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My eldest daughter's school sent out a notification to parents, apparently they got a 'clown threat' yesterday.
Yes, that's a real thing.
Yes, that's a real thing.
Something fishy? Man finds gruesome remains that look like a 'dead mermaid' on deserted beach
Pictures taken on Norfolk beach capture a body with human-like features
Mystery find at Great Yarmouth has the skull of a man but the tail of a fish
Debate rages online over possible explanations for the eerie discovery
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3822814/UK-man-stumbles-gruesome-remains-look-like-dead-mermaid-deserted-beach.html#ixzz4MDAzZEHc
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jollyjacktar said:Don't know what this is, but it's weird looking. Photos at link below.
But there may also be a more simple explanation. Mr Jones’s Facebook profile shows him to be a keen modeller - particularly of creepy figures. He is a member of the ‘Horror and Halloween DIY’ Facebook group.
Ottawa softens stand on stripping citizenship over false papers
MICHELLE ZILIO
OTTAWA — The Globe and Mail
Published Tuesday, Oct. 04, 2016 10:01PM EDT
Last updated Tuesday, Oct. 04, 2016 10:04PM EDT
Immigration Minister John McCallum says he is open to granting a moratorium on the revocation of citizenship from Canadians who misrepresented themselves in their applications, an issue that has been thrust into the spotlight by the circumstances of cabinet minister Maryam Monsef’s citizenship.
Mr. McCallum’s comments come a week after the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association and the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers filed a legal action with the Federal Court asking the government to put a stop to all revocations until it could fix a law that allows citizenship to be stripped without a hearing.
“I will consider that moratorium. I won’t rule it out unconditionally,” Mr. McCallum told Senate Question Period on Tuesday. “What I am saying is that we would welcome a reform to the system.”
The Federal Court application made headlines when lawyers on the case said that Ms. Monsef, Democratic Institutions Minister, could have her citizenship revoked under the current law for having an incorrect birthplace listed on her citizenship papers. Ms. Monsef said she only learned that she was born in Iran, not Afghanistan as she had believed, after an inquiry from The Globe and Mail last month. She said her mother never told her and her sisters they were born in Iran because she did not think it mattered.
While Ottawa is considering the moratorium on revocations, the government says it is committed to eventually reinstating the right to a hearing for Canadians who face losing their citizenship because they misrepresented themselves in their citizenship and permanent residency applications.
Independent Senator Ratna Omidvar said she is going to propose an amendment to the government’s citizenship Bill C-6 to reverse the Conservative law that took away the long-standing right.
“I am hopeful that they will allow this amendment to be tabled,” Ms. Omidvar said. “Everybody’s hoping they’re able to do it in this bill at the Senate. But if not, I’ve been told that it will be fixed through legislation.”
MPs tried to table the amendment to Bill C-6 at the House immigration committee earlier this year, but was it declared to be out of scope by the committee chair. Ms. Omidvar noted that the Senate procedure rules are different, so the amendment still has a chance in the Red Chamber.
In the meantime, the government continues to enforce its revocation powers. Immigration lawyer Lorne Waldman said the government appears to be in a rush to issue as many revocation notices as possible before the law changes.
“We had seven new clients in the last week,” Mr. Waldman said. “It’s really disconcerting for me that they are continuing to proceed with the process that the government agrees should be changed.”
The government has to decide how it will respond to the Federal Court application by Wednesday. Unaware of the deadline, Mr. McCallum told reporters after Question Period that a decision would have to be made quickly.
“If it needs an answer tomorrow, I’ll have to look at it quickly,” Mr. McCallum said.
Josh Paterson, executive director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, was surprised Mr. McCallum did not know the deadline for such a high-profile decision, which carries serious ramifications for those affected.
“With every week that this carries on, there are more Canadians who are potentially having their citizenship revoked without a fair process,” Mr. Paterson said. “The government should respond quickly and they should agree to stopping these proceedings that they admit are unfair before court has to force them to do so.”
Case of Concordia student facing loss of citizenship has ‘compelling parallels’ to Monsef situation: lawyer
Brian Hutchinson | October 6, 2016 7:20 PM ET
VANCOUVER — A 19-year-old Concordia University student has been told she will be stripped of her Canadian identity, a decade after the woman’s mother allegedly made misrepresentations when applying for their citizenship.
The case has “compelling parallels” to the situation involving Canada’s Minister of Democratic Institutions, Maryam Monsef, according the student’s lawyer. She wonders if government authorities will investigate Monsef’s family history and apply the law with the same force and vigour as it did with her client.
Monsef has claimed she learned last month that her mother misrepresented her country of birth when their family landed in Canada as refugee claimants 20 years ago.
For her part, the Concordia student says she wasn’t aware her mother had miscalculated the precise number of days she spent outside Canada during a five-year period before their family’s citizenship applications were accepted in 2006.
Nor did she know Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) officials had recently investigated her family. The student claims she wasn’t aware her citizenship had been revoked until her father informed her of the fact late last year, after the decision was made. She is now in litigation with the federal government to have her citizenship restored.
“I was in shock,” the woman says in an affidavit filed in Federal Court. “I could not understand how this could happen, and why (IRCC) did not allow me to make representations on my own behalf.”
Her Ottawa-based lawyer provided the National Post with documents related to the case on condition the student not be identified by name. “My client is a young woman who is under significant psychological distress,” explains the lawyer, Arghavan Gerami.
I could not understand how this could happen, and why (IRCC) did not allow me to make representations on my own behalf
Gerami says citizenship revocation laws as they are written and enforced are unfair, adding that the revocation process and order made against her client was “arbitrary and disproportionate.”
It’s one of several cases the B.C. Civil Liberties Association and the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers brought to public attention at a press conference in Ottawa last week. The two groups have filed their own constitutional challenge in Federal Court, arguing that a “revocation regime” created by Bill C-24 — which became law in 2014 — can have a person stripped of their legal status without so much as a hearing.
IRCC officials did not respond to written questions by press time Thursday. But earlier this week, Canada’s immigration minister, John McCallum, told reporters he would consider a moratorium on revoking citizenships without hearings.
That may come too late for the distressed Concordia student, described at last week’s press conference as “Ms. B.”
Born in Qatar to an Egyptian father and a Jordanian-Lebanese mother, she arrived in Canada as an Egyptian national with her parents in 2001, when she was four years old. The family was granted permanent resident status and settled in suburban Toronto.
Her father, an engineer, found work in his profession. The mother, meanwhile, made a number of trips back to Qatar. On an application for Canadian citizenship filed on her and Ms. B’s behalf in 2006, she claimed she’d been absent from Canada for a total of 144 days since 2001, according to a IRCC report prepared by a department case management analyst identified only by the reference code “CL5041.”
In fact, the analyst determined, the mother had given birth to a child in Qatar in 2002, meaning she’d spent more days outside the country than reported. “This time spent in Qatar was not declared on her application for citizenship,” wrote analyst CL5041.
In a written response to the analyst, Ms. B’s mother explained she’d been pregnant with her third child and fell ill when visiting her mother in Qatar. She “faced severe complications that threatened my life as well as my pregnancy to the extent I was nearly going to lose my baby; I was advised that flying back to Canada would jeopardize both our lives.”
She had no choice but remain in Qatar and give birth to her son there, she wrote in her response to the IRCC analyst, acknowledging that her failure to document the trip extension was an “oversight.”
It was enough to disqualify her Canadian citizenship, and Ms. B’s citizenship, as well. Analyst CL5041 made the decision on Dec. 16, 2015.
In her court-filed affidavit, Ms. B says she eventually learned her parents had kept information about the IRCC investigation and revocation order from her. “My father explained to me that he did not disclose the (IRCC) notice to revoke my citizenship and did not involve me in the process because he wanted to protect me from the worry and stress that this would cause,” Ms. B notes. “I had no idea my Canadian citizenship could one day suddenly be stripped from me.”
She remains enrolled at Concordia, and says her goals are to “become a teacher, to have a family and to continue residing permanently in Canada, where my fundamental rights as a woman are protected by the Canadian Constitution.”
• Email: bhutchinson@nationalpost.com
George Wallace said:Well mariomike.....If attacked by a group of clowns....
Colin P said:On the citizenship thing, I think it's fair for the kids to be able to appeal something they had no control over, and show that they have been a upstanding citizen.
Colin P said:On the citizenship thing, I think it's fair for the kids to be able to appeal something they had no control over, and show that they have been a upstanding citizen.
Canada caught off guard by number of Syrian refugee children, says federal minister
Large family size of many Syrian refugees pose challenges for schools, housing
By Laura Glowacki, CBC News Posted: Oct 12, 2016 3:51 PM CT Last Updated: Oct 12, 2016 5:56 PM CT
Canada's federal immigration minister says the government was surprised by the number of Syrian refugee children it admitted last year.
"Many of the refugees had large numbers of children and that was not completely anticipated in the beginning," said Citizenship and Immigration Minister John McCallum after a meeting with provincial counterparts in Winnipeg on Wednesday.
The number of children as part of the 2015 cohort of refugees presented challenges for schools and appropriate housing, he said. Approximately 31,919 Syrians have arrived in Canada and more than 20,000 applications are in progress.
Wishart said Manitoba doesn't know the precise number of refugees who will be calling Manitoba home this year.
"We know roughly how many families we'll be getting but we never seem to know the family size," said Manitoba's Minister of Education and Training Ian Wishart.
On Tuesday, Wishart said Ottawa is downloading many of the extra costs onto provinces associated with settling Syrian refugees such as education funding.
While McCallum said Ottawa is not considering extending supports for refugees beyond their first year in Canada, it is looking at providing additional funds for education. Ottawa is considering expanding funding for English and French as an additional language programs.
"After that we hope that they would have a job," McCallum said.
Winnipeg School Division receives the majority of Manitoba-bound refugee students, said Radean Carter, spokesperson for the school board. The division is calling on government to provide longer-term housing and settlement supports to refugees along with additional money to hire language instructors.
In 2015, the division accepted 170 Syrian students and received a special one-time grant in early 2016 from the province and federal government of $600,000 to accommodate the students.
"While we are expecting additional refugee students into our division this school year, we have not had any numbers or timing confirmed, nor any funding announced," Carter wrote in an email.
Winnipeg School Division hired five additional English as an additional language instructors and one support worker for newcomers recently, she said.
"These resources are fully employed and finding more qualified EAL teachers and support workers is becoming a challenge," Carter wrote.
Minister McCallum said overall he believes the settlement of Syrians is "going well" in Canada.
"The whole idea was for Canada to step up to the plate and help very vulnerable people come from a life of great danger to a peaceful life in Canada," McCallum said.
"I have no doubt the Syrian refugees will do extremely well."
George Wallace said:Next we will hear that the senior bureaucrat in charge of the Phoenix Pay System has been transferred to Immigration..... :facepalm:
George Wallace said:Next we will hear that the senior bureaucrat in charge of the Phoenix Pay System has been transferred to Immigration..... :facepalm:
Lightguns said:I hear it was Procurement actually, "Special Advisor". Which sounds terribly made up, but there is a career of a loyal soldier to be saved here!
ueo said:Because the dolts conducting the screenings are either woefully unaware of the large families and the propensity to have these or were unqualified to deal with this particular ethnicity and only interviewed the male through an interpreter who had carried out this process many times and knew the ropes. My cynicism showing again.