Announcement

Joint Statement in solidarity with Indigenous families mourning the murder of four Indigenous women

[Veuillez trouver la version française ci-dessous]

We call for an end to the systemic gendered state violence in Iran and stand in solidarity with protesters seeking women’s rights to bodily integrity and autonomy, and freedom of speech and assembly.

“Happy Mother’s Day to the moms separated by violent borders and imperialism”* was a tweet that crossed my screen early on Mother’s Day as I prepared to visit my own mother, ever thankful that my own separation from the woman who birthed me was a short three years, though as a child it felt like a lifetime. The tweet was from a feminist, anti-racist Black mother of a Black son whose community has experienced war, displacement and migration.

The reported atrocities across Ukraine have added to the urgency to respond felt by Ukrainian and other concerned communities here in Canada. Since the federal government rolled out the special Temporary Resident pathway- CUAET (Canada Ukrainian Authorization for Emergency Travel) about three weeks ago, over ninety-thousand applications have been received with more than fifty thousand of these applicants applying for the three-year open work permit. Others have applied for student visas. The balance are the children and the elderly.