Canada has tripled the number of temporary foreign workers allowed into the country in the last decade. It reached a record 339,000 at the end of 2012. This comes at a time when unemployment is at 7.2 per cent and 54,500 people lost their jobs in March. “These numbers represent an enormous expansion of this program in a relatively short amount of time,” said Eric Tucker, professor at York’s Osgoode Hall Law School, on Radio Canada International April 9. “And one of the reasons for this expansion is that employers pushed very hard to get expedited procedures.[…]It could very well be that in an effort to satisfy employer demands, the federal government has failed to maintain adequate scrutiny of these applications and is approving them far too readily.” Read full story.
From anger to action! Let’s stamp out rape
“As an academic and activist, engaging in frank and uncomfortable discussions about topical issues is a part of my everyday existence. Yet no political issue has been the source of sustained frustration, anger and emotional upheaval as much as the crisis of sexual violence and rape in Nigerian society,” wrote York University doctoral student Ijeoma Ekoh in Bella Naija April 10. Read full story.