Today I dug up a story I wrote for The Standard in St. Catharines, Ont., published Dec. 29, 2004. As I described in the tweets below, it’s a story that has always stayed with me, but one that has more resonance at the moment, as we hear of more people risking so much to seek asylum here.
For more resources on the Safe Third Country Agreement, see:
- This FAQ from the CBC
- The Government of Canada’s website
- Canadian lawyers call for change to Safe Third Country Agreement amid influx of refugees
For obvious reasons, I’ve been thinking a great deal of late about Vive La Casa, a Buffalo, NY refugee centre I visited in 2004 …
— Trish Audette-Longo (@taudette) February 25, 2017
I was a reporter at The Standard in St. Catharines, Ont., and it was the last days before the Safe Third Country Agreement was enacted …
— Trish Audette-Longo (@taudette) February 25, 2017
Many (Cdn) reporters were given access to the centre at the same time as Immigration Canada officials processed refugee claims …
— Trish Audette-Longo (@taudette) February 25, 2017
My article was entitled, “Rushing for refuge in Canada,” and I wrote …
— Trish Audette-Longo (@taudette) February 26, 2017
“In just over a week, [an] estimated 1,000 people took their neatly folded lives with them to the shelter, …
— Trish Audette-Longo (@taudette) February 26, 2017
“… in the hopes they’ll soon get to cross the Peace Bridge.”…
— Trish Audette-Longo (@taudette) February 26, 2017
What I had always remembered was that the centre was so crowded as people made the rush for the border before the law came into force …
— Trish Audette-Longo (@taudette) February 26, 2017
And about the little kids from all over the world playing, sharing toys, and of course fighting together …
— Trish Audette-Longo (@taudette) February 26, 2017
The centre’s executive director at the time explained, “The perception is, ‘Once I get to Canada, I gain control of my life again'”…
— Trish Audette-Longo (@taudette) February 26, 2017
And his forecast that, once the Safe Third Country Agreement was in place, it would not be the last we would hear of it …
— Trish Audette-Longo (@taudette) February 26, 2017
“This is an ‘extremely vulnerable population. They will do whatever they have to do to get (to) some place that they feel is safe.'”
— Trish Audette-Longo (@taudette) February 26, 2017
Trish Audette-Longo 