Ratna Omidvar - Flight and Freedom: Stories of Escape to Canada

Flight and Freedom presents a vivid picture of Canada as seen by the refugees who have found a new home here. Youll see your country anew, when you read their tales, but you will also ask yourself: would they still get in today? This wonderful book is both a hymn of praise to a great tradition of Canadian generosity and a quietly scathing critique of how we have let this tradition decay. Its a celebration, but also a call to action.

Michael Ignatieff, Shorenstein Center, Harvard Kennedy School

Ask almost any Canadian how did your family get here? and you will hear an extraordinary tale very often a tale of flight from a faraway conflict. We are, to a large extent, a nation of former refugees. Ratna Omidvar and Dana Wagner have looked beyond the statistics and the political crises to reveal the human texture of the refugee experience at the heart of Canada. At a moment when refugees are too often seen as an abstract threat, this book reveals them, in moving detail, as our neighbours, doctors, leaders, professors, business owners, and colleagues: the people who, when permitted to settle in Canada, become essential to the fabric and life of the country.

Doug Saunders, author of Arrival City and The Myth of the Muslim Tide

This is a book that must be read to understand that, no matter how different the circumstances or reasons for the need to escape, refugees share remarkable resilience and strength, and have made enormous contributions to our country. Each story makes the reader both humble and proud to be Canadian. May our doors continue to be open to refugees for the benefit of us all.

Naomi Alboim, School of Policy Studies, Queens University

So many emotions tumble out after reading this rich collection of accounts of the suffering, determination, and resilience that is the refugee journey. These awe-inspiring journeys begin at different times and from places around the world, and they all end in Canada. This book is a very special reminder of the generosity and diversity of Canada. It is also a timely and urgent call to action to turn back the recent refugee laws and policies that have focused instead on restrictions and punishment.

Alex Neve, Secretary General of Amnesty International Canada

A timely and well-needed counterpart to much of the rhetoric around refugees, highlighting the remarkable personal stories of thirty refugees who have contributed and continue to contribute to Canada. These stories make a compelling case for a more generous approach, reminding us of the potential cost of more restrictive approaches.

Andrew Griffith, former Director General of Citizenship and Multiculturalism, Government of Canada

It is a privilege to learn, through these moving personal stories, both about people who helped build Canada into one of the worlds most welcoming societies and the deliberate policies that made that possible. This book is also an important warning, however, that we not take these people and policies for granted and that vigilance is required to ensure Canada remains a country people in need can call home.

Alison Loat, co-founder of Samara Canada

These powerful stories show how Canadian society has benefitted from our countrys generosity towards those fleeing climates of terror. To me this is the essence of Toronto. For generations, that spirit of reaching out to refugees and the exceptional contributions they make have combined to shape our city making it the envy of the world. We must never stop.

Barbara Hall, former Mayor of Toronto

Giving migrants a voice, thus acknowledging their individuality, is the first step towards helping them fight for their rights and to facilitate their access to justice. We need to transform our own perceptions of migration, rejecting nationalist populist fantasies, myths, threats, and stereotypes. They do not bring unemployment, illnesses, or criminality with them. The voices of Randy, Tarun, Humaira, Sabreen, and the other migrants in Flight and Freedom should help us to find the sensitivity necessary to appreciate the traumatic choices each of them had to make, to be in awe of their strength, and to recognise their individual displacement as a dignity-seeking journey.

Franois Crpeau, Faculty of Law, McGill University, and United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants

We can be indifferent until we see the individual faces of the families and the children. We have no choice but to engage when we hear their stories. This is a unique compilation of the stories of thirty individual refugees who escaped to Canada in recent years a must-read for anyone with a deep interest in refugees generally and for Canadians who are coming to understand the significant contribution of refugees to our diverse society. These stories are a key to understanding what makes modern Canada great.

The Hon. Ron Atkey, former Minister of Immigration, Government of Canada, responsible for the program for 60,000 Vietnamese refugees

Stories of Escape
to Canada

Ratna Omidvar and
Dana Wagner

Between the Lines
Toronto

For the families

Flight and Freedom: Stories of Escape to Canada

2015 Ratna Omidvar and Dana Wagner

First published in 2015 by

Between the Lines

401 Richmond Street West

Studio 277

Toronto, Ontario M5V 3A8

Canada

1-800-718-7201

www.btlbooks.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be photocopied, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of Between the Lines, or (for photocopying in Canada only) Access Copyright, 1 Yonge Street, Suite 1900, Toronto, Ontario, M5E 1E5.

Every reasonable effort has been made to identify copyright holders. Between the Lines would be pleased to have any errors or omissions brought to its attention.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Omidvar, Ratna, author

Flight and freedom: stories of escape to Canada / Ratna Omidvar and Dana Wagner.

Includes index.

Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 978-1-77113-229-9 (paperback).ISBN 978-1-77113-230-5 (epub).

ISBN 978-1-77113-231-2 (pdf)

1. RefugeesCanadaBiography. 2. RefugeesCanadaHistory. 3. CanadaEmigration and immigration. I. Wagner, Dana, author II. Title.

JV7284.O45 2015305.906914092271C2015-903784-0C2015-903785-9

Cover and text design by David Vereschagin/Quadrat Communications

Cover photograph iStockphoto/lilly3

As winner of the 2012 Wilson Prize for Publishing in Canadian History, Between the Lines thanks the Wilson Institute for Canadian History for its recognition of our contribution to Canadian history and its generous support of this book.

We acknowledge for their financial support of our publishing activities the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund, the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Arts Council, the Ontario Book Publishers Tax Credit program, and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.

Ratna Omidvar

This book has been in the making in my mind for many years. Not simply because I share a narrative of flight with the others in the book (although mine pales in comparison to the danger and drama that unfold in their stories) but because I believe that as much as we are a country of immigrants, we are also a country of refugees. And sometimes we forget this.