Canadian cities and their stance on non-status migrants
Highlighting Canadian communities and their support for non-status inhabitants.
Highlighting Canadian communities and their support for non-status inhabitants.
In Canada a number of cities and towns have declared themselves as explicitly supportive of non-status migrants ( sanctuary cities) , beginning with Toronto in 2013. These communities have discussed and implemented policies to protect and support inhabitants without Canadian citizenship or residency status. Other communities have demonstrated implicit support for non-status migrants through associations with different government and non-government organizations. The interactive map below displays cities and towns across Canada, and their level of support for non-status migrants measured by their actions and associations.
The level of support for non-status immigrant ranges from: Tacit Support (lowest level of support) Accepting (medium level of support) Supportive (highest level of support)
By clicking on a city, you can see what organizations and coalitions it belongs to.
These quick navigation buttons will help with zooming into specific province and territory. By zooming in more, you will see the boundaries of the census subdivision in which cities are within.
Accepting Communities: Communities that have declared themselves sanctuary cities, have implemented access without fear policies, or belong to organizations and coalitions supporting non-status migrants.
Sanctuary Cities: Cities that have declared themselves a “Sanctuary City” have policies that protect and assist non-status inhabitants. Measures include preventing law enforcement from reporting on migrants without proper immigration status and providing municipal services to these inhabitants.
Fearless Cities: An informal global movement of activists, organizations, councilors and mayors that are working to radicalize democracy, feminize politics and drive the transition to an economy that cares for people and the environment. Toronto and Vancouver have groups that are members of the Fearless Cities movement.
Accepting Communities: belonging to organizations that explicitly support, and are welcoming to all migrants, regardless of status.
Cities of Light (UNCHR): A refugee agency run by the United Nations to aid refugees and migrants to escape persecution and violence in their origin countries and help them find asylum. Cities of light exists worldwide willing to help refugees in this situation.
Tacitly Support: belonging to organizations that are generally supporting of all migrants.
FCM-Federation of Canadian Cities: An advocate organization for Canadian municipalities to express concerns to the federal government and ensure the needs of all inhabitants are met.
CCMARD / ICCAR : These two organizations are both launched by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). ICCAR focuses on how to make cities more accepting of diversity by implementing policies that actively combat discrimination of any kind based on race, religion, gender, sexuality or other forms of exclusion.
CCMARD has the same approach but mainly focuses on Canadian cities in fighting against racism and bring awareness to inhabitants' rights.