Kirpa Sekha, executive director of SAWC
William Doyle-Marshall pix

By
William Doyle-Marshall
Members of the South Asian community are among new Canadians being seriously affected by the Government of Canada's recent cuts to settlement agencies across the country.
Agencies like the South Asian Women’s Center (SAWC) have been made to lay off staff and reduce services following an announcement late last year that they will not be supported anymore. According to Jason Kenney, minister of immigration and multiculturalism there has been less landings in Ontario so the money is being shifted to the prairie and western provinces where newcomers are arriving.
Kirpa Sekha, executive director of SAWC said these federal government cuts will have a huge impact on the community. “We know that when immigrants come into the country, first they do try to settle in the downtown area because that’s where they can commute easily; that is where they rent and then when they find a little bit of money they buy houses in the suburbs because that’s where they can afford it.”
The National Ethnic Press and Media Council of Canada (NEPMCC) called the action “a tremendous shock” to be facing such an enormous financial setback to your operations especially when there was no advance warning; no prior indication that it was in the pipeline”.
Ontario’s Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration has funding relationships with ten affected agencies. Five are funded through the Newcomer Settlement Programme that provides support to ethnic communities.
The center is identified as South Asian but it is not homogenous, says Sekha. It provides service to people from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Tibet and Sri Lanka. Others who benefit from the center’s programmes are Portuguese and Koreans as well as individuals coming through secondary migration out of Great Britain, the Caribbean and Africa.
“We really do not differentiate in terms of services. Wherever we are required to provide service, whichever client comes through the door, we provide them services,” Sekha emphasized.
As a result of the $53 million funding reduction, SAWC laid off seven full time staff members and now operates with part time help. Previously, its Bengali counselor saw at least 4,000 clients and the Tibetan counselor attended to at least ten to 12 clients every day.
The administrator feels the government decision to shift funding from current areas to western provinces was done with no planning, no advanced notice and it will impact community members who are trying to settle here and the Greater Toronto Area. When someone new comes into the country, Sekha noted, they need help to find out where to go to obtain their health card and social insurance number as well as other documentation that are required to function in Canadian society.
“We feel that the community is losing the services and the expertise of a very viable community agency that’s also very active in the community. The staff here go out into the communities; they go to places where clients' needs are not met, particularly women who come into the country; they don’t have access to transportation; they have to depend either on a family member or their spouses and quite often there can be power issues where people are not even given ten dollars to go from A to B or ten dollars to buy anything,” Sekha outlined.
The center’s main office is on Lansdowne, in the city’s west end but clients reside across the Greater Toronto Area. However it has a Satellite office in Malvern, partnering with another office to provide service to Tamil clients three days a week through the Newcomer Settlement Programme funded by the City of Toronto.
In a Scarborough's store front operation, one Punjabi Settlement worker goes once a week and a Tamil Settlement worker services clients once a week also. Because of government ongoing support Sekha said the center was able to get complementary resources from other funders to provide legal education workshops in language specific areas – Hindi, Tibetan, Punjabi and Bengali. These workshop were designed to educate newcomer women about their rights and instruct them where to go for help. Many newcomer women don’t know their rights; they are afraid to speak up so this was a way to support the newcomer process, Sekha observed.
Anthony Hutchinson, professor of leadership and civic government at Humber College said the federal government cuts have definitely thrown a wrench into the realities of many of the newcomers who are settling throughout the GTA and across Canada. He is troubled that the people who are the beneficiaries of services are always impacted when cuts are made to those supports that they rely and depend on to help them become contributing, productive members of our society.

By Sandra Chouthi
Special to Indo Caribbean World
Port-of-Spain - Reducing the murder rate, which stood at 56 as of last weekend, is the most challenging issue facing the People’s Partnership (PP) government.
The PP, which campaigned heavily during the 2010 general election on the crime issue against the then PNM government, led by Patrick Manning, now faces the very problem the last administration had – runaway crime. Fifty-six murders took place in 43 days.
And unlike some of the more tourism-dependent countries in the region, which choose not to highlight crime in the media for fear of discouraging visitors, newspapers in Trinidad and Tobago boldly publish stories about major crimes.
So, on February 12, the Express carried on its front page the headline, ‘Bandit Killed’. In what may be vigilante justice, Barrackpore residents beat two cutlass-wielding bandits, killing one of them, after they attacked the family of Roger Narine Hosein.
Hosein was chopped as he slept. A male relative, who heard the screams of Angela Ali, Hosein’s mother-in-law, chased after the men. He drove into them with his car, later telling police he was defending himself and protecting his vehicle from being stolen.
After being run over, both bandits escaped into the lagoon with the driver chasing on foot. He was beaten with the cutlass.
Other residents helped the driver drag out one of the bandits from the lagoon. He was captured and tied to a van. Police fished out the other man from the lagoon. He died on arrival at the Princes Town health facility. The man was identified as Keston Contrere, 26, of King Street, Princes Town. His accomplice, 23, is under police guard at the hospital.
Violent attacks also make the news when tourists are the victims. On February 2 a French couple were attacked at their Maraval home. Jacqueline Chonik and her husband, Vladimir, both 84, needed medical attention following a bloody attack by two men while relaxing at the home of their daughter, an employee with the French Embassy.
The incident occurred a short distance from the official residence of French Ambassador Michel Trinquier, at Norman Terrace, Mt Anne Drive, Second Avenue, Cascade.
Police reported that a 19-year-old man from Barataria has been charged with several offences arising out of the incident.
To add to people’s fears about crime, two panmen were gunned down within the last week. On February 4, Henry Cyrus, 55, a founding member of Uni Stars panyard, was killed in a drive-by shooting at a Laventille panyard. Police described the shooting as indiscriminate. Three others were injured: 13-year-old schoolboy Shanel Abraham, Evelun Batson, 58, and Avis Greaves, 36. Abraham and Batson were shot in their legs while Greaves sustained gun shot injuries to the left of her chest and thigh.
Police said that around 12.30 am, several men in a car drove past the panyard and fired shots at pan players.
Cyrus, Abraham, Batson and Greaves were taken to the Port-of-Spain General Hospital, where Cyrus was pronounced dead-on-arrival.
On January 30, Wendell Francis Joseph, a pannist with Courts Sound Specialists, was shot to death in Barataria as he was dropping off a fellow player at home after practice.
At Joseph’s funeral, which was held at the Cathedral of Immaculate Conception in Port-of-Spain, officiating priest, Fr Dwight Merrick, called on the government to launch an assault against the “big kings and queens of crime” who are involved in the illegal trafficking of guns into Trinidad and Tobago.
Merrick said it was evident that young men in Laventille and east Port-of-Spain were involved in gangs, but is hoping and praying those in authority will arrest the real persons behind the trafficking of drugs, arms and ammunition into the country.
“My boys on the hills (of Laventille) are pretty much illiterate. Many are in gangs maybe because they cannot pass an exam to save their lives... precisely the reason why they have no clue about importing guns and ammunition. They are mere pawns on a chess board,” Merrick said.
Keeping the crime levels down, especially murders, is a political hotplate, not only for Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, but also for Canadian Commissioner of Police Dwayne Gibbs.
Gibbs and Deputy Commissioner of Police, Jack Ewatski, who is also Canadian, have been tasked with leading and managing a 7,000-plus Trinidad and Tobago Police Service, considered by citizens and officials as less than proactive.
On February 3, Gibbs told the Trinidad and Tobago Chamber of Industry and Commerce, which is highly concerned about crime for its members and about crime discouraging foreign investment in Trinidad and Tobago, that the police service does not need to boost its manpower.
Late October, National Security Minister, Brigadier John Sandy, said the police service was in urgent need of more manpower.
Said Gibbs: “If you look around the world the police to population ratio here is very, very high. Even from my own experience, I come from an area that has a metropolitan population of just about 1.2 million. You have 1.3 million people here. The numbers of police officers there are one-third of what you have here.” Gibbs previously served in the city of Edmonton, Alberta.
Sandy, speaking at the graduation ceremony of close to 60 police officers, said the TTPS was understaffed and that his ministry would embark on an aggressive recruitment drive.
Gibbs said there were factors that needed to be considered before recruiting more police officers.
"Before anyone should increase the Police Service in Trinidad and Tobago, you have to look at the members. What jobs and functions are they doing?" he said
"I have many police officers in administrative functions that I could replace with civilians who have the educational, technical experience, and probably can do a better job in some areas. One civilian can release two or three or more police officers. You are hired as police officers, not as electricians, not as plumbers, not as financial advisers. The one focus that we do have is to get more police on the streets.”