It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
MUN chemistry professor Chris Kozak says he’s run the mystery blobs through a battery of tests to determine it’s a man-made latex. (Jeremy Eaton/CBC)
The mystery behind white blobs washing ashore on eastern Newfoundland's beaches that gripped public attention this fall — and commanded international media interest along the way — has been figured out, according to a St. John's scientist.
In early September, people began finding white, sponge-like substances on beaches in Placentia Bay.
Speculation about the blobs included discharged waste and fats — although Memorial University chemistry professor Chris Kozak has narrowed it down.
"It's man-made. It's not natural," Kozak told CBC Radio's The Broadcast.
"There was no nitrogen or sulphur in it... I think what I've nailed it down to is a polyvinyl acetate."
Hilary Corlett, an assistant professor with Memorial University's earth sciences department, had already taken some samples and had theorized the blobs were man-made.
She reached out to Kozak, who confirmed it — and more.
"It might have been an industrial adhesive or something like that at one point and it ended up in the ocean," he added.
Also known as PVA, this material had undergone a "cross-linking process" to turn it into its current state.
Kozak said the blobs aren't coming from a common adhesive Elmer's glue, which contains PVA, or Borax, which is used in children's crafts to make a rubbery-slime substance.
"This is not some school kids science experiment that's gone awry — but it's a similar sort of thing," he said.
WATCH | Egads, they got it! This is what those white blobs are:
They washed up on several beaches in Newfoundland, and theories began to emerge. Latex? A weird jellyfish? Several organizations tried to determine what the substance was, and thanks to two MUN scientists, the mystery has been solved. The CBC’s Paula Gale and Jeremy Eaton played detective.
Kozak said PVA's most common use is in adhesives, glue, thin films and protective coatings, including in certain nail polish coatings.
"But on such a large scale, this would be a type of industrial adhesive," he said.
At this point he said he wouldn't be able to say where the blobs originated, and said the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and others will need to track that down.
"I think that's up to the DFO and other organizations to have a look at where this could come from. But I recommend they look at large uses of adhesive industrially in the region," Kozak said.
He said he plans to reach out to the government with his findings.
Unraveling mystery
Corlett said she became intrigued with the so-called mystery blobs washing up in Placentia Bay and decided to investigate. One day she went to Arnold's Cove and collected samples and quickly noticed some of its physical features.
"One of the blobs in particular that I picked up really piqued my interest because I could see that there were pebbles embedded in it," said Corlett.
MUN scientists Hilary Corlett and Chris Kozak teamed up to figure out the origin of the mystery blobs washing up on Newfoundland’s shores. (Jeremy Eaton/CBC)
Figuring it could be man-made, she then reached out to her colleague Kozak for help to analyze it further.
"And I said, 'Great! This is what I do, love it.' So send me the samples,'" Kozak said.
He started on a battery of tests and brought in graduate students — calling it Project Unknown Glob — to help determine what it was.
It included testing it for hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and sulfur, as well as setting it on fire to see if it would melt.
'I definitely wouldn't eat it'
Kozak said the substance is perfectly safe to handle in its current stable form.
"I definitely wouldn't eat it, but I've been able to handle it. It's fine," he said.
"In its cured form, it's pretty, pretty stable. It's not going to get into your skin," he said. "It still has a bit of a volatile odour to it. I wouldn't use it as a bath sponge."
For anyone who comes across the blobs on the beach, he advised them to toss it into a garbage bin or collect it for DFO. He's also worried that animals might confuse the blobs for jellyfish and try to eat them.
"I would call this plastic pollution. So it's certainly a pollutant. You don't want it out there."
In one test, Chris Kozak tried to set a bit of blob on fire. (Jeremy Eaton/CBC)
Corlett said she's heard from people living in the Placentia Bay area who are worried about where this substance is coming from.
"It's important that we try and use the tools we have at Memorial to figure this out for them, because it must be disturbing," she said, adding longtime residents had said they had never seen such a substance before on their shores.
Something Weird Happened 15 Minutes Before the Giant Tonga Eruption of 2022
A previously overlooked seismic signal portended the gargantuan volcanic eruption.
Images: NASA Earth Observatory / Joshua Stevens / Lauren Dauphin / CALIPSO data from NASA/CNES, MODIS and VIIRS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE and GIBS/Worldview and the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership, and GOES imagery courtesy of NOAA and the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS)
Two years ago, the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano blew its top, destroying the island of the same name, forcing mass evacuations, covering Tonga in ash, and causing several deaths. Predicting these sorts of natural disasters are exceedingly difficult, but a surprising new finding suggests some volcanoes give off a clue in the minutes preceding a cataclysmic eruption.
According to a team of researchers that reviewed some overlooked data from that data, the huge volcanic eruption that rocked the Pacific Ocean in 2022 was preceded by a seismic wave that shot across Earth’s surface. The data was collected by faraway seismometers, but the recent team posits that even those distant signals can help people prepare for future surprise eruptions.
Early warning systems for natural disasters—earthquakes, eruptions and tsunamis, as well as more predictable events like hurricanes, tornadoes, and typhoons—save lives. Any amount of notice is better than none, as even critical minutes of warning can make the difference between life and death.
“Early warnings are very important for disaster mitigation,” said study co-author Mie Ichihara, a volcanologist at the University of Tokyo, in an American Geophysical Union release. “Island volcanoes can generate tsunamis, which are a significant hazard.”
The team inspected seismometer data from stations in Fiji and Futuna—over 466 miles (750 kilometers) from the eruption. In that data, the researchers found a certain kind of surface-traveling seismic wave—called a Rayleigh wave—that emanated from the direction of the cataclysmic eruption about 15 minutes before the event itself. The Rayleigh wave was imperceptible to humans, but the seismometers had no problem picking it up.
“Referring to other seismic signals and satellite images, we concluded that the Rayleigh wave was the most significant eruption precursor with no apparent surface activity,” the researchers wrote in their work, published Monday in Geophysical Research Letters. “Including our findings and results of previous studies, we propose a scenario of the beginning of the caldera-forming eruption.”
The record-breaking eruption occurred on January 15, 2022. The eruption’s 36-mile-high (58-kilometer-high) volcanic plume was the largest ever recorded, and reached Earth’s mesosphere in just half an hour. The previous record-holder was the huge 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines.
As the team notes, the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha‘apai eruption was not preceded by any “apparent surface activity.” Consequently, the Rayleigh wave was the main indicator of the imminent destruction.
“When a usual earthquake occurs, seismic waves including the Rayleigh wave are instantaneously used to estimate the source parameters,” such as the epicenter, depth, magnitude, and mechanism, Ichihara told Gizmodo in an email. “Then, the source parameters are used to disseminate Tsunami early warning. However, there is no existing infrastructure to use the Rayleigh wave from an eruption precursor like the one identified in our article, though we believe it useful.”
“At the time of the eruption, we didn’t think of using this kind of analysis in real-time.”
In their paper, the researchers suggest that a fracture in the oceanic crust beneath the volcano’s caldera wall released the seismic wave detected in Fiji and Futuna. Then, magma from beneath the crust and ocean water above it poured into the volcano’s magma chamber beneath the surface, which caused the land above to collapse and kick off the eruption.
The team suggests that analyzing data from seismic stations located even hundreds of miles from an eruption can reveal the event before its worst impacts occur. “At the time of the eruption, we didn’t think of using this kind of analysis in real-time,” Ichihara said. “But maybe the next time that there is a significant eruption underwater, local observatories can recognize it from their data.”
The Alberta government is permanently cutting off the flow of publicly funded vaccines to community medical clinics, save a select few, sparking yet another wave of concern from health-care providers.
As CBC News previously reported, shipments of publicly funded vaccines to community medical clinics were halted in April when a distribution contract expired.
A replacement was never hired and, as a result, family physicians did not receive COVID-19 and flu vaccines for the fall immunization campaign.
Clinics have been unable to access a number of other publicly funded vaccines for months, including the shot that protects against pertussis (whooping cough).
After months of uncertainty punctuated by messaging that the disruption was temporary, the Alberta government now tells CBC News it is ending the wider distribution program, which was launched in 2021 in an effort to increase access.
"As we continue to move past the pandemic, we have re-evaluated and have determined that we will return to distributing provincially funded vaccines to the select community medical clinics that previously administered vaccines," a statement from the health minister's office said.
"To ensure we limit vaccine waste as much as possible while maintaining access, we will focus on serving the most vulnerable populations, those in rural [and] remote locations, and on clinics administering the highest volume of vaccines."
Moving forward, the province plans to distribute influenza, pneumococcal and Tdap shots (which protect against pertussis, tetanus and diphtheria) to between 20 and 25 community medical clinics.
Before distribution was halted in the spring, between 500 and 600 community medical clinics were administering publicly funded vaccines, a government document shows.
'Alarming' change
"This response falls far short of what we need to see.… We need all community medical clinics to be able to administer appropriate vaccinations to their patients," said Dr. Mareli Powell, a family physician working in Fox Creek and Edmonton.
Dr. Mareli Powell is a family physician working in Edmonton and Fox Creek. Powell is past-president of the North Zone Medical Staff Association. (CBC)
According to Powell, a variety of clinics will be affected, including family doctors' offices offering flu shots, those that perform stitches and administer tetanus shots at the same time and maternity clinics that offer vaccines as part of prenatal care.
"It's not acceptable that this service cannot be provided through medical clinics anymore," said Powell, past-president of the North Zone Medical Staff Association.
"If we take that about 300,000 patients get their vaccinations through medical clinics, it will impact our vaccination rates.This will put further strain on our acute care system once the flu season is in full swing."
Alberta's flu vaccine uptake last year was the lowest it's been in a decade, at 24 per cent.
Dr. Christine Luelo, a Calgary family physician, is concerned about the scale back.
"When I hear the number of 20 to 25 [clinics] as a provincial number, I'm a little alarmed that that is a tiny drop in the bucket," she said.
"Best case scenario, they don't actually understand the implication of not including primary care providers as a key enabler to vaccination.… Worst case scenario is that they're actively working to be quiet about vaccines. And that's pretty alarming, to say the least."
Luelo said making vaccines as accessible as possible is key at a time when immunization rates are dropping.
And she's concerned the change will lead to fragmentation of care by forcing patients to take another step and go elsewhere for their vaccines.
"I've had many situations where a patient just needed a few extra questions answered, they're ready to go, and now I'm sending them away from my clinic in the hopes they won't change their mind en route to the pharmacy."
Dr. Christine Luelo is a Calgary-based family physician who, until the distribution problems, was administering vaccines through her clinic. (Submitted by Dr. Christine Luelo)
The Alberta Medical Association is also speaking out.
"We are concerned that vaccines will not be available through community family or rural generalist clinics.… This removes the opportunity for Albertans to obtain advice and immunization from their most trusted source of medical information," Dr. Shelley Duggan, president of the AMA, said in a statement emailed to CBC News.
"About four per cent of immunizations were administered in this way last year and that's still significant: every person vaccinated means improved safety for everyone."
According to Duggan, the AMA is consulting with members and will continue to press government to consider other options.
Meanwhile, the provincial government said it will continue to monitor vaccine uptake and will make changes if needed.
"We want to be clear that there continues to be good access to immunization services in Alberta," the statement said.
Influenza, COVID-19, pneumococcal and Tdap vaccines are available at approximately 1,600 community pharmacies and 150 AHS clinics. According to the province, 97 per cent of the people immunized against the flu last year received their shots at those locations.
COVID-19 will no longer be shipped to any community medical clinics to avoid waste, according to the province, because there are multiple doses in each vial.
The selection criteria for clinics is still in the works and the province expects to start shipping from its provincial vaccine depot between the end of November and mid-December.
Canada Post, union still at odds as strike looms. What are the sticking points?
WATCH: As possible Canada Post strike looms, who could see biggest impact?
Canada Post and its workers’ union remain at odds in their labour negotiations as a potential strike looms, threatening to disrupt mail service for millions of Canadians.
Canada Post told Global News in an emailed statement Monday night that weekend talks with the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) were “unfortunately less productive” than the Crown corporation had hoped for.
The union is in a legal strike position as of Sunday after a cooling-off period in the contract talks ended the day before, but has yet to issue a strike notice.
“At this time, neither party has provided notice (minimum 72 hours) of their intent to start a labour disruption,” said Lisa Liu, a Canada Post spokesperson.
While both parties are still negotiating, the union said Monday that “if there is no real movement at the bargaining table, we won’t shy away from taking the next step.”
The threat of a strike ahead of the busy holiday season has already had a “serious effect” on business as customers look for other delivery options, putting further financial strain on the company, Canada Post said.
“Retailers require certainty for their shipments at this critical time of year and are moving their parcels to other delivery companies,” Liu said.
“Customers have also cancelled direct marketing campaigns to avoid having items stuck in the postal network in the event of a strike. Our overall volumes are down significantly and continue to erode.”
What are the main sticking points?
For almost a year, the CUPW has been bargaining new contracts for the urban operations unit and the rural and suburban mail carriers (RSMC) unit.
The two sides have been negotiating since November last year. In September, Canada Post presented its proposal and the union came up with its counter-offers last month.
Last week, Canada Post presented its latest offers to the CUPW, including higher annual wage increases amounting to 11.5 per cent over four years and protections for workers’ pensions. The new proposal also included enhanced leave entitlements and job security provisions.
In an initial review of that proposal, the union said the offers “fall short.”
As things stand, both parties are not seeing eye to eye on two key issues: weekend delivery and a short-term disability plan, among other sticking points.
Canada Post says it’s negotiating a “more flexible delivery model” that would allow affordable parcel delivery seven days a week.
The union is not convinced that this plan will protect workers’ regular full-time routes on weekdays.
On short-term disability, CUPW is demanding to include 10 medical days and seven personal days in the collective agreements, but Canada Post refuses to budge from 13 personal days, the union said.
Pensions and access to essential benefits are other hurdles to reaching an agreement.
In a statement to Global News on Tuesday, CUPW spokesperson Siân Griffiths said Canada Post is “pushing to weaken our pensions, not just for current members but for future generations as well. They also want to make it harder for postal workers, who put their health on the line daily, to access essential benefits.”
There is also the option for a full-out strike, she said, as well as Canada Post locking out workers and closing the business down completely.
The federal government has urged both parties to reach a collective agreement and is working to facilitate that outcome.
Labour Minister Steve MacKinnon met with Canada Post and CUPW on Thursday.
He told reporters on Wednesday: “We’re obviously active in trying to facilitate a collective agreement and we want the two parties to agree and for that agreement to be ratified.”
MacKinnon did not say if the federal government would intervene.
If a strike goes ahead, it’s not clear if the Liberal minority government will be able to legislate an end to the work stoppage.
“There is not a scenario where we’ll be supporting back-to-work legislation,” Matthew Green, the NDP’s labour critic, said in an interview with Global News on Friday.
“It’s incumbent on the labour minister to not use the threat of legislating Canada Post back to work to basically take management off the hook from negotiating a fair deal with these workers.”
He added that all options need to be explored and that the “best deals” are reached at the bargaining table.
With North American lumber prices below break-even costs for many sawmills in Canada and the U.S., plus ongoing geopolitical uncertainty, recessionary conditions in China and declining timber supplies around the world, the global outlook for the forestry industry is not particularly rosy.
In British Columbia, once North America’s forest-sector powerhouse, it seems downright dismal. And low lumber prices—a result of inflation and high interest rates squelching North American homebuilding—are only one of a myriad of challenges facing the industry.
According to Natural Resources Canada, the average price for Western SPF (spruce-pine-fir) was below US$400 per thousand board feet—a quarter of the record-high US$1,600 per thousand board feet seen in 2021.
“Through the first two weeks of July, prices have continued to move lower where almost all ‘average’ or typical sawmills in North America are at or below break-even costs,” Global Consulting Alliance noted in a recent quarterly outlook, which does offer a glimmer of hope that lumber prices have reached their bottom.
“North American lumber prices bottomed in July and have since been steadily increasing. While weak sawmilling margins are still evident in North America, the market tone is finally changing and sawmills in the U.S. south are making good margins while mills in B.C. and the U.S. Pacific Northwest are getting closer to break-even levels.”
The outlook says Canada’s lumber output was 4.4 per cent higher in the first seven months of 2024 compared with 2023, but that B.C.’s output was lower by 2.8 per cent.
A shrinking timber supply has turned B.C. into a high-cost jurisdiction. There have been more than a dozen sawmill and pulp mill closures in the past four years, and a flight of capital to the U.S., where B.C. forestry giants such as Canfor (TSX:CFP) and West Fraser Timber (TSX:WFG) now own as many, if not more, sawmills than they do in Canada.
While the pine beetle infestation that devastated B.C. forests two decades ago is partly responsible for B.C.’s shrinking fibre supply, both federal and provincial government regulations have also eaten into the available timber supply in Canada, and especially in B.C., according to Rob Schuetz, president of Industrial Forest Services, who spoke at last week’s Global Wood Summit organized by Russ Taylor Global and ERA Forest Products Research.
Rob Schuetz, president of Industrial Forest Services, speaks at the Global Wood Summit. | Sandy McKellar, Tree Frog
In short, B.C. has an allowable annual cut that is increasingly not allowed to be cut.
In the 1990s, B.C. was harvesting 95 per cent of the province’s annual allowable cut (AAC), Schuetz said. In the 2000s, that fell to 80 per cent, partly because of the 2008-09 financial crisis in the U.S. that caused a housing market collapse.
Since the BC NDP came to power in 2017, the percentage of the AAC that is actually cut has fallen below 50 per cent, Schuetz said.
“The last few years, since the NDP came in and they started this more aggressive approach to reconciliation, and the different initiatives get to support that, we’ve harvested about 47 per cent of the annual cut, irrespective of the fact that lumber was US$1,600 (per thousand board feet) in the 2021 period,” Schuetz said. “We couldn’t recover with respect to our harvesting, for various reasons.”
Those “various reasons” include a stack of new policies and regulations: Old growth harvesting moratoria, new forest landscape plans, ecosystem-based land management, increasing parks and protected areas, shared land-use decision-making with First Nations, and federal and provincial caribou habitat protection plans.
Since 2020, 16 sawmills, three pulp mills and four paper mills have closed in B.C., Schuetz said.
The federal government’s caribou habitat protection regulations under the Species at Risk Act (SARA) has impacted the fibre supply across the country, he said. B.C.’s caribou recovery plan, as per SARA, led to a planned expansion of the Klinse-za provincial park, Schuetz said, which led Canfor to pre-emptively shut down a sawmill in Chetwynd.
“Canfor shut down their Chetwynd facility a couple years ago simply because they knew that the writing was on the wall for their fibre supply because of caribou habitat,” Schuetz said. “It took a couple of more years for the park to be put into place, but the writing is on the wall for a lot of sawmills across Canada.”
Even if lumber prices recover, Schuetz suggested B.C. producers will be in no position to capitalize on them.
“Even in a good market … there won’t be a real recovery in B.C. towards the AAC and towards our ability to respond to an increase in lumber prices, simply because of either economics or a few other issues,” he said.
For more than a decade now, B.C. forestry companies have been investing in the U.S. This is, in part, a hedge against the softwood lumber duties applied to Canadian lumber imports.
But the U.S. also has a growing fibre basket, thanks in part to the fact that species like southern yellow pine have shorter rotation periods of 20 to 30 years, compared to rotations of 60 to 80 years for species grown in B.C.—lodgepole pine and Douglas fir, for example.
The great recession of the late 2000s also had a major impact lumber demand, resulting in a build-up of fibre inventory. Additionally, U.S. timberlands are mostly privately owned tree plantations, and do not face the same encumbrances as B.C. public lands.
Amanda Lang, COO of the U.S. forestry consulting firm Forisk Consulting, said the growth-to-drain ratio in the U.S. south is now 1.4.
“That means the forest is growing 40 per cent more volume than we’re harvesting, which means the timber supply is growing at 40 per cent above harvesting levels,” Lang said.
“That timber resource really increased after the great recession. We’re actually forecasting more of an increase into 2033 and 2035 for the region.”
Frozan Hassan Zai thought she would finally be safe after leaving an abusive marriage in the Netherlands and arriving in Canada eight years ago. She married a Canadian, had a child, started a business and has helped others wanting to come to this country. Now she faces deportation because Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada has deemed her marriage false.
Frozan Hassan Zai thought she would finally be safe after leaving an abusive marriage in the Netherlands with her two children, her second time fleeing a country.
She arrived in Canada, married a Canadian, had a child, started a business and has helped others to come to this country.
Eight years later, and now living in Paris, Ont., she is being deported by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC).
"In this big world, there is no place we can call home," Zai told CBC.
Zai's husband tried to sponsor her and her children twice through the common-law spousal program, but was denied both times because the IRCC has deemed they're in a marriage of convenience — meaning they wed solely with the intention of receiving citizenship or permanent status.
At a hearing Tuesday afternoon, Zai and her children received deportation orders. They must leave Canada by the first week of December.
She first fled Afghanistan as a teen
Zai's story begins at a grocery store in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan where she made the political mistake of not wearing a burqa — a full-body and face covering.
"I had only a scarf," she said. "They started beating me almost to death.
"And that day, my mom said we have to leave because today you were almost killed."
Frozan Hassan Zai escaped Taliban-ruled Afghanistan when she was 13 after she said she was nearly beaten to death for not wearing a burqa. (Cameron Mahler/CBC)
Zai said she was 13 when she left Afghanistan. She, her parents and her brother fled on foot with only a backpack to carry their belongings.
Eventually ending up in the Netherlands, at 16, Zai was forced to marry her cousin and became pregnant shortly afterward.
She named her first born Shokran Hassan Zai, who said growing up in Holland was full of ups and downs, but mostly downs.
My life is and my children's life is in great danger if we get sent back to Holland or Afghanistan.- Frozan Hassan Zai
"I grew up with just my mom and she was a single mom. My dad was not around all that much for most of my life," Shokran told CBC.
His mother said Shokran's father was abusive toward her, and in and out of jail over the next 14 years of their marriage.
"I went to the police, I went to the women's shelter, but they cannot protect you forever, or keep someone in prison forever," she said.
"Leaving Holland was the only option at that time."
When they arrived in the country, Zai's youngest, Sobhan, was two years old and Shokran was 14, still at an age to spend the majority of his time in high school in Canada.
"You have to start from zero, right? New country, you don't know the language all that well. It was challenging at first," he said.
Shokran said he didn't go to college because he was told he'd have to pay international fees.
"As far as I know, Canada is my home," he said. "I tried to do my best to be here to get a good job, make good money."
Now a finance manager at a car dealership in Hamilton, he said, "My mom is a business owner, I have a full-time job, my little sister's a citizen of this country. Why exactly do you guys see the need of deporting me?"
'We started as 2 friends ... it turned into love'
Shokran's mother met her future husband, Masood Meer, while he was working in an Afghani restaurant in Brampton.
She and her two children spent their first winter in Canada living in a basement apartment.
"I didn't know if it was day or night because it was dark inside the basement and cold," she said.
Because of Meer's Afghani background, she figured she could ask him if he knew anyone who was renting. They exchanged phone numbers and apartment listings, and Meer eventually helped her set up viewings. But when that was done, Zai said, he kept calling.
"We started as two friends. He was very, very helpful. And then at some point, it turned into love," said Zai.
"Oh, he's an amazing guy," said Shokran. "I love him to death."
Despite attempting to sponsor his wife, Zai, and her two Dutch children's citizenships twice, Masood Meer was denied. The IRCC deemed the marriage one of convenience. (Submitted)
After living in Canada for a little over a year, Zai and Meer got married. About a year later, they had Rose, who is now seven years old.
But Zai said the IRCC doesn't believe there's any love there, and has declared their relationship a marriage of convenience, meaning obtaining citizenship or permanent residency is the sole purpose of their union.
Each case assessed based on Canadian law: MP
CBC reached out over a number of days to the federal government and multiple MPs who might be involved in Zai's case.
The office of Immigration Minister Marc Miller said they couldn't provide a response by publication time.
In Guelph, where Frozan spends a lot of time working and volunteering with St. Andrew's church, MP Lloyd Longfield's office said in an email that "every case is assessed on its merits and reviewed in accordance with Canada's laws."
Brantford–Brant MP Larry Brock, whose riding includes Zai's town of Paris, did not respond to requests for comment.
Lawyer gives reasons IRCC rules false marriage
Binod Rajgandha, a Waterloo-based immigration lawyer, said there are a number of reasons the IRCC might conclude a marriage was one of convenience.
There could be a massive age gap between the couple or perhaps they were married too soon after meeting each other. But for Zai and Meer, they're both 40 and they dated before marriage.
A big reason they might find that a marriage is false, however, is due to "minimal knowledge of the partner's life," said Rajgandha.
"For example, during an interview or during a discussion, if IRCC identified that they hardly know each other's background, such as the personal history, the interest or the family details," said Rajgandha, it might be ruled as a marriage of convenience.
Immigration lawyer Binod Rajgandha says a lack of knowledge of a partner's life would be a key reason for a relationship to be deemed a marriage of convenience. (Mode Immigration)
Zai said her husband tried to sponsor her and her children twice through the common-law spousal program, but was denied both times for this reason.
Of one of the denials, Zai said her "son was enrolled in a college, he was not even started yet, and because [her husband] didn't know the name of the college, now they are thinking that marriage is not real."
Rajgandha said a marriage of convenience can't be the only reason to issue a deportation order.
"She might have lost their immigration status," he said.
Frozan said her refugee status was recently rescinded.
"If that is the case, when IRCC will send a refusal letter, they put in a removal order as well," said Rajgandha.
He said the removal order is the last step before deportation.
Zai said she's unsure whether there may be plans to deport her and her children to the Netherlands, or if she'd be sent directly to Afghanistan.
Zai said if she's sent to the Netherlands, because of the history there with her ex-husband and his family, she isn't safe. She said that because of her divorce and the fact she's fled Afghanistan already, they won't be safe there either.
"My life is and my children's life is in great danger if we get sent back to Holland or Afghanistan," she said.
'It's been very emotional'
Since settling in Paris, Zai has spent some time helping others come to Canada. Most recently, with the help of the Mission and Outreach Committee at St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Guelph, she managed to secure a place for her brother and his family in the church's 2024 refugee quota.
Richard McRonald, chair of the committee, said he met Frozan while she was advocating for her brother's refugee status.
Rick McRonald is chair of the Mission and Outreach Committee at St. Andrew's church in Guelph and has been working with Zai in her efforts to stay in Canada. (Cameron Mahler/CBC)
"It's been very emotional. We've tried everything we could think of to help and support her because we believe very strongly that she and her family need to stay together here in Canada," said McRonald.
"They work, they pay taxes, they volunteer, they get involved," he said. "They're the kind of people that we need here."
After Zai and her family received deportation orders on Tuesday, it's become clear that by the time her brother arrives in Canada, she will have already been removed.
"Why would we split the family up and send people away that we know are already contributing to our Canadian society?" said McRonald.
UN rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories says she was ‘snubbed’ by Canadian government
Francesca Albanese was visiting Canada to urge the Trudeau government to increase pressure on Israel to end its war in Gaza.
“What are they fearing?”
Nov. 5, 2024 Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, speaks with reporters during a news conference in Ottawa on Nov. 5, 2024.
Francesca Albanese, the UN’s special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, told the Star in Ottawa on Tuesday that an invitation to meet with officials at Global Affairs Canada was abruptly withdrawn a week before she arrived to Ottawa, while a scheduled appearance before the House of Commons’ foreign affairs committee, which is currently conducting an independent study on the fastest way for Canada to recognize a Palestinian state, was also cancelled. She described herself as having been “snubbed” by the Canadian government.
“It is not lost on me that despite the urgency of the current moment, with a few important exceptions, the political leadership in this country chose to either not meet me or withdraw invitations to meet me,” the human rights lawyer told reporters during a news conference. “What are they fearing?”
Joly did not reply when asked in person by the Star about Albanese’s comments Tuesday.
Global Affairs Canada and the Prime Minister’s Office did not respond to requests for comment on Tuesday afternoon.
A clerk for the foreign affairs committee said its members agreed on Oct. 24 to withdraw their invitation to Albanese and requested a written statement instead, but did not explain why because the motion was adopted in a closed-door meeting. Describing Israel’s military campaign against Hamas in Gaza as a “genocide” while also condemning the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, Albanese said Canadian policy towards Israel is not “coherent” with its stated support for international human rights, and accused Canada and other Western nations of “colonial amnesia.”
That charge of genocide is the subject of a case brought forward by South Africa against Israel at the International Court of Justice. South Africa has argued Israel’s bombardment of densely populated areas and its failure to allow enough humanitarian aid were committed with “intent” to destroy Palestinians, while Israel declared the case “blood libel” and argued it’s doing its best to minimize civilian casualties and provide aid as it fights Hamas. An interim ruling in January said that Israel must end its military offensive in Gaza to prevent genocide.
Joly said at the time that Canada’s support for the ICJ “does not mean we accept the premise of the case brought by South Africa.”
“Under the UN’s 1948 Genocide Convention, the crime of genocide requires the intention to destroy or partly destroy a group because of their nationality, ethnicity, race or religion,” Joly said. “Meeting this high threshold requires compelling evidence.”
Since the Oct. 7 attacks, the Canadian government has said it supports Israel’s right to defend itself while urging restraint. Canada called for a ceasefire in December 2023 and moved to crack down on arms transfers to Israel that could end up being used in Gaza earlier this year. Albanese said Canada should go further as she criticized the Trudeau government’s rejection of the genocide accusations and called for the immediate recognition of a Palestinian state, the cancelation of all arms exports to Israel, including transfers through third-countries, and a review of its trade agreement with Israel.
“It is clear to me that the Canadian people want more clarity, integrity and concrete action from their government on the atrocities we all see unfolding in Palestine, in Gaza,” she told reporters.
Albanese’s visit to Canada was met with opposition from pro-Israel groups, which have accused her of being divisive and making antisemitic remarks, citing her comparison of Israeli policies towards Palestinians to Nazi Germany’s treatment of Jews as one example, which the Canadian mission to the UN described as “unacceptable.”
The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs had called on government officials to refrain from meeting with Albanese while she is in Canada.
Shimon Koffler Fogel, the group’s president, told the Star in a statement Tuesday that “though we were not made aware of cancelled meetings, we are glad that our concerns were taken seriously, and that Albanese is not being given access to Canadian political leaders.”
Israel’s ambassador to Canada, Iddo Moed, said “the refusal of any Canadian government official to meet with her speaks for itself.”
Albanese said Tuesday that she is not criticizing Jews or Israelis, but the policies of the Israeli government.
“I have condemned the degree of the crimes against Israeli civilians, the killing, brutalization and the taking of hostages with the same rigour and with the same firm spirit I have condemned the crimes that Israel has committed against the Palestinian people before, on and after Oct. 7,” she said.
Correction — Nov. 6, 2024
This article has been updated. Francesca Albanese, the UN’s special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, is not a UN official as previously stated incorrectly. She is an independent expert appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council.
Mark Ramzy is a federal politics reporter in the Toronto Star's Parliament Hill Bureau. Reach him via email: mramzy@thestar.ca
