Strangers in New Homelands Conference – 3 Nov 2017
Please note that Alastair Clarke will be on a panel at the Strangers in New Homelands Conference at CanadInns Polo Park in Winnipeg. He will be discussing Immigration Policies, Practices, and Canada’s Refugee Determination Process with his panelists, the Western Region Assistant Deputy Chairperson of the RPD (Vancouver) Karin Michnick and Dr. Shauna Labman, Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Law and the University of Manitoba.
Some of the issues the panel will cover include:
- current procedures of claiming refugee status in Canada
- the Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA)
- issues at the tribunal (IRB-RPD)
- rights of appeal after a negative decision by an RPD Member
- Overseas Protection
- Private Sponsorships and refugees
- Government Assisted Refugees
- Secondary migration of resettled refugees
Questions are welcome and encouraged.
The program for the conference is 62 pages and we have included an excerpt below with details of the panel on Friday, November 3rd. If you would like a program (11MB), please contact that office.
Here is a description of the Strangers in New Homelandsconference by the Conference Chair, Dr. Michael Baffoe:
We are delighted to welcome you all to the special tenth anniversary edition, of our annual conference, Strangers in New Homelands: Deconstructing and Reconstructing of ‘Home’ Among Immigrants and Refugees in the Diaspora.
This annual gathering of researchers, academics, and practitioners in the migration field, an idea mooted by Conference Chair Michael Baffoe (University of Manitoba), Dr. Lewis Asimeng-Boahene (Penn State University-Harrisburg) and Dr. Buster Ogbuagu (University of St. Francis, Joliet, IL) began modestly in 2008. The dream of growing that initial idea into a larger annual event bringing together critical stakeholders in the field of migration has really borne fruits and brought us to where we are today…ten years later. We are proud and satisfied for mooting this idea and, with the help of many of the people gathered here, especially members of the Conference Committee, for making this event a success.
This year’s conference is being held at a very critical time in world migration history. World migration is now a reality. The world has been witnessing unprecedented displacement and movements of people from their homes into other countries, especially to Europe seeking safety as well as better life conditions. The images of these mass movements are sometimes nerve-wrecking and difficult to watch. This is a new form of diasporic movement in which desperate people are challenging the existing national borders of nation states.
These challenges have brought out the best and worse in some of the nation states: some have received and welcomed these desperate people with open arms while others have shut their borders with barbed wires leaving the desperate people to their fate. Erecting barbed wires and pushing desperate people into the cold will not stop people from moving to seek new homelands. Driven by push-pull factors, the concept of geography of opportunity has taught us that erecting barbed wires or “beautiful walls” made of concrete or steel, would not solve the problem. It is therefore pertinent to find innovative ways for meeting these new challenges. As Karen Armstrong succinctly puts it, “our differences define us, but our common humanity can redeem us”. The societies into which the migrants seek to settle, and the migrants need each other for their mutual benefits. The diversity that migrants bring should therefore be seen as assets, which can enrich the host societies as well.
The exchanges of ideas and discussions that will take place at this conference will be essential for those who design and implement immigration and refugee policies and settlement, as well as those who provide services to, and work with, immigrant and refugee groups. These exchanges are more crucial than ever and we should continue to engage in these discussions as well as engage policy makers and governments to embrace the reality of world migration and the challenges and opportunities that the phenomenon offers.
For those of you who were here in previous years, we welcome you back to this tenth anniversary edition of this annual gathering. For those of you participating for the first time, we welcome you to this conference, and to the Province of Manitoba. We hope to see you all again at subsequent conferences until we solve, or at least attenuate, the lingering issues and challenges that confront migrants around the world every day.
