York sociology and geography Professor Jennifer Hyndman knows a little about disasters. She also knows a benign water project run by humanitarian aid agencies can fuel a war if careful attention is not paid to the political and cultural landscape. Hyndman was in Sri Lanka within months of the 2004 tsunami. She saw first-hand not […]
Last week, York law Professor Obiora Okafor was elected to the advisory committee of the United Nations Human Rights Council. The Nigerian-born professor brings his expertise in international law, human rights law, and immigration and refugee law, especially as it relates to Africa, to the advisory committee. “The committee is the think tank of the […]
Nancy Nicol’s team receives $1 million to study LGBT human rights around the world York University visual arts professor Nancy Nicol will lead a major international project on the impact of criminalizing sexual orientation and gender identity, with $1 million in funding over five years from the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). […]
The day the Toronto Star broke the story on a wide variation of acceptance rates by refugee board members, a Federal Court judge issued a decision chastising an adjudicator who had not granted asylum to anyone in three years, wrote The Star March 9: In an order issued Friday on an appeal by failed refugee […]
Asylum rejection rates have no bearing in the quality and consistency of decisions made by adjudicators, says Canada’s refugee board, reported the Toronto Star March 4: In fact, the board insists that each decision must be examined on a case-by-case basis. “Statistics on the acceptance and rejection rates of individual IRB members who determine refugee […]
If you were a refugee seeking protection in Canada, you wouldn’t want to cross the path of David McBean, wrote the Toronto Star March 4, in a story about a new York study that shows evidence of bias among different adjudicators on the Immigration & Refugee Board (IRB) of Canada: According to an analysis of […]
There’s a tendency to think that the problems faced by people with precarious status – temporary workers, refugee claimants, failed claimants and people without status – are not Canadian issues, but York sociology Professor Luin Goldring disagrees. To shed light on the emerging body of research in this area, the Research Alliance on Precarious Status, which […]
York University President & Vice-Chancellor Mamdouh Shoukri is welcoming back students for another academic year a little differently than usual. This year, the president is providing an update through a new video on issues and initiatives that affect the entire York community: In the high-definition video, also available on the Office of the President website […]
After medical and security checks, anyone arriving in Canada may apply for refugee status, wrote the National Post Aug. 13, in a story that used statistics provided by Michele Millard, coordinator of the Centre for Refugee Studies at York University: The process takes anywhere from six months to 15 years. A new law passed this […]
Canada’s first boat people were the Norse who came ashore a thousand years ago in Newfoundland. They fit the refugee pattern: farmers and simple artisans, maybe a few fierce Vikings among them known for terrorizing Europe, people driven out of their homeland by population pressures and political unrest, wrote The Globe and Mail Aug. 14: […]