Minutes of the Monthly Meeting held on February 13, 2012 at Committee Room No 2, Queens Park

Present:

Thomas S. Saras

Bikram Lamba, Dr.

Asha Rajak

Ahmed Shah Hotaki

Suleyman Guven

Mohammad Tajdolati

Jo0nathan Annobil

Arif Ahmed

Shahidul Islam Mintu

Mohammad Bagher Samini

Andrew Randkivi

Need Blair

Teshome Woldeamanuel

Dumitru Popescu

Suhanali Shunbulli

Irene Keroglidis

Ranjit Wicks

Lypal Obupsekas

Srimal Abeyewardene

Paullin McKlinge

Muluken Muchie

Nishanhesa Don.

Chandraratna Bounder

N. Longendraligam

Isa Melo

Marek Goldyn

Sandeep Prashakar

Susana Donan

Ernesto Donan

J. Naile

John Saraidaris

Ramnati Easwaran

Ananya Mejunder

Parry Long

Raffi De Boghossian

Muhammed Enad

Agenda

1.      Welcome Remarks by the chair.

2.      Minutes of the previous meeting

3.      Report of the President

4.      Presentation by Noah Mendelsohn Aviv – Director, Equality Program -Canadian Civil Liberties Association

5.      New Business

6.      Adjournment

Welcome Remarks by the Chair:

Dr. Lamba chaired the meeting and declared the meeting open, with 35 members in attendance.  Dr. Tajdolati moved a motion to approve the agenda Suleiman Guveni seconded it. The motion was carried

Minutes of the previous meeting:

Suleiman Guven moved a motion to approve the minutes of the previous monthly meeting held on January 09 2012.Dr. Tajdolati seconded it.  The motion was carried.

President’s Report/Discussions

·        President Thomas Saras expects a very busy year ahead with many important projects and events for NEPMCC

·         President Thomas Saras suggested that NEPMCC would submit application to get funding for projects such as CNE Ethnic Press Festival, The Annual Awards Ceremony, Ethnic Media Exhibition at City Hall and others. Motion: Irene Keroglidis moved a motion in this regard authorizing the office of the President to apply for various projects in 2012 on behalf of the organization- Ahmad Shah Hotaki and Suleiman seconded the motion. The motion was unanimously passed.

·        President Thomas Saras informed the council that the report on the recently concluded survey is in its final stages and Seneca College would soon submit the recommendation to the council. He suggested that NEPMCC authorize to publish the report of the survey. Motion: A motion in this regard to publish the report of the survey was put in table by Irene Keroglidis and seconded by Dr.Tajdolati, the motion was carried. NEPMCC would send a copy of this report to various Government bodies and institutions

·        Based on this report from Seneca College a recommendation may be made to conduct another educational seminar this year for the members of the ethnic media

·        President Thomas Saras acknowledged the hard work of the members of NEPMCC for moving this organization forward...

·        President Thomas met with the officials of PMO and is in consultation to arrange a roundtable with the Prime Minister in a hotel or a conference room in downtown Toronto. A maximum of 45 members will be able to participate in the roundtable meeting.

·        President Thomas Saras informed the members that NEPMCC has received an invitation to visit the House of Commons in Ottawa. NEPMCC will hire a bus so that all members interested in visiting Ottawa can leave together. March 24, 2012 was one of the dates suggested by the members for the visit to Ottawa and the date would be finalized upon further communication from Ottawa

·        President Thomas Saras urged all members to be present in the next monthly meeting in March as the board has to take many important decisions on various issues of business. Members were also reminded to pay their annual membership fee of $50

Presentation by Noah Mendelsohn Aviv – Director, Equality Program -Canadian Civil Liberties Association

Dr. Lamba, the chair of the meeting invited Noah Mendelsohn Aviv to make her presentation to the council.

The following are the highlights of her presentation:

·        The government introduced Bill C-4 in 2011. Bill C-4, Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada’s Immigration System Act, purportedly targeted smugglers, even though almost every provision in the Bill was in fact targeting refugees: mandatory detention of designated groups, the impossibility of judicial review for up to 12 months, the abandonment of the key concept of presumption of innocence were at the heart of this Bill. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association campaigned to defeat this bill.

·        Under Bill C-4, men, women, children in a designated group have to be locked up upon arrival in Canada. It is the Minister who decides whether a group of asylum seeker should be designated.

·        Everyone who is locked up this way is not allowed a review of their detention for at least 12 months. In contrast, under the current law, everyone locked up gets independent review of their detention within 48 hours of being detained.

·        The denial of liberty without due process and the imposition of arbitrary detention are  a violation of s. 9 of the most fundamental civil rights convention in international law – the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

·        Bill C-4 would also deny the designated refugees the right to travel documents for at least 5 years.  This again violates the Refugee Convention that provides that people must be given travel documents.

·        Permanent residents are also targeted under Bill C-4, which would allow the government to detain a permanent resident on entry into Canada if the officer suspects that the person is inadmissible on grounds of any criminal activity, even if the person has not been charged or convicted.

·        Human smuggling is a serious problem and it requires enforcement of current laws against smugglers, not violations of the Charter and of international law. Our current laws already contain ample provisions for detentions for threat to national security or serious crimes.

·        Bill C-4 has not yet passed.  If enough Canadians tell the government that it is not what they want, unconstitutional and un-Canadian, maybe it never will become law.

Noa Mendelsohn Aviv discussed the above mentioned drawbacks and flaws in the proposed bill C-4 and invited questions from the floor. She also acknowledged the role of the ethnic media in informing its audience and hoped the awareness in the readership will further help in sending a strong signal to the government to stop the un-Canadian bill in becoming law.

Suleiman Guven, Srimal Abeyawardene, Janus Raudkvi, Mereck Goodyn, Ananya Majumder and many other members participated in the discussion.

President Thomas Saras thanked Noa for her presentation and offered help in relaying her message to vast audience in ethnic media.

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New Business:

Canadian Olympic Committee would hold a multi-cultural reception on February 28 in Toronto, President Saras asked members interested in attending the event to RSVP to the concerned person in the committee.

Adjournment: Suleiman Guven moved a motion to adjourn the meeting.  Irene Keroglidis seconded it. The motion was carried. The chair adjourned the meeting at 9:30 pm. The next meeting would take place on March12, 2012 at Queens Park.