Hundreds make final bids to stay in Canada after deportation hold lifted
VERITY STEVENSON
MONTREAL : The Globe and Mail - Ulrick Lafleur reaches into a brown envelope and gently pulls out a large folded piece of paper from the top of a pile of immigration forms. On official Haitian state letterhead with muted lettering, as if the printer needed ink, it informs Mr. Lafleur that his 49-year-old son, Nazaire, was shot to death and that his body was found on the street on May 12. It contains technicalities – his feet were pointing south, and his head north – but no condolences.
Mr. Lafleur is one of 3,500 people in Canada – 3,200 Haitians and 300 Zimbabweans – who were affected when the federal government lifted a hold on deportations to their home countries in December, deeming the situation in Haiti and Zimbabwe to be stable. Those without status were given six months to apply for residency on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.
Hundreds raced to submit the applications by the June 1 deadline. Some will be granted permanent residency and some will be eventually removed from Canada.
For others who have been in the country for years, it’s their second or third application to stay in Canada. Prior rejections and the thought of it happening again have discouraged many from filing the application and they have gone underground.
The moratorium on deportations went into effect for Zimbabwe in 2002 and for Haiti in 2004.
In 2002, many people fled Zimbabwe because of political unrest after Robert Mugabe was re-elected as President.
Two years later, in Haiti, a coup d’état removed president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, creating years of instability. Then, in 2010, an earthquake hit the country’s capital, Port-au-Prince, killing more than 200,000 people.
Haitians and Zimbabweans in Canada claim violence and unrest still plague their countries.
A travel advisory for Haiti on the Canadian government’s website, last updated on May 22, says, “Crime rates are high and the security situation is unpredictable.”
Quebec Immigration had counted only 500 applications for residency on humanitarian and compassionate grounds as of May, prompting its minister, Kathleen Weil, and community organizations to appeal to the federal government to grant an extra three months.
It costs $550 per person and 20 hours to fill out the humanitarian and compassionate demand for residency.
“I am desolate,” said Mr. Lafleur, who was denied refugee and residency applications in 2007 and 2010.
If he had attended his son’s funeral in Haiti, he would not have been able to come back to Canada, where he has lived for the past seven years, because of his lack of status here.
But he said he would not want to stay in Haiti, either. “I have nothing there. My house was destroyed by the earthquake, and now my son is dead,” he said in an interview.
Poignant tales have emerged from Haitians who are deploring the decision that may send them back to Haiti, where they say it’s not safe.
For William Antoine, a father of two with one on the way, this is his fourth time applying and his eighth year in Canada. He fears being separated from his children who were – and will be – born in Canada.
“We’re really worried,” he said last week outside the Citizenship and Immigration Canada office in Montreal, where a protest was held. “We work and pay for our children’s education – they’re the ones who could really contribute to Canadian society. Who knows? [One of them] could be prime minister one day.”
Jean Enor Goin, who was vocal about his story at the protest, fled Haiti in 2007 after he was stabbed for being gay. For years, he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder because of the incident.
“I am so upset [because of the end of the moratorium], but I love it here in Canada. I have a boyfriend, friends, I work here. I don’t want to leave,” he said.
Despite calls from several political parties to extend the deadline, the Immigration Department stood firmly by the June 1 date.
“It should come as no surprise, not to the Haitians nor to anyone else, that these temporary measures are coming to an end, because we announced it on Dec. 1,” Immigration Minister Chris Alexander said last month in the House of Commons in response to Quebec Liberal MP Emmanuel Dubourg, who brought up the demands for a delay.
“If Minister Weil would like to open other avenues towards permanent residence, she can use Quebec’s programs to do so,” Mr. Alexander said.
The Quebec government has spent $180,000 for five community organizations, including Maison d’Haiti Montréal, to help with completing the forms, which would otherwise require a lawyer. Quebec is home to 90 per cent of Canada’s Haitian population of 137,995.
In response to a request for comment by The Globe and Mail, an Immigration Department spokesperson copy-pasted Mr. Alexander’s response in the Commons and another said: “For those who submit an application on H&C grounds within six months of the TSR being lifted, the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) will defer their removal pending a final decision on their H&C application.”
Mr. Dubourg, who is of Haitian descent, said the minister’s response to him in Parliament was surprising. “I’d say it floored me even, the shortness of his reply,” he said over the phone.
While politicians are asking for more time, the Non-Status Action Committee is advocating for all Haitians and Zimbabweans without status to be granted residency.
Serge Bouchereau, a spokesman for the committee, said he believes that the timing is a strategic appeal by the Conservatives before the fall election to what he called an increasing right-wing sentiment in the world. He thinks that they will move to deport the Haitians and Zimbabweans quietly at the end of the summer, when people are on vacation and then have their eyes on the election campaign.
Regarding the small number of applications submitted to date, Mr. Bouchereau said many feel anguish over the thought of a stranger looking at their file being responsible for their fate. “Haitians are proud people. They work hard at jobs many Canadians don’t typically fill; they don’t use employment insurance most of the time, and they pay taxes.”
A friend of Mr. Bouchereau’s, Johnny St. Paul, 51, took on extra security guard shifts, sometimes amounting to 16-hour days, to pay for the application. Most of the money he makes goes to pay for chemotherapy for the mother of one of his two sons who lives in the United States. His demand for refugee status was rejected when he first arrived in 2012.
Back home, he has an undergraduate law degree under his belt, but he said he had to leave before he could continue his career in constitutional law because he was repeatedly threatened for his outspoken political beliefs.
“My dream,” he said, his voice growing louder, “is that my two sons [one is in Haiti and the other in the United States] come to Canada and get an education here.”
Hundreds of sugarcane workers march to Haiti embassy as legalization deadline nears
Santo Domingo.- Hundreds of sugarcane workers marched to Haiti’s Embassy in the Dominican Republic, as the deadline to register for the government’s regularization plan looms, listin.com.do reports.
The protesters demand the documents required to register for the Foreigners Regularization Plan which ends on June 17.
A commission headed by sugarcane workers union coordinator in sugarcane villages (bateyes) Jesus Núñez was received by Haiti Embassy official Fritz Douge, who said Haiti ambassador Daniel Supplice would meet with the workers next Wednesday, according to the outlet.
After leaving the embassy Núñez said although the hour wasn’t specified, was told he will be called to coordinate the meeting.
He also announced another visit Monday morning to the Interior and Police Ministry, where he was told that a special solution would be found to the case of cane workers, but have yet to receive a reply.
The sugarcane workers, mostly elderly, said without them there’s no sugar and face a desperate situation, because the Haitian government doesn’t care about their immigration status in the country.
Tourism: Opening of the "Hilton Garden Inn Haiti" in the beginning of 2017
Announced on April 10th, 2014, the Hilton Garden Inn hotel plans to open its doors at the beginning of 2017, according to Karla Visconti, Director of communication for Caribbean and Latin America Hilton Worldwide.
The project, designed by CAB Inc., owner of the hotel Visa Lodge, estimated at 26 million dollars, includes the construction of an 11-story hotel with 152 rooms, and managed by the Group Hilton Worldwide.
There will be a full-service restaurant that will offer breakfast, lunch and dinner and a welcome lounge. The hotel will also showcase the shop "24-hour Pavilion Pantry ®" with a selection of delicious ready-made meals, drinks and snacks. Leisure activities will include an outside swimming pool and a free fitness center with “Precor” cardio and body-building equipment.
Guests of the "Hilton Garden Inn Port-au-Prince Louverture Airport" will also have access to a comfortable area with 3 flexible meeting rooms and a conference room. "Hilton Garden Inn" will have free Wi-Fi and a business center, open 24 hours, will complete the accomodations.
This hotel will be located less than a kilometer from the Toussaint Louverture Airport, across from the hotel Visa Lodge. It will be the first Hilton Garden Inn in the Caribbean, and the only hotel with an international brand at the airport.
Street art decorates the walls of Port-au-Prince.
There exist in Haiti an unpublished popular and contemporary pictorial and iconographic tradition. It can be found in the streets, through the hand-painted advertisements, on tap-tap and buses decorated with religious, political or cultural imaging. These popular expressions draw their roots from voodoo iconography, just like internationally acclaimed Haitian paintings. They make up the essence of a typical urban, visual culture, still poorly recognized from an academic standpoint.
It is from this perspective that the French Institute in Haiti imagined the project, "Street-art, to redesign common areas." A project, inaugurated at the end of May, brought to town the French artist Bault to work for two weeks on collaborative murals, along with Haitian artists.
From this project, several murals were created. The first one, which is monumental, extends around the French Institute and raises everyone’s curiosity. The hybrid animals created by Bault are linked to the geometrical shapes of the Haitian painter Joseph Eddy Pierre, alias "1+1 = 0", on a range of colorful combinations. The Center of Art got a facelift too by welcoming two works by Bault, one of which was done in collaboration with the artist Pascale Monnin, and represents an imaginary crocodile being ridden by two children. The presence of the French painter also made it possible to organize workshops with the National School of the Arts (ENARTS), the School of Art of Port-au-Prince, and with patrons of the French Institute, strengthening the exchanges and the artistic cooperation between France and Haiti.
This whole initiative returns street art to its role of investing in the city, creating a common space, and restoring art’s social dimension by putting it within everyone’s reach.
Annual regional conference "Business Futures of the Americas"
The date is nearing. That of June 15th, which will open the annual regional Conference of the Association of the American Chambers of Commerce of Latin America and the Caribbean (AACCLA).
Business Future of the Americas will be held for the first time in Haiti from June 15 to June 17 2015, at the Hotel Marriott of Port-au-Prince.
The theme of the conference will be "The investments of the Diaspora in Latin America and in the Caribbean."
Régine René Labrousse, who was a guest on Melody FM a few weeks ago and who is the vice-president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Haiti (AmCham-Haïti), informed us about the meeting.
"The accent will be put on the Diaspora and its driving role of investing in the country. This conference will be a meeting place for our Haitian business people from the Diaspora, who are well-positioned to do business and work in the region."
On June 15th, President Michel Martelly, will open the conference in which the former president of Bolivia, Jorge Fernando Quiroga, will also participate, as well as numerous speakers from the diaspora and the Haitian private sector living in Haiti.
Both co-chairpersons of AmCham Haiti, Ambassadress Pamela White and the Ambassador of Haiti in the United States, Paul Altidor, will intervene throughout the event. The financing of the development of emerging markets will be the subject addressed by Wilson Laleau Minister of the Economy, during the luncheon. High-level speakers are also on the agenda, among whom are representatives from the American Chamber of Commerce of Washington, D.C., George Washington University, and Heineken Americas.
On June 16th will begin closed door sessions that will gather the general assembly of the Association of the American Chambers of Commerce of Latin America and the Caribbean (AACCLA). In the afternoon, the first business meeting will allow the entrepreneurs to meet.
The AmCham Haiti wished to give to this annual conference a wider impact by adding one day to discuss opportunities "to do business in Haiti." The June 17th forum "Doing Business in Haiti" was organized in partnership with the Center of Facilitation of the Investments (CFI), and will provide an opportunity for several personalities to find themselves in a succession of panels that will address the business opportunities in the country: assembly, agro-industry, tourism...
The Minister of Tourism and Industries Stéphanie Villedrouin will present the main tourism plan for Haiti, including investments by the private sector. The day will end with a new session of business meetings.
"This event should provide exceptional opportunities to become familiar and to exchange with a network of more than 300 business managers coming from the United States, the Caribbean, Brazil, and many other countries from the area. Throughout the conference, "Business-to-Business Meetings " (B2Bs) will be planned […] An exhibition of local products will be also presented during all the of the event " specified the vice-president of AmCham-Haïti.
ON-LINE REGISTRATION can be completed on: www.bfa2015haiti.com / home/
On a side note, AmCham is organizing several tours during the conference to give to the foreign visitors an overview of Haiti’s tourist and historic heritage, in addition to the business opportunities.