, but said clandestine crossings have begun to decline again. The police force has added more resources, including two Black Hawk helicopters, in an attempt to control the situation and convince the Trump administration that Canada is beefing up border security.

People crossing the border illegally are typically detected by RCMP cameras monitored from control rooms across Canada. U.S. authorities use their own surveillance systems, and the two countries’ agencies collaborate daily to monitor and secure the border.

“It’s the brain of first-defense mechanisms, with cameras and technological systems to detect movements at the border,” said Eric Boudreault, the officer in charge of the RCMP’s covert operation services in Montreal. There are also detachments patrolling the border region and intelligence agents seeking information on smuggling networks and traffickers, all supported by drones and helicopters.

Boudreault said many of the people arrested have been trapped by smugglers after paying them a lot of money. “They take advantage of their lack of knowledge of the situation,” he said, recalling that an asylum application comes with no guarantee. “It’s sad.”

— With assistance from Randy Thanthong-Knight.