Toronto

March for Status for All!

(International Workers Day)

1:00pm
Saturday May 1 2010

5th Annual May Day of Action

On December 24, four migrant workers fell to their deaths, working in unsafe conditions. Immigration Enforcement is raiding shelters, harassing and arresting women and children. Workplace raids have increased. Migrants are killing themselves rather than be deported.

On May 1st, we say enough! Take to the streets! Demand an end to detentions and deportations, Access Without Fear, Status for All!

The refugee program is being gutted, temporary work programs expanded, people forced to live without status, in poverty, separate from families, and without the most basic services.

People with and without status are denied free movement, good jobs, food, healthcare, education, shelter, housing, justice and dignity. Attacks on Indigenous peoples, aggressive wars, military and economic occupation, and capitalist expansionist policies have greatly increased. We must resist!

We are marching to build a city where all people can live with dignity and without fear. A city that does not participate in the displacement and exploitation of people, or the destruction of the planet. We are marching to build a Sanctuary City.

Join Us!

Alexander, Aleksey, Fayzullo, Vladimir, Habtom, Grize ...

On May 1, 2010 (International Workers Day)
March for Status for All!
1pm, St. Jamestown
Wellesley St. and Ontario St.

For information on Immigration changes as of October 2009, visit http://toronto.nooneisillegal.org/node/336
For information on the Christmas Eve killings, visit http://toronto.nooneisillegal.org/node/391
For information on changes to the refugee system, visit http://toronto.nooneisillegal.org/immigrationpolicy
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=283952630979

Endorsed by: South Asian Women's Rights Organization, Caregivers Action Centre, Justice for Migrant Workers, Jane Finch Action Against Poverty, Mujeres al Frente, International Federation of Iranian Refugees, United Food and Commercial Workers, Good Jobs for All Coalition, Davenport-Perth Neighbourhood Centre Bread & Bricks, LIFE Movement, Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, and more...

A few facts:

1) In 2008, more people entered the labor force as temporary migrant workers than those entering the country as permanent residents – the first such instance that we know of.

2) The recent proposed changes to the Refugee system include removing the arbitration system and the PRRA application which was the only way for denied asylum seekers to be stop their deportations. Though Kenney keeps talking about 2500 person increase – there was actually a 17,000 person cut in December.

3) There have been raids in anti-violence against women shelters, at workplaces and in community gardens at a scale not seen before.

4) On December 24, four workers without full status fell from a building – they had no safety equipment and felt unable to ask for any for fear of reprisals.

5) In March, an Eritrean man hung himself rather than face deportation

6) Canadian mining companies are involved in disappearances of nearly a dozen activists and community leaders in Papua New Guinea, Chile, Congo and other places. Mining, on its path of destruction, displaces 10 million people annually.

7) Canada has refused to speak out against the coup in Honduras, against Israeli attacks on Palestinians and Sri Lankan violence on Tamils – more often then not supporting the aggressor regimes. These wars and others push millions out of their homes

8) In Vancouver for the Olympics and in Northern Alberta on the Tar Sands migrant workers are being pitted against Indigenous peoples as both communities are under attack.