Ratna Omidvar Dana Wagner and Omidvar Wagner

Canada: When Flight and Freedom: Stories of Escape to Canada co-writers Ratna Omidvar and Dana Wagner started discussing the idea for a book about refugees to Canada, they first needed to decide how to narrow it down, according to Rabble. They wanted to capture a diversity of stories. "People from different parts of the world, people fleeing from different types of persecution, people who themselves reflected a diversity in terms of gender, sexual identity, age, and family situation upon leaving -- single, married, whether they had children or not," said Wagner in a phone interview with rabble. Chip in to keep stories like these coming. Omidvar and Wagner wanted to tell these stories because they wanted to confront what they saw happening in Canada, not only in terms of refugee policy but also in terms of public opinion. Another motivating factor was the question, "Would these refugees get in today " The answer: "some yes, some no." An essay by Peter Showler, professor of refugee law at the University of Ottawa and former chair of the Immigration and Refugee Board, gives a broad and fascinating historical context to this answer. The Harper government anti-refugee campaign had been persuasive, and many Canadians believed we had a refugee problem. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.