Stay ConnectedMigration Conversations is a podcast that invites persons to share their migration stories. Hosted by Professor Jamie Liew, each episode is an in-depth conversation with people who have experienced the Canadian immigration system or other migration regimes up close. We talk to migrants, immigrants, lawyers, policy makers, advocates and experts. We hope that these conversations shed light on the challenges migrants face through their own voices.
Please note this podcast is not legal advice.
Copyright: © 2020
Meet Jared Will, an immigration and refugee lawyer, who is well known, among other things, for representing persons in immigration detention. We talk about the shortcomings of the immigration detention system, but why detention should not be used at all, and the limits of legal remedies in such a system.
Meet Alvin Brown, a Black man deported from Canada. Alvin Brown was adopted as a child and grew up in Canada. Unbeknownst to him, Alvin was not a Canadian citizen and had never acquired citizenship. As a young man, he came into conflict with the criminal law which rendered him inadmissible to Canada. Alvin tells us his heartbreaking story about the years spent in Canadian immigration detention awaiting to be deported, his deportation and his life today.
Meet Justice Mavin Wong. She was appointed to the Ontario Court of Justice in 2000 and currently presides at College Park Court, which is one of two criminal courthouses in downtown Toronto. Prior to her appointment, Justice Wong practised as a criminal defence lawyer specializing in youth justice cases. In our conversation we talk about her personal links with the infamous Supreme Court of Canada case of Quong Wing, and her advice for young lawyers aspiring to be judges.
Statelessness & COVID-19 This is an encore presentation of a webinar featuring 5 grassroots organizations and researchers sharing their observations and insights of the experiences of stateless persons in the pandemic in Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, Kuwait and Malaysia. Sponsored by the University of Ottawa Public Law Centre and the Human Rights Research and Education Centre, the presentations flow from a themed commentary that is published in volume 3(1) of the Statelessness & Citizenship Review.
Meet the Honourable Ahmed Hussen. He is a graduate of the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law, co-founded Regent Park Community Council, was national president of the Canadian Somali Congress, and practised criminal, immigration and human rights law. Elected in 2015, Minister Hussen served as Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship and now is Minister of Families, Children and Social Development. This is a pre-recorded event hosted by the University of Ottawa Public Law Centre. Professor Vanessa MacDonnell and I trace his remarkable journey from refugee to law school, to the Federal Cabinet.
Meet Elene Lam, the founder and executive director of Butterfly, an Asian and Migrant Sex Workers Support Network. The tragic deaths of six Asian women in Atlanta have highlighted the intersectional reasons why they were targeted and killed. Perceived as foreigner persons, migrants engaging in immoral and illegal work, fetishized women, and those contributing to the spread of the coronavirus, Butterfly advocates for the full decriminalization of sex work, for full status for migrant sex workers, for immigration laws to allow sex work to be recognized as work, and for no cops at workplaces, among other calls to action. Listen to Elene explain why her organization is part of an alliance of 25 sex worker organizations bringing a Charter challenge to the criminal laws affecting sex work, among other legal reforms.
Meet Justice Douglas Campbell, the longest serving judge in Canada. He was appointed to the British Columbia Provincial Court in 1974 at the age of 29 and then in 1995 to the Federal Court of Canada, retiring in 2020. With a docket largely focused on immigration and refugee law, we talk about Justice Campbell's time on the bench, what compassionate and ethical judging looks like, how being a lawyer and judge requires continuous learning and listening and most importantly how judging requires you to identify and respect the person behind every case.
Meet Laura Madokoro, historian and Associate Professor in the Department of History at Carleton University. She is the author of Elusive Refuge: Chinese Migrants in the Cold War published by Harvard in 2016. We talk about why studying the past is important, what historical exclusions say about our immigration system, how the grand narratives of humanitarianism may be disguising violence and displacement, and the settler colonial project of using race to inform our immigration policies.
Meet Bob Rae, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Canada to the United Nations in New York. Mr. Rae was Premier of Ontario (1990-1995), Interim Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada (2011-2013), Canada's Special Envoy to Myanmar (2017-2018) and Canada's Special Envoy on Humanitarian and Refugee Issues (2020). We talk about the statelessness, genocide and forced displacement of Rohingya in Myanmar, the global refugee crisis, and Canada's role in the world today. Our conversation delves into issues of the rule of law, how discourse can affect the way people are identified, and contested existence and exclusion.
Meet Souheil Benslimane, a self-identified "illegalized" and criminalized migrant currently being processed for deportation from Canada. We talk about his experience being incarcerated, how he feels he is being punished twice through the immigration system, and his journey to becoming an abolitionist. We also talk about the important work he does with the Jail Accountability and Information Line Hotline in raising awareness of the conditions and hardships prisoners face and why it is important to critically think and challenge the carceral system.
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