Bad news

Well, shit. The Supremes decided not to hear a challenge to the safe third country bill, which basically means that it’s near impossible to come to Canada as a refugee unless there happen to be direct flights from your country to here, and you don’t need to change planes in the US. Canada has a very long history of using technicalities like this to keep out undesirables, so I was thrilled when a federal court threw this law out two years ago, but the coalition of human rights groups which had brought suit lost on appeal and have now been denied a chance to appeal again, so the law will stand. This bill has had a huge effect; one refugee support centre I know in town reported seeing the number of claimants entering the country drop by over two thirds after it was first passed in 2002.

On the other hand, maybe I’m wrong to be worried about this, and the world is now only one-third as injust and inhumane as in 2001. So, well, if I missed that story, let me know.