Tell your MP: push pause on unjust deportations
1,485 actions
goal: 2,000
It has been over a month now since the Ford government cut off funding for legal aid for low income refugees and immigrants in Ontario. Yet their cases are still going forward - and they still face the risk of deportation.
Until Ford’s cruel and unexpected cuts, Ontarians living below the poverty line (just $17,000 a year) were provided with access to a lawyer, including for refugee and immigration cases.
But on April 11, 2019, the Government of Ontario under Doug Ford put a stop to all provincial funding for refugee and immigration services, as a part of a 30% cut to the province’s legal aid budget. Within days, immigration and refugee services had been almost completely eliminated.
Imagine it was you and your family fleeing brutal persecution. Imagine your safety hinged on navigating a complex and foreign legal system - where one wrong answer could get you sent back to where you’d just fled.
Now, imagine doing it in a language you don’t even speak.
This is the reality of Doug Ford’s cruel cuts - traumatized victims of persecution facing deportation back to torture, detention, even death.
No one who is facing torture in a repressive regime, no woman who ran away from severe domestic violence in a country without protections, no LGBTQ2 individual who fled to save her life, should be deported without access to a lawyer because of a funding dispute between Queen’s Park and Ottawa.
But we have the power to put a stop to this injustice.
The federal government can push pause on deportation for individuals who have been denied their right to legal representation. But to do it, they need to see that the public is ready to stand with them and demand that they do the right thing.
That’s where you come in. Use the letter to the right to ask your MP to support a pause on deportations of individuals who have been deprived of access to counsel due to Ford’s legal aid cuts.
Let’s be clear - this crisis has been created by Ford, but both governments need to get to the table to negotiate a new funding formula. In the meantime, however, the federal government can at least push pause on unjust deportations for those who have been denied representation.Send an email to your MP today!
Until Ford’s cruel and unexpected cuts, Ontarians living below the poverty line (just $17,000 a year) were provided with access to a lawyer, including for refugee and immigration cases.
But on April 11, 2019, the Government of Ontario under Doug Ford put a stop to all provincial funding for refugee and immigration services, as a part of a 30% cut to the province’s legal aid budget. Within days, immigration and refugee services had been almost completely eliminated.
Imagine it was you and your family fleeing brutal persecution. Imagine your safety hinged on navigating a complex and foreign legal system - where one wrong answer could get you sent back to where you’d just fled.
Now, imagine doing it in a language you don’t even speak.
This is the reality of Doug Ford’s cruel cuts - traumatized victims of persecution facing deportation back to torture, detention, even death.
No one who is facing torture in a repressive regime, no woman who ran away from severe domestic violence in a country without protections, no LGBTQ2 individual who fled to save her life, should be deported without access to a lawyer because of a funding dispute between Queen’s Park and Ottawa.
But we have the power to put a stop to this injustice.
The federal government can push pause on deportation for individuals who have been denied their right to legal representation. But to do it, they need to see that the public is ready to stand with them and demand that they do the right thing.
That’s where you come in. Use the letter to the right to ask your MP to support a pause on deportations of individuals who have been deprived of access to counsel due to Ford’s legal aid cuts.
Let’s be clear - this crisis has been created by Ford, but both governments need to get to the table to negotiate a new funding formula. In the meantime, however, the federal government can at least push pause on unjust deportations for those who have been denied representation.Send an email to your MP today!
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