While National Newswatch does not keep an archive of external articles for longer than 6 months, we do keep all articles written by contributors who post directly to our site. Here you will find all of the contributed and linked external articles from Raffy Boudjikanian.
Major changes to Canada's asylum system passed into law this year were first sought by the federal immigration minister in 2024 — but the Trudeau government largely did not act on them. In a letter obtained by CBC News from the fall of 2024, Immigration Minister Marc Miller wrote to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland...
XEmailRedditLinkedIn Canada's Immigration Department is sending tens of thousands of refugee claimants letters that they may not be eligible for asylum — and is telling some of them that they should leave immediately. The move comes after Ottawa passed a law last month that tightened how and when claimants can apply. "These are not deportation letters," Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship...
Prime minister has said deal must include end of hostilities in Lebanon. Ottawa is pushing for Lebanon to be part of the ceasefire deal between the Trump administration and Iran and for its inclusion to be honoured by Israel, a senior Liberal source told CBC News. Canada is one of "many countries trying to push for Lebanon," said the source...
A major bill reforming immigration powers is now law in Canada, giving Ottawa powers to mass cancel groups of visas and setting time limits on asylum claims in the name of bringing immigration numbers under control. But the legislation, passed Thursday, has also raised concerns from a coalition of civil society groups, including Amnesty International, immigration lawyers and public sector...
Conservatives are calling for resignation of current minister and 2 predecessors. Justice Minister Sean Fraser, who was in charge of immigration during some of the years Auditor General Karen Hogan found instances of fraud in Canada's international student program, said with hindsight, he would have acted sooner to fundamentally change it. The Opposition Conservatives have been calling for his resignation...
Vote would mark first time some in caucus split from government line under Carney. When the NDP's arms-control bill that seeks to end largely permit-free Canadian military exports to the U.S. is put to a vote on Wednesday, it could garner the support of more than a dozen Liberal MPs. That would be the first time some in the Liberal...
MPs have reservations about PM's initial statement supporting U.S.-Israel strikes. Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand is set to brief Liberal MPs on Friday morning about the government's position on the war that has now engulfed Iran and surrounding countries in the Middle East, after some both privately and publicly raised concerns about Prime Minister Mark Carney's initial statement regarding the...
A Crown corporation alerted Canada's international trade minister about the sale of artillery ammunition to the U.S., some of which was destined for Israel, CBC News has learned. The CEO of the Canadian Commercial Corporation (CCC), which oversees international arms transfers, wrote a letter to Dominic LeBlanc on March 20, 2025. "As a trusted industry partner, General Dynamics Ordnance [and]...
Agency would become Crown corporation if legislation passes. The federal government introduced legislation that would enshrine its housing agency as a Crown corporation on Thursday, giving it land acquisition authority as well as the ability to partner with private developers — as questions remain over the number of units it intends to build. "We are making a generational decision that...
Trip comes at a time of heightened tensions between Canada and Israel. A group of five Liberal MPs and a lone NDP parliamentarian are planning to spend three days in Israel and the occupied West Bank, at a time of heightened tensions between Ottawa and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. “I think being present helps; it does calm the...
Meetings arranged as government lowered TFW cap following height of pandemic. For more than a year, Canadian coffee giant Tim Hortons has been pushing the federal government to lift the cap on temporary foreign workers some of its franchisees can hire, CBC News has learned. The requests occurred over at least 18 months, in writing and in lobbying meetings with...
Hundreds of shipments of explosives and fighter jet components have made their way from Canada to Israel by passing through the U.S. over the last two years, a new report by a group of four NGOs alleges, examining export data and U.S. Department of Defence contracts. "These exports are bypassing all of Canada’s export controls because of the way they’re...
A Canadian advocacy group wants parliamentarians in Ottawa to declare Israel's military action in the Gaza Strip a genocide. "This is our call today: do not falter now; do not stand mute while a people are destroyed; words must become truth," said Taha Ghayyur, executive director of Justice for All Canada. "We demand, here on Parliament Hill, that members of...
The National Arts Centre in Ottawa will not be hosting a controversial Chinese performance group next year, following internal deliberations about potential blowback the Crown corporation could face over allegations regarding Shen Yun's treatment of audience members with disabilities and a breach of previous contract terms, CBC News has learned. Emails released in an access to information request show the...
More than a dozen Canadian Sikhs live under active threats on their lives, an advocacy organization is warning. "Those threats originate from India," said Balpreet Singh, a lawyer and spokesperson for the World Sikh Organization. The group argues it's unconscionable for the federal government to invite Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to next week's G7 meeting.
TLMEP regularly attracts large audiences in province that elects nearly a quarter of MPs in Canada. Mark Carney and Pierre Poilievre faced the critical glare of the mega-popular Radio-Canada talk show Tout le monde en parle on Sunday in an attempt to woo francophone viewers, with the Liberal leader being pressed on his cultural awareness of the province and his...
With a federal election call likely in a matter of days, no political party has nominated candidates to all 343 ridings, with Prime Minister Mark Carney's Liberals behind all the other national parties. The Conservatives lead the pack, with 258 out of 343 ridings filled as of last week. The NDP is in second place, with 217 candidates ready as of Tuesday.
Opposition parties, some Liberal MPs critical of Marco Mendicino's new role. Both the Conservatives and NDP are criticizing prime minister-designate Mark Carney's choice to appoint former public safety minister Marco Mendicino as chief of staff during the transition — one party bringing up the controversy that forced him out of cabinet and the other, his staunch pro-Israel support. NDP Leader...
A union representing federal Immigration Department employees is warning planned cuts that would lay off 60 litigation branch analysts could further impact the already strained courts dealing with hundreds of delayed immigration cases in the country's three biggest cities. CBC News obtained a copy of one layoff notice sent to an analyst on Feb. 11, asking them to think about...
Contributions temporarily withheld to ensure compliance with Elections Canada rules. Liberal leadership candidate Ruby Dhalla is denying any wrongdoing as the party withholds $21,000 in contributions to her campaign. The funds are being held as the party probes whether 12 of Dhalla's donors surpassed maximum contribution amounts.
Should she win the current federal Liberal leadership contest, Chrystia Freeland is pledging to scrap a controversial division of the Canada Revenue Agency that Muslim charities and civil liberties advocates have long accused of discriminatory auditing practices, CBC News has learned.
With the Supreme Court agreeing to hear a challenge against Quebec's controversial secularism law, Bill 21, Mark Carney and Chrystia Freeland, presumed front-runners to replace Justin Trudeau, say they encourage the prime minister to follow through on his word to have the federal government intervene. Ottawa "has a duty to defend the fundamental rights of all Canadians, guaranteed by the...
The federal government has told most provinces and territories they must cut their allotted spaces for economic immigration programs by half this year, triggering concerns about drastic impacts on labour and the economy. The provincial nominee programs (PNPs) are used by all provinces and territories except Quebec and Nunavut. All 11 jurisdictions with PNP slots have been told they will...
Liberal MPs, especially those who for months had called for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's resignation both publicly and behind closed doors, have started backing two of his potential successors. Twenty-two members of caucus have weighed in, endorsing either former Bank of Canada and Bank of England governor Mark Carney or former finance minister Chrystia Freeland, the presumed front-runners in the...
Consensus on PM’s future reached in Saturday call by majority of party's largest regional caucus. At a virtual meeting of the Ontario Liberal caucus on Saturday morning, more than 50 Liberal MPs came to a consensus that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau needs to step down as party leader, multiple sources told CBC News. CBC News is not naming the MPs...
Many recommendations in the antisemitism and Islamophobia reports were rejected by Conservative, Bloc MPs. In two reports on antisemitism and Islamophobia in Canada, Liberal and NDP MPs on the House of Commons justice committee said Ottawa should take steps to keep student protest encampments off university grounds, criminally ban the display of terrorist emblems and recognize anti-Palestinian discrimination as a...
Justice minister to meet with chief justices of 4 federal courts Friday to discuss backlog, budget shortfall. Federal Justice Minister Arif Virani is set to meet with the chief justices of Canada's four federal courts on Friday, after they warned of a budgetary shortfall creating "critical" pressure on their operations, including efforts to clear a backlog of immigration filings in...
Dozens of antiwar protesters who occupied the lobby of the Confederation Building in Ottawa, demanding Canada impose an arms embargo on Israel, have now been pushed out into the street. The demonstration started at around 8:45 a.m., with protesters saying they would allow MPs with offices in the building to pass through the crowd, but that MPs would have to...
Canada's border guards sent 19 Afghans who failed their refugee claims back to Afghanistan in 2023 — even as the federal government continued to denounce the human rights record of the Taliban regime that took power more than three years ago. The Canada Border Services Agency told CBC News that none of the Afghans who left last year had their...
Ottawa has been speaking with like-minded countries about recognizing a Palestinian state, a government official told a committee of parliamentarians studying the quickest path toward such a declaration Thursday afternoon. "We're taking notes, we're talking to each other, we're weighing the considerations as a group of very like-minded countries," said Alexandre Lévêque, assistant deputy minister for Europe, the Middle East...
Canada's Special Representative to Afghanistan David Sproule is condemning the Taliban's latest curtailment of women's rights. The regime moved earlier this week to bar women from reciting the Qur'an or hearing each other pray.
The federal Immigration Department has beefed up human resources in Beirut in order to prioritize immigration applications from Lebanon as fears of a larger conflict embroiling the Middle East loom, a senior government source told CBC News. The official, who CBC News is not identifying because they have not been authorized to publicly comment on the matter, also said the...
MPs on the House of Commons foreign affairs committee are expected to resume a contentious debate later this morning on the quickest path for Canada to recognize a Palestinian state. The text of the motion — first presented to a closed-doors session of the committee last Thursday by Liberal MPs — asks committee members to dedicate four sessions to studying...
Motion found support with NDP, Bloc but was filibustered by Tories. Liberal MPs presented a motion to study a path toward recognizing Palestinian statehood on Thursday, CBC News has learned. The text of the motion — presented in a closed-doors session of the parliamentary foreign affairs committee — calls for the government to find the quickest way toward recognizing a...
'To come in there and and scold MPs is really out of place,' one MP said. A cabinet minister who serves as the federal Liberals' national campaign co-chair told MPs at the party's recent caucus retreat that they need to "change their attitudes" if they want to turn around their dismal polling numbers, sources tell CBC News. More than half-a-dozen...
The federal Liberal brand will be put to the test again in a byelection in the Montreal riding of LaSalle—Émard—Verdun on Sept. 16 — a contest Liberal Party brass hope won't deliver a repeat of the party's failure in a Toronto riding earlier this summer. The Liberals' byelection loss in Toronto-St. Paul's — a riding the party had held for...
The Liberal Party of Canada is facing a revolt by ministerial staffers, mostly of Arab and Muslim origin, over the Trudeau government's handling of the war in Gaza and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict generally. Fifty-two Arab and Muslim staffers working in the Liberal government signed a letter addressed to "the leader of the Liberal Party" that says they will not participate...
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has stopped subsidizing temporary accommodations in Pakistan for people applying through a special immigration program for Afghans who worked for the Canadian government or armed forces. Special measures for Afghans trying to move to Canada were introduced by the federal government in summer 2021, after the Taliban swept to power and sent many former...
A meeting between Muslim leaders in Quebec and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau planned for this afternoon north of Montreal — weeks ahead of a critical byelection in the city — was cancelled after many of those invited refused to attend, CBC News has learned. "Many members of our community continue to feel angry and frustrated with a government that in...
After multiple water main breaks and floods across the country this summer, municipalities and experts are warning that urban flooding could become more common as Canada's infrastructure ages. "We have good infrastructure in Canada. The challenge is it's aging and we're not keeping up," John Gamble, president of the Association of Consulting Engineering Companies of Canada, told CBC News.
The Canadian government is "assessing the damage" at a demolished water treatment plant and facility in Gaza that it built 25 years ago, while asking Israel for a full and independent investigation into what occurred, the country's international development minister says. "We have expressed our concern to the government of Israel and we've called for a credible, independent investigation into...
MP Salma Zahid had threatened to resign from committee roles but now staying on. Two Liberal MPs are holding a roundtable Friday evening in Toronto about anti-Palestinian racism, to study whether this type of discrimination should be part of the federal government's recently updated anti-racism strategy, CBC News has learned.
Only a day after Conservatives won a federal byelection in the longtime Liberal stronghold of Toronto-St. Paul's, ending a race that was largely viewed as a referendum on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's leadership at the head of the governing party, a new potential contender says he is considering a bid to replace him. Former Liberal MP Frank Baylis confirmed to...
A proposal to appoint Liberal MP Anthony Housefather to a new role fighting antisemitism — which has been in the works for weeks — has been held up by concerns about divisions in the government caucus over the Israel-Hamas war, CBC News has learned. And sources who spoke to CBC News — including one caucus member — are asking how...
Ukraine's minister of foreign affairs, Dmytro Kuleba, says his country is in urgent need of weapons and wishes the air defence system Canada promised more than a year ago was already in Ukraine. Canada announced plans in January 2023 to donate a $406-million surface-to-air missile defence system, but there's still no delivery date. "Of course, we wish the system was...
India and Canada will co-operate on a range of important issues, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said after speaking to his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi at the G7 summit. But Trudeau would not specify what those issues are, or whether he raised the allegations about the Indian government's involvement in the killing of Canadian Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, which is...
When U.S. President Joe Biden announced a new proposal for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza last week, it took only a few days for the G7 to endorse the plan in a joint statement. But experts say other disagreements among G7 member countries over the past nine months may mean the world's leading economies fail to reach...
A new poll suggests Muslim and Jewish voters are leaning away from the federal Liberals in voting intentions — a possible sign that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's efforts to straddle gaps in public opinion over the Israel-Hamas war are falling short. The new poll of voting intentions by the Angus Reid Institute says the federal NDP is leading the Liberals...
Nearly 200 Palestinians have managed to escape Gaza and obtain approval to travel to Canada — but they had to pay thousands of dollars to smuggle themselves into Egypt. That avenue is now closed off, due to the Israeli military campaign underway in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. On Monday, Hamas announced that it had agreed to a ceasefire...
The federal immigration department has indefinitely postponed plans to hire a workplace ombudsperson to deal with acts of racism and discrimination against its employees, after announcing and then delaying the appointment twice. "The creation of the Ombuds Office is a significant undertaking and entails ongoing engagement with [Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada] employees in Canada and throughout our global network...
The governments of India and Pakistan attempted to interfere in Canada's federal elections in 2019 and 2021, Canada's spy agency said in documents made public late Thursday night. In 2021, the government of India had "intent to interfere and likely conducted clandestine activities," including using an Indian government proxy agent in Canada, according to an unclassified summary written by the...
The commissioner leading the public inquiry into foreign interference said Thursday the inquiry has taken steps to protect members of diaspora groups who say they fear for their safety if they participate. "Some members of diaspora communities have told us that they fear reprisals if they provide information to the commission," Justice Marie-Josée Hogue said in a media statement.
With Ramadan just around the corner, a national Muslim organization and several local congregations are warning members of Parliament they won't be welcome in their mosques until they call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, demand restoration of funding for the UN's aid agency and condemn what they call Israel's "war crimes." An open letter signed by the National Council...
As justice minister in 1967, former prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau argued against revoking the citizenship of a Canadian citizen the Soviet Union had convicted of heading a firing squad responsible for the deaths of 5,128 Jews during the Second World War, says a 617-page report prepared for the Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals decades ago. The document, now...
Months before the eruption of the Israel-Hamas war ramped up ethic and religious tensions in many Canadian communities, a government task force rejected requests to recognize Muslim and Jewish public servants as separate groups facing systemic workplace barriers, CBC News has learned. Muslim and Jewish public servants asked to be designated as employment equity groups under the Employment Equity Act...
Five Canadian MPs are set to begin a week-long visit to Jordan and the West Bank today to meet with Palestinian refugees and progressive Israeli groups. The group of MPs landing in Amman, Jordan's capital, includes Liberal MPs Salma Zahid and Shafqat Ali and New Democrat MPs Heather McPherson (the party's foreign affairs critic), Matthew Green and Lindsay Mathyssen.
A network representing influential Canadian Muslim donors to the Liberal Party of Canada has dropped out of the ranks of the party's top donors, citing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's disinclination to call for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict, CBC News has learned. In a formal letter sent to party president Sachit Mehra on November 27, the group — which...
Two of the federal opposition parties that have been calling for a ceasefire in Gaza were invited on a recent trip to Israel organized by United Jewish Appeal but declined to go, CBC News has learned. "I have the impression we would not control the message once we're there," Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet told journalists during a scrum on...
The federal immigration minister says the government is weighing its options on virtual citizenship ceremonies after a petition signed by more than 1,500 Canadians called on Ottawa to pull the plug. "Doing your citizenship ceremony in public, in front of all your family and with people that are becoming new Canadians, is a moment to remember in people's lives. It...