Alan Kurdi: Refugee and Information Act

alan kurdi: On both occasions, the recommendation as described in documents obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act was rejected by then-immigration minister Chris Alexander, according to CTV. The Conservatives eventually agreed to the change, but not until September, when the original policy became linked to the story of Alan Kurdi - the three-year-old Syrian boy whose tragic drowning galvanized global sympathy for the Syrian refugee crisis. Twice in 2015 - first in March, then again in July as the refugee crisis escalated - federal bureaucrats proposed exempting Syrians and Iraqis from a rule requiring them to have official UN refugee status in order to be sponsored by small groups of people to come to Canada. A memo, entitled "Public policy to facilitate the sponsorship of Syrian and Iraqi refugees by groups of five and community sponsors," was first sent to Alexander on March 17, 2015. As a result, such so-called "groups of five" could only sponsor people who carried an official refugee designation the United Nations or the host country. The issue was a 2012 rule change put in place by the Conservatives that made it nearly impossible for informal groups without sponsorship agreements with the government to bring refugees to Canada. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.