Demonstrators with painted faces marked Day of the Dead with a protest against changes to health-care coverage for refugees that came into effect earlier this year.

Vancouver demonstrators mourn cuts to refugee health care at Day of the Dead vigil
Demonstrators with painted faces marked Day of the Dead with a protest against changes to health-care coverage for refugees that came into effect earlier this year.
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By Yolande Cole, November 2, 2012

Demonstrators carrying candles and placards walked through Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside Thursday (November 1) in continued protest of cuts to a federal health program for refugees.

The candlelight vigil was timed to coincide with the Latin American holiday Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead. Protestors, some with their faces painted to mark the tradition, said the march was meant to signify the “death” of the former version of Canada’s Interim Federal Health Program (IFHP).

Children at a school in Hlaing Tharyar township drink soy milk provided by Myanmar Chemical Engineers Group through a collaboration with Rick Chase. Photo: Supplied

Kids benefit from Canadian connection
By Eva Cohen | Monday, 15 October 2012

Children at a school in Hlaing Tharyar township drink soy milk provided by Myanmar Chemical Engineers Group through a collaboration with Rick Chase. Photo: Supplied

When Rick Chase first began helping refugees from Myanmar settle in Vancouver, Canada, he never realised how much bigger his involvement with the country would become. A couple of years later, he has dedicated himself to helping impoverished children in Myanmar and lives in Yangon with his wife and young children.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY Colin O’Connor

Paul Wells explains why Canada’s policy on Roma refugees hits a flat note
A ‘Gypsy’ jazz man on why so many of his people flee to Canada
by Paul Wells on Sunday, October 28, 2012 7:50am – 15 Comments

PHOTOGRAPHS BY Colin O’Connor

More than a thousand spectators packed Koerner Hall, the opulent concert theatre on Bloor Street in Toronto, for Robi Botos’ birthday concert earlier this month. Botos was turning 34. When he came onstage the audience broke into a raggedy chorus of Happy Birthday. Botos wheeled around on his heel and bent over the piano keyboard so he could accompany the last line of the song with a bluesy phrase. “What key was that in, Robi?” somebody shouted from the back of the hall. “D flat,” he said. Perfect pitch.

Most Sri Lankan Tamil migrants from MV Sun Sea await decision on refugee claims
By Douglas Quan, Postmedia News October 30, 2012

The MV Sun Sea cargo ship brought 492 Tamil migrants to the B.C. coast in August 2010. Everyone subsequently filed refugee claims.
Photograph by: MCpl Angela Abbey, Vancouver Sun , Postmedia News

More than two years after a boatload of hundreds of asylum-seeking Sri Lankan Tamils arrived on the West Coast — sparking a vow by the Harper government to crack down on what it called immigration “queue jumpers” — the vast majority of the migrants remain in Canada waiting for decision on their refugee claims. Two have been removed from the country.